Richard Roeper, a film critic and Ebert’s partner on his show, wrote a book called ‘Ten Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed’ containing humorous categories and subcategories of films. In the intro, he admits that a movie is just a movie, but he names three or four that changed the way he, I believe he says, ‘looks at the world.’ The first three I know he wrote, the fourth might just be one he thinks is one of the best ever:
Pulp Fiction
Maltese Falcon
Memento
(Minority Report?)
If you own the book, please quote the exact words he uses- I know it seems silly, but it has significance to me, and I haven’t found it at Barnes and Noble or been able to read it online since I read it more than a year ago. Unless that’s copyright infringement on this site.
Anyway, I respect his opinion, and he has seen just about all the movies, but I disagree on Pulp Fiction and he doesn’t give detail on the Maltese Falcon.
I do my best to deduct that PF changed his perspective by showing that perhaps in a universe of ‘evil men,’ there may be a god-like figure, or just plain fortune, that allows some to become ‘shepherds (of) the weak through the valley of darkness’ that is our world. Some of you who read are rolling your eyes, but try to see past the gimp - there’s some deep stuff in the movie. Yet I disagree, 'cause I see PF as taking place in a seedy universe of pulp stories, homages to many crime and great films, and tarantino’s own ideas, but not as having so much relevance to our world.
The Maltese Falcon? I suppose that maybe, by being the first noir film that sets the stage for all the great films of the genre to come, it introduces us to a universe of ‘the stuff that dreams are made of:’ femme fatales who deceive and lead into a trap, the macguffin of the falcon, the seedy characters, all held together in the aforementioned universe of its own, which at the end brings bitter justice to its characters. But I would say the same as for PF: it’s a film world, not our world, and therefore would not change my life. But I would love to hear what Roeper has to say about this.
Memento I totally get, how it’s all about how we all lie to ourselves to be happy, that life is simply an illusion of our own lies just so we can get on with the charade.
Minority Report? Well, what it says about crime prevention is one thing, but what it says about avoiding your fate- well, all it says when you get past the Spielberg candy-coated action and melodrama is that you can avoid your fate if someone who knows the future tells you what’s gonna happen. Pffttt… I have gotta start reading Philip K. Dick, not let Hollywood alone tell me these stories.
I’m surprised no one’s listed The Matrix yet, but then again, I hope no ONE DOES. 
