Lolita — IQ Score 157/200

Kubrick's 1962 Vladimir Nabokov adaptation — the film Nabokov wrote his own screenplay for (and which Kubrick substantially rewrote). Working under the Production Code, Kubrick had to render the novel's content through suggestion and ellipsis rather than depiction — those constraints produced one of the most formally inventive American films of the early '60s.

James Mason's Humbert Humbert and Peter Sellers's Quilty are the structural anchors; Sue Lyon's title performance is rare child-actor work the period largely refused.