Casablanca has my vote for the best film ever made. There are others more artistic, still others more technically challenging, but what other film is as beautiful or iconic? It's the definitive romance, perhaps because it's about something more than the romance between two people. The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, as one of a dozen oft-repeated quotes from the movie go. But how much the problems of three little people can seem to those three little people! Perhaps part of the enduring appeal of Casablanca is that almost all of us can relate to at least one of the three, if not two or all three. These characters handle their problems with the honor and dignity we dream of for ourselves. That's a romance.

As if Casablanca didn't play beautifully enough on the small screen, the movie-going experience simply does not get any better than watching it in a darkened theater with a date and a bucket of popcorn. Even knowing how it all turns out, I still find it a profoundly moving experience. Like all great films, it only improves with successive viewings. Partly, this is because the film is so richly textured that I notice and appreciate new details with each viewing. But another reason is that, the more life experiences I bring to the film, the more it can relate them back to me. Casablanca has an uncanny understanding of the human heart.