The Producers (1968)

The 1967 original, not the 2005 movie of the Broadway musical. Brooks's debut won him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and its premise is still one of the great comic setups: a failing Broadway producer and his nervous accountant oversell shares in a show built to flop, then pick the most tasteless musical they can find. Zero Mostel's bellowing Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder's hysterical Leo Bloom are a perfect mismatch, and the "Springtime for Hitler" number is Brooks mocking Nazis with show tunes. It is a stagier, talkier film than what came later, which is why it sits third for a newcomer rather than first.