Directed by Robert Altman • 1970 • United States
Starring Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt

Robert Altman’s distinctive genius first announced itself with this innovative, smash-hit black comedy in which a pair of irreverent surgeons (Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould) at a mobile army hospital stationed on the front lines of the Korean War stave off the everyday horrors they witness through their havoc-wreaking high jinks. The director’s stylistic trademarks—the overlapping dialogue, loose-limbed approach to narrative, and nimble marshaling of a sprawling ensemble cast—helped to create a pop-culture sensation that spoke to the unruly zeitgeist of Vietnam-era America.