Best in Show

7. "Best in Show" (2000)

It's more about the dog owners than the dogs, but Christopher Guest's mockumentary is such complete genius that it had to make the list. Guest and his usual crew of brilliant actors (Parker Posey, Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara ... more and John Michael Higgins) play an assortment of obsessive dog lovers preparing for and participating in the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show. Some of these portraits are absolutely scathing (you wouldn't want Posey's Meg Swan adopting any dog of yours), but Guest's expert collage of wildly disparate dog lovers includes a lot of true human-canine love. How, for instance, would Harlan Pepper survive without his beloved bloodhound dog? Plus, with all the tearjerkers on this list, we needed some levity.

(Everett Collection)