Role of a lifetime: Ronald Reagan and his Revolution

Not every actor who gets a role that defines him is lucky. Ronald Reagan had to wait until the very end of his acting career for his defining role, mob boss Browning in Don Siegel's 1964 The Killers, and he hated it. "Ronnie is a nice man," said his costar Clu Gulager.

The movie isn't nice. Cold, mean, and unrelievedly brutal, The Killers was made for NBC but was rejected as too violent and released to theaters instead. Visually, it's cheap, flat, and garish. And while the plot hops all over the country, the pasteboard sets and functional furniture give you the sense of never leaving the back lot.