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Created Jul 11, 2007 01:43AM PST • Edited May 04, 2023 06:02PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   The best movie ever is still fresh, funny, romantic and captivating after all these decades. Try it as a date movie, perfect for him and for her. After all, “we’ll always have Paris.”

   Casablanca remains important because it transcendently dealt with life-and-death political challenges, namely how individuals could respond to Nazi Germany’s world-historic evil. It did that incisively and fearlessly – right in the middle of World War II.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Bogie, in one of his inimitable roles, surrounded here by the never lovelier or more heartbreaking Ingrid Bergman, and a rogues gallery of great character actors: Greenstreet, Lorre, et. al.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Really Great 4.5

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Not a bad line in the entire picture, and too many great ones to quote here.

    • “Here’s looking at you kid.”
    • “Life is cheap in Casablanca.”
    • “I came for the waters.” "Waters? We’re in the desert. “I was misinformed.”
    • “I remember everything. The Nazis wore gray, you wore blue.”
    • “Round up the usual suspects.”
    • “We’ll always have Paris.”

    And on and on and on…

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    La Marseillaise (the French national anthem) had true political import in Casablanca.

    And of course As Time Goes By, “if you can play it for her you can play it for me…” (He never does say “Play it again Sam,” but who’s counting.)

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Extremely well done for 1940s Hollywood.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

17. Sex Innocent 1.5

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Polite 1.4

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.3

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0