Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961)

Running toward a glamorous new life can be just another way of running from the old one. Blake Edwards' "Breakfast at Tiffany's," adapted from Truman Capote's novella, stars Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a charming, elusive New York party girl who lives on the generosity of wealthy men while hunting for a rich one to marry. She eats breakfast from a paper bag outside Tiffany's, throws wild parties in her tiny apartment and refuses to name her cat, saying they don't belong to each other. When struggling writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard) moves into her building - his rent quietly covered by a well-to-do older woman (Patricia Neal) - the two neighbors strike up a friendship that slowly becomes something more. Paul gradually learns that Holly is really Lula Mae Barnes, a runaway from rural Texas, when her much older husband, Doc (Buddy Ebsen), turns up looking for her. Hepburn's black Givenchy dress, pearls and long cigarette holder became fashion icons, though Mickey Rooney's broad caricature of a Japanese neighbor is now widely considered offensive. With Henry Mancini's Oscar-winning "Moon River," which Hepburn sings on her fire escape, and his Oscar-winning score, it's a love letter to Manhattan you'll want to revisit.