Could Howard Hawks’ 1946 detective thriller be the greatest Hollywood movie ever made? Quite possibly so. “You don’t like to be rated,” says Lauren Bacall’s coltish Vivian Sternwood to Humphrey Bogart’s private dick in a leisurely scene about halfway through, twirling her unlit cigarette like a horsewhip. “You like to get out in front, open up a lead, take a little breather in the back stretch—and then come home free.” Likewise, Hawks allows his mystery to unfold at its own pace, and even to remain playfully unresolved. “I’m learning more about characters and how to let them handle the plot,” he once remarked, “rather than let the plot move them.” So what does it matter who killed Owen Taylor when there’s all this endearing repartee swirling around, not just between Bogie and Bacall, but between the detective and a gorgeously brainy bookseller, a winsome cab driver, a thumb-sucking nymphet, a justly sour gangster’s moll, and a diminutive gumshoe (Elisha Cook Jr.)—as well as between Hawks and the viewer. Expressing affection for every one of Raymond Chandler’s quick-witted characters, The Big Sleep is nothing less than a work of art, a philosophy of life and love, and the definition of bliss. It comes with me to the desert island. (NR) ROB NELSON

Wed., Aug. 15, 9:30 p.m., 2012