Funny you should mention L.A. Confidential, because I was just thinking about that movie the other day. Roger Ebert's site was recently updated to include all of his old reviews going back to the late sixties, and it includes some incredible stuff, including all of his annual ten best lists from the past forty years. Ebert's first year as a movie critic was 1967, a great one, and he crowned his list with Bonnie and Clyde, of which he wrote:

Bonnie and Clyde...has been damned and praised at every possible level. It earned that attention, I believe, because it did supremely what Hollywood at its best always tries to do: It became a "total movie."

By that I mean that it tried to satisfy its audience on every level. Most movies cop out by appealing only to highbrows (Bergman's Persona) or lowbrows (Elvis Presley). It takes a certain amount of courage to attempt to meet everyone at his own level, and when you succeed you have probably created a work of art. Arthur Penn, the director of Bonnie and Clyde, succeeded—and his film not only inspired the intellectuals in their cubbyholes but fascinated people who wanted to see a good gangster movie.

Reading this, I tried to come up with a couple of other "total movies" from recent years. I could only think of two unambiguous examples: L.A. Confidential and Sideways. Any other nominations?