Bruce Lee: Enter the Dragon

This was an excellent martial arts movie, displaying a lot of kung fu style, packaged in some wonderfully executed action movies. The movie, released in October 1973, was overshadowed to some extent by Bruce Lee's death the previous month at the young age of 1973, so it was also his swan song, and what a departure. It was also the first kung fu movie made by a Hollywood studio.
The movie was made for a modest sum of $850,000, but managed to recover its money and much more, earning an estimated $100 million worldwide, thus making it an incredibly profitable movie. It was also acclaimed culturally, and in 2004, was deemed culturally significant and added to the National Film Registry.
Bruce Lee was already famous before this movie, but this movie created a legend around him, further accentuated by his tragic death. His speed of movement is like poetry, the fight scenes around him have a certain beauty.
The plotline of the movie is relatively simple: There is an island run by a crimelord (Han) without any supervision by authorities, and they task Bruce Lee with the mission of getting into this island and revealing its secrets. There is a fighting competition on the island, with no holds-barred fights. Bruce fights in the tournament by day, and explores the island by the night, fighting all those who stand in his path. He eventually discovers that the island competition is a front for recruiting criminals and for running a drug racket. The movie has an excellent ending fight where Bruce fights Han in a mirror-filled room, with Han using a claw as his left hand.