Casablanca

Had Casablanca turned out as Warner Bros originally envisaged, it would have been just another escapist wartime romance. But thanks to extensive rewrites and various happy accidents, it remains, 60 years after it was made, one of the best loved movies of all time.

Humphrey Bogart is in his element as Rick Blaine, defiantly 'neutral' proprietor of a popular Casablanca nightclub in the early years of World War Two. When a Czech Resistance leader fleeing from the Nazis turns up unexpectedly at the bar, accompanied by his wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) - a former lover of Rick's - the embittered American finds his emotions in turmoil, his loyalties torn... A remarkable international cast (Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Marcel Dalio), a script packed with lines so memorably witty that many became enduring catchphrases, and Michael Curtiz's sumptuously stylish direction make for a thoroughly involving and (for once quite literally) iconic tale of passion, commitment, quiet courage and redemption. And it's now been digitally restored - play it, Sam...