"Paper Moon" (1973)

"Paper Moon" (1973) If you took a Walker Evans photograph or an Edward Hopper painting, made them come to life and added laughs, you'd have this nearly perfect film. It's the Great Depression and a wandering con man and his (maybe) 8 year old daughter scam, scheme, and grift their way across the hardscrabbly flat midwest. Little whiskey voiced Tatum O'Neal is so dead-on right it's scary, no wonder she's the youngest actor to ever win an Oscar (she peaked here and was never better). Blessedly free of corny sentimentality and shot in glorious black and white, I can think of no picture that equally captures the essence of that period. DO. NOT. MISS. THIS. ONE.