Dogfight

Not every movie we film students watch is pretentious, foreign or old.

Take this unknown, independent gem from 1991: Dogfight.

Dogfight stars the late River Phoenix as Eddie Birdlace, a cocksure Marine on a night's liberty before shipping off to a little place no one's ever heard of--Vietnam. He and his buddies have a game they play in each town in which they find themselves. The guys have to pick up the least attractive women possible and bring them to a party where the guy with the ugliest date wins a pot of cash.

River picks Rose (the always-enchanting Lili Taylor), a shy, pacifist waitress. The only thing Eddie didn't plan on was falling in love with the one woman capable of taking a punk-ass kid and turning him into a man.

Utterly charming.