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What is a MacGuffin I hear you ask? Well a MacGuffin is a plot device that is usually an object and/or an item that drives the plot. Usually the exact significance is never really fully explained, or how it works, but without people mentioning this item a movie’s plot can’t move along.

So here is a Top Ten of some of the most important MacGuffins in film history.

10 The Maltese Falcon

You should all at least know the name of this classic film noir, some of you may even have seen it. It involves Humphrey Bogart in the typical private detective role, and amongst all the dames, violence, fast dialog, quick wit and intrigue is the recurring phrase “the Maltese falcon.” This object is like Ronseal (it does exactly what it says on the tin) but everyone is after it and the pursuit of the falcon is the entire plot.

It may be one of the most simplistic Macguffins but it’s one of the most important and easily recognizable.

9 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

If you had the patience to sit through this Chinese epic, with all its stylised action, philosophy and thinly veiled communism, you’d notice a lot of people were talking about one thing, The Green Destiny Sword.

This Sword is rather magical and it allows the movies young female upstart to take on the two greatest warriors in the land, and even a bar full of thugs. She may not be quite able to wield its power but for the three or so hours of this movie you get some of the best shot high-wire martial arts action ever shot.

8 3:10 to Yuma

Whether it’s the original with John Wayne or the Russell Crow and Christian Bale remake, both movies have the same plot. Take a renowned criminal to meet a train so that he can be taken to prison.

With those in the criminal’s gang out to free him, the “good” men of the posse being corrupted by greed and fear, bandits and the elements all wearing down on our heroes as tge6 try to meet the train. It’s not an easy journey, but they eventually get their man to the train.

7 The Departed

If you saw this remake of the Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs then you know it’s an all star cast of cop versus gangster intrigue.

But where it differs from the original is the crime the gang boss commits while being investigated by the cops/feds and a mole in the form of Leo DiCaprio. Jack Nicholson steals microprocessors from the US army’s research facilities and tries to sell them to “the Chinese.”

While Leo plays a cat and mouse game with Matt Damon, of “out the undercover guy and talk about your feelings with the hot shrink” the rest of the cast are wound up about these microprocessors.

We’re sort of told they’re for missile guidance systems, and very bad if “the Chinese” get them. But Leo and Matt spend most of their time comparing ego size and how undercover they are. In the end it takes a pissed off Mark Wahlberg to clean up the convoluted mess of this movie and dish out justice.