The 10 Best Oliver Stone Films

Stone had already a picked up an Academy Award in 1978 for screenwriting for Midnight Express when he penned this beast. It's directed by Brian DePalma, but the story of Tony Montana, Cuban refugee/exile turned peerless drug lord, is nevertheless pure Stone, full of themes he would return to  again and again  – the American dream as refracted through a haze of drugs or sex or politics or violence or all of them at once. No wonder it became a hip-hop touchstone, Stone's chatter endlessly sampled. Stone has said the movie is in part a reflection of his own problems with cocaine, but it's hard not to see Stone as Montana in the final scenes, announcing himself to film fans by firing a machine gun while screaming like a madman.