Sheer Brilliance

Rating: 9/10 (9 April 2002)

Warning: Here may be spoilers...
Due to its dark nature, I can only watch this every year or so, but this is easily one of my favorite movies of all time. While the base premise seems to be your typical Hollywood thriller stock, the heinous nature of the crimes and outstanding character portrayals by Freeman, Pitt, and Spacey make this a cut above all others. Never mind the stunning climax.
Special mention to Brad Pitt for successfully arguing that his character would shoot John Doe during the climax - those who have seen the DVD know that the original script called for Freemans' character to do the shooting (since he was retiring anyway). This would have destroyed the film.
The heavy, rainy, gloomy setting, the sharp direction, and the movies attention to detail raised the bar for the thriller genre. I cannot praise this film enough.