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Director Oliver Stone worked the conspiracy-theory angle to a fever pitch in this 1991 treatise focusing on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The controversial director assembled his script from two popular novels challenging the accepted version of JFK's death in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. The film begins with the murder of presumed lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman), then fast-forwards to the investigation into the assassination initiated by former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner). As the film's moralistic hero, Garrison deconstructs the Warren Commission Report and files charges against flamboyant New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones) for orchestrating the plot. Running nearly 3½ hours and packaged like a music video, JFK rattled some critics and historians for inflating Garrison (who appears in a cameo) into a heroic figure, and for drawing his own conclusions on the supposed cover-up. The truth: Stone has never hidden the fact that his movie was a mostly fictionalized account of events. All conspiracies aside, the story is worth a second look for the parade of A-list actors - nearly three-dozen! - in fleeting cameo roles. Standing out in the crowd is Joe Pesci playing the bewigged and bugged-out alleged conspirator David Ferri and the late John Candy as a sleazy New Orleans solicitor.

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