Buster Keaton's The General.
Granted, it was a terrible DVD encode, but I guess that's what you can sometimes expect from a movie in the public domain and that you bought for a dollar at the pawn shop. It ran half an hour longer than the back of the box claimed, so I admit I did get a bit restless, but I did greatly enjoy it. I admit I am perplexed as to how it was panned at its release only to be revered later. It seems to me that it would have been more likely the other way around. There's a plot, but it does mostly center around the gags and stunts, which, if you're watching just for the plot, tend to bog it down, as the story stops at several times for Buster Keaton to do an extended bit of humor.
That's not to say the humor isn't worth it. Some of it's very impressive, not just comedically, but also technically. Considering most of the physical gags have to do with timing and stunts in and around moving trains, all of which Keaton did on camera without a stunt double... it's pretty amazing to look at.
I'm also surprised that it was based off a real life Civil War event... made into a raucous comedy 60 years later. That would be like us making a World War II comedy, and I have a hard time seeing that fly. And it's not just the stuff with the trains. The climax of the film is a big battle between the Union and Confederacy, with soldiers around Keaton's character dropping dead around him one by one as they're hit by bullets, and he just can't seem to figure out why.
Finally, I'm torn on the love interest character. At first, she really annoyed me because of her whole, "You didn't enlist? Well, the hell with you. You're useless. Not that I can enlist, but I still insist on judging you by a standard to which I am not held." But once he rescues her later on, and she's with him on the train, she actually DOES STUFF. She doesn't just stand around for him to do everything. She actually gets very physically involved with all the stunts and danger without shirking at all, and it's quite nice to see.
So, yes, I rate this quite high, and it's easy to see why it's usually rated so highly.