There are many subsets in the world of movies.  Best Performance by a Chimpanzee is one (the immortal Cheetah, in “Tarzan and His Mate,” is the clear winner there). Worst Performance by Someone Trying to Throw a Baseball is another. The 10 Lamest Depictions of Jesus. Five Most Disruptive Examples of Speeding Up the Film. You get the idea.

One subset I got to thinking about the other day (a rainy one) is which actors had the good fortune to appear in the best movies. I mean, if you take the best five movies an actor ever performed in, how do those five stack up against everyone else’s top five? I did a little research and came up with the following ranking of my own top group – with a surprising winner (whose acting I don’t even really like very much). Maybe you can think of someone whose top five should be on the list, too. Maybe you can suggest two to fill out my Top 10. Remember, it’s not necessarily a recognition of superior acting, it’s all about the quality of the movies they were in. (And I will have to do actresses next.)

1. Joseph Cotten: Citizen Kane, Gaslight, Shadow of a Doubt, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Third Man.

2. Jimmy Stewart: It’s a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, The Philadelphia Story, The Shop Around the Corner, Anatomy of a Murder.

3. Cary Grant: Notorious, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, North by Northwest, Bringing Up Baby.

4. Robert Duvall: The Godfather (I and II), Apocalypse Now, MASH, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lonesome Dove (TV).

5. Dustin Hoffman: The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Tootsie, All the President’s Men, Kramer Vs. Kramer.

6. Henry Fonda: Grapes of Wrath, The Lady Eve, My Darling Clementine, 12 Angry Men, Fort Apache.

7. Jack Nicholson: Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Shining, Reds, 5 Easy Pieces.

8. Claude Rains: The Invisible Man, Now, Voyager, Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Notorious.

When we make consumer choices based on packaging, it’s usually a subconscious or barely conscious decision. For instance, when I choose Coke over Pepsi, it has nothing to do with the taste of the product (I preferred Pepsi in a blind taste test I took years ago) but rather the Coke can’s red color and logo have for so long subliminally symbolized “refreshment” to me that my eye and hand automatically seek it out. Similarly, when you choose Tide over All, or Aunt Jemima over Mrs. Butterworth, or Nestle’s Crunch over Hershey’s Crackle, or when you grab L’Eggs or Kleenex cubes, is it a matter of real superiority, or has the packaging somehow won you over?

Some products have packaging that more directly calls out to us. When Life Savers were introduced 100 years ago, their neat rolls of hole-in-the-middle candies were an instant fit for everyone’s pocket or handbag.

Similarly, Pringles were all about packaging, and distancing themselves from messy, greasy bags of chips that could break into pieces and quickly get stale.

And I have a hard time not buying The Farmer’s Cow milk. The cow on the carton recruits milk purchasers just as surely as Uncle Sam once recruited young men and women for service in the armed forces.

(And let’s not forget those special products that are ONLY about packaging. Would anyone buy PEZ candies if they didn’t come in their own dispensers?)

All of which brings me to the latest packaging marvel to enter my life: Talenti gelato. After a fair amount of testing (Tahitian Vanilla Bean, Belgian Milk Chocolate, Black Cherry Amarena, etc.), I can say that Talenti is a superior product, one I would buy for that reason alone despite its stiff price. But Talenti comes in sturdy plastic screw-top containers! 

What a shapely, elegant little package! For me, it was love at first screw. The revolutionary lid maintains freshness in a way cardboard tops can’t. When you’re done (it won’t take long) you can recycle or reuse. (I’m sure “Hints from Heloise” could come up with dozens, if not hundreds, of uses for the empty container.) I’ve always felt that you must take beauty where you find it. For me, most recently, it was in the freezer aisle at my local Stop & Shop.