Robert Altman

Famous for ensemble casts, multiple stories, and messy movies.

M*A*S*H (1970) -- A really funny (and really serious) movie that shows a very interesting kind of rebellion against authority, especially the kind that causes war. The first two or three seasons of the TV show followed the template pretty closely.

Nashville (1975) -- Though often difficult to watch (with many stories and 2 hours 40 minutes), it gets more comfortable as it goes and has a handful of pretty good "fake" country songs.

Popeye (1980) -- Noted for being a big ol' dud, I think this is a pretty perfect rendering of the comic book Popeye in live-action form (a hard thing to do). If you don't like this, you probably just don't like Popeye. The songs of this musical match the tone of the movie nicely: sweet and rambling and goofy and charming. "He Needs Me" is one of the many standouts.

The Player (1992) -- A perfect movie, and not just because it has close to 100 cameos. The meta-movie is a hard thing to pull off, but this one is done perfectly.

Short Cuts (1993) -- Tying together several Raymond Carver short stories was a pretty good idea, and if you're a fan of his work, it's sort of fun to watch them pop up one by one. Having said that, I don't know that I liked this a great deal. I didn't think it was bad, but after three hours I was ready for it to be over.

Gosford Park (2001) -- Not as great to me as everyone else made it out to be, just sort of an interesting-enough comedy disguised as uppity British "usual topics" movie.