 | District 9 - (8.3 from 138114 votes)
2009 | Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
 
IMDB Tagline: You are not welcome here.
IMDB Comment: Wow
When aliens land on Earth, global business conglomerate Multi-National United forces them into rigid containment zones where they are compelled to labor, even as MNU commandeers their otherworldly technology for profit. As tensions build between human and non-human races, a rogue agent leads a resistance movement against MNU's ruthless consolidation of power. Neill Blomkamp directs this cinema verit-style sci-fi thriller nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award.
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 | Moon - (8.0 from 47022 votes)
2009 | Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The last place youd ever expect to find yourself
IMDB Comment: Fantastic...
As he nears the end of a lonely three-year stint on the moon base Sarang, astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) begins to hear and see strange things. It's not long before Sam suspects that his employer -- the conglomerate LUNAR -- has other plans for him. Featuring Kevin Spacey as the voice of a robot, this sci-fi thriller also stars Matt Berry and Kaya Scodelario. The film was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival.
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 | Sin nombre - (7.7 from 5008 votes)
2009 | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The greatest sin of all is risking nothing.
IMDB Comment: The pain of viewing was worth it
Fleeing retaliation from the violent Central American street gang he has deserted, young hood Casper (dgar Flores) boards a northbound train, where he takes refuge on top of the moving freight cars and hopes for a fresh start in a new country. Dodging authorities and other dangers, he finds a new friend in Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a Honduran girl also making a run for the American border. Cary Fukunaga directs this foreign-language thriller.
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 | Up - (8.4 from 97332 votes)
2009 | Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Family |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Imaginative, fun and moving - as close to perfect as Pixar has ever been
After a lifetime of dreaming of traveling the world, 78-year-old homebody Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) flies away on an unbelievable adventure, with Russell, an 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer (Jordan Nagai), unexpectedly in tow. Together, the unlikely pair embarks on a thrilling odyssey full of jungle beasts and rough terrain. Other voices in the Oscar-winning film include the renowned Christopher Plummer and Pixar stalwart John Ratzenberger.
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 | WALLE - (8.5 from 170921 votes)
2008 | Animation | Adventure | Family | Romance | Sci-Fi |
IMDB Tagline: An Adventure Beyond the Ordinar-E
IMDB Comment: Pixar does it again!
In a futuristic world, human beings have destroyed Earth and evacuated the planet, leaving the cleanup to an army of robots they've programmed to do their dirty work. Due to a mishap, the dutiful WALL-E is the only one left. But with the arrival of a female probe, the monotony of WALL-E's existence is broken -- and he experiences love for the first time. Andrew Stanton directs this Golden Globe- and Oscar-winning Pixar tale with a sci-fi twist.
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 | Doubt - (7.7 from 34895 votes)
2008 | Drama | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline: There is no evidence. There are no witnesses. But for one, there is no doubt.
IMDB Comment: New genre - the moral thriller
In this Oscar-nominated adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's Tony-winning play, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) begins to have doubts about doting priest Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who seems to have become overly involved in the life of a young African American pupil. But Flynn isn't the only one she doubts. Is she overreacting to the situation, or is there truth behind her convictions?
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 | Entre les murs - (7.7 from 8532 votes)
2008 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: a great naturalistic film and a gem of inside-the-classroom drama
In an inventive adaptation of his novel about his experiences working in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Paris, Franois Bgaudeau stars as a replica of himself -- a passionate French teacher who presides over a classroom of diverse young minds. Not your standard drama or documentary but something in between, this Oscar-nominated film used three cameras during a largely improvisational shoot and features real students rather than actors.
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 | Felon - (7.8 from 23932 votes)
2008 | Crime | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: No Rules. No Hope. No Way Out.
IMDB Comment: Excellent
After accidentally killing a burglar while trying to protect his family, regular guy Wade Porter (Stephen Dorff) finds himself convicted of involuntary manslaughter and thrown into a maximum security prison for three years. Facing a harsh new world -- including a notorious mass murderer cellmate (Val Kilmer) and regular beatings organized by the head guard (Harold Perrineau) -- Wade soon realizes he'll have to toughen up if he's going to survive.
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 | Food, Inc. - (7.9 from 6535 votes)
2008 | Documentary |
IMDB Tagline: Youll never look at dinner the same way again
IMDB Comment: After the first death, there is no other
Drawing on Eric Schlosser's
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 | Il y a longtemps que je taime - (7.7 from 6783 votes)
2008 | Drama | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: This movie hits the emotional spot with great precision.
After more than a decade apart, estranged sisters Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) try to rebuild their fractured relationship. But the task is hardly easy, considering Juliette's past: She's been in jail for 15 years -- for killing someone. As she settles into small-town life with Lea's family, the locals can't help but talk. Writer-director Philippe Claudel's feature film debut garnered him a Golden Globe nomination.
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 | Lt den rtte komma in - (8.1 from 51082 votes)
2008 | Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Eli is 12 years old. Shes been 12 for over 200 years and, she just moved in next door.
IMDB Comment: The most fantastic and original dark fantasy starring a child since "Pans Labyrinth"
Twelve-year-old Oskar (Kre Hedebrant), the constant target of bullies, spends his time plotting revenge and collecting news items about the grisly murders plaguing his town. But things change when he meets a new girl named Eli (Lina Leandersson), a misfit vampire who steals his heart. As a serial killer continues to prey on teen boys in their small Swedish village, Eli helps Oskar find the courage to stand up to his tormenters.
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 | Man on Wire - (8.0 from 11794 votes)
2008 | Documentary | Crime |
IMDB Tagline: 1974. 1350 feet up. The artistic crime of the century.
IMDB Comment: Fascinating and Magical
Philippe Petit captured the world's attention in 1974 when he successfully walked across a high wire between New York's Twin Towers. This Oscar winner for Best Documentary explores the preparations that went into the stunt as well as the event and its aftermath. Obsessed with the towers even before they were fully constructed, Petit sneaked into the buildings several times to determine the equipment he needed to accomplish his daring feat.
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 | Okuribito - (8.1 from 7936 votes)
2008 | Comedy | Drama | Music |
IMDB Tagline: The gift of last memories
IMDB Comment: Best Japanese film in 2008!
Freshly unemployed, young cellist Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) has an epiphany in which he realizes he's been heading down the wrong career path. Retreating to his hometown, he trains for a new professional role as a
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 | Seven Pounds - (7.6 from 59246 votes)
2008 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Seven Names. Seven Strangers. One Secret.
IMDB Comment: Shakespeare of today.
Distraught over his wife's death -- and convinced that his own actions had something to do with it -- a depressed IRS agent (Will Smith) begins plotting his suicide, vowing to improve the lives of seven strangers in the process. But a chance meeting with a woman who has a life-threatening heart defect (Rosario Dawson) makes him think twice when their budding relationship suddenly feels a lot like love.
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 | The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - (7.8 from 19907 votes)
2008 | Drama | Thriller | War |
IMDB Tagline: A timeless story of innocence lost and humanity found.
IMDB Comment: Stunning! Simply Stunning!!!
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno (Asa Butterfield) befriends Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a boy who lives on the other side of the fence, where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.
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 | 12 - (7.7 from 5506 votes)
2007 | Crime | Drama | Thriller | War |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: A masterpiece based on fantasy
In Moscow, 12 jurors weigh the fate of a teenager (Apti Magamaev) accused of murdering his stepfather. They represent a cross-section of modern Russia's fractured society: an indecisive television producer, a flashy musician, a bigoted cabbie, a Holocaust survivor. Inside the jury room, as in the streets, the battle for peace and tolerance plays out. Nikita Mikhalkov directs this Oscar-nominated twist on 12 Angry Men.
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 | 4 luni, 3 saptamni si 2 zile - (7.9 from 19425 votes)
2007 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: How far would you go for a friend?
IMDB Comment: A path to maturity
In the last days of communism in Romania, college student Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) wants to end her unplanned pregnancy. With help from best friend and fellow student Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), Gabita seeks an abortion -- which is illegal under the oppressive Ceausescu regime. Director Cristian Mungiu's searing portrait of life under a dictatorship received a slew of film festival awards along with a Golden Globe nod for Best Foreign Language Film.
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 | Auf der anderen Seite - (7.9 from 9081 votes)
2007 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Beautiful, great , would have deserved Palme dor
When his father accidentally kills a prostitute, Nejat Aksu (Baki Davrak) seeks out her 27-year-old daughter, Ayten (Nurgl Yesilcay), to make amends. Nejat focuses his search in Turkey, but Ayten, who's part of a closely watched activist group, has fled to Germany. The lives of four Turks and two Germans are soon entwined as a result of circumstances beyond their control in this compelling drama, which earned Best Screenplay honors at Cannes.
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 | Ben X - (7.6 from 6778 votes)
2007 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Everythings dare
IMDB Comment: Ben X -- Avant Premiere Metropolis Belgium
Harassed by bullies because of his mild autism, teen Ben (Greg Timmermans) finds refuge in an online computer game, which leads him to his virtual dream girl, Scarlite (Laura Verlinden). Together, the odd couple seeks revenge against Ben's tormentors. Director Nic Balthazar's beguiling mix of kitchen-sink drama and full-blown fantasy was Belgium's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film.
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 | El orfanato - (7.7 from 38666 votes)
2007 | Drama | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Un cuento de amor. Una historia de terror (A tale of love. A story of horror)
IMDB Comment: Pretty good
Fueled by fond memories from her childhood, Laura (Beln Rueda) persuades her husband (Fernando Cayo) to help her revamp a seaside orphanage into a facility for disabled children. But soon after the couple moves in, their son, Simn (Roger Prncep), begins exhibiting disturbing behavior. As Laura tries to understand Simn's increasingly malevolent actions, she becomes drawn into the house's terrifying secrets in this unnerving chiller.
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 | Se, jie - (7.7 from 14916 votes)
2007 | Drama | Romance | Thriller | War |
IMDB Tagline: To kill the enemy, she would have to capture his heart....and break her own.
IMDB Comment: This is essentially an Asian Film
Oscar-winning filmmaker Ang Lee (the steady mind behind films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain) directs this intriguing espionage thriller set in World War II-era Shanghai. Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Joan Chen and Lee-Hom Wang co-star in this foreign-language tale about a young actress (Wei Tang) caught up in a complex plot involving love, assassination and seduction, based on the writings of author Eileen Chang.
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 | The King of Kong - (8.3 from 14029 votes)
2007 | Documentary | Sport |
IMDB Tagline: Dont get chumpatized.
IMDB Comment: odd and fascinating
When Steve Wiebe got laid off, he turned to the classic arcade game Donkey Kong for solace; soon, he decided to challenge Billy Mitchell's long-standing record score. So began the bitter rivalry that lies at the heart of this curiously compelling documentary. Providing a history of competitive video gaming and a look at some of the key players, The King of Kong is at its best when revealing just how far Mitchell will go to retain his crown.
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 | The Man from Earth - (8.1 from 30605 votes)
2007 | Drama | Sci-Fi |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: One of the most thoughtful and well written scripts put to film in ages.
Renowned sci-fi writer Jerome Bixby penned the script for this thought-provoking film starring David Lee Smith as John Oldman, a college professor who reveals to his colleagues that he's actually a centuries-old caveman. And so begins a captivating philosophical meditation on immortality, the last work from screenwriter Bixby, who earned career accolades for his contributions to such genre-defining shows as "Star Trek" and "The Twilight Zone."
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 | The Visitor - (7.8 from 17538 votes)
2007 | Crime | Drama | Music | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Connection is everything
IMDB Comment: You know a movie is good when you dont want it to end.
Widowed professor Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins, in an Oscar-nominated role) finds himself drawn to a different rhythm when he discovers an immigrant couple, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira), squatting in his Manhattan flat and becomes wrapped up in their lives. Hiam Abbass co-stars as Tarek's mother, who forges an unlikely connection with Walter when Tarek is thrown into a detention center.
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 | Trade - (7.5 from 7504 votes)
2007 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
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 | Cashback - (7.5 from 20752 votes)
2006 | Comedy | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Sometimes love is hiding between the seconds of your life
IMDB Comment: A rare film that really stands out!
After breaking up with his girlfriend, aspiring artist Ben Willis (Sean Biggerstaff) develops insomnia and takes a night-shift job at a supermarket to pass the hours. He soon discovers that he can freeze time and begins fantasizing about pretty checkout clerk Sharon (Emilia Fox). When he's not dreaming of Sharon -- who may hold the key to resolving his sleeplessness -- Ben roams the aisles disrobing beautiful customers and sketching them.
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 | Efter brylluppet - (7.8 from 7743 votes)
2006 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: champagne is poured... secrets are spilled.
IMDB Comment: Intensely Human
To save the failing orphanage he runs in India, Danish transplant Jacob Petersen (Mads Mikkelsen) returns to his homeland to meet a self-indulgent businessman named Jrgen who's offered a generous donation -- and represents everything the noble-minded Jacob abhors. Complicating matters further are the unusual strings Jrgen has attached to his so-called gift. Rolf Lassgrd co-stars in this Oscar-nominated emotional powerhouse of a drama.
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 | El laberinto del fauno - (8.4 from 146049 votes)
2006 | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Thriller | War |
IMDB Tagline: What happens when make-believe believes its real?
IMDB Comment: A fey, beautiful and dark masterpiece
Living with her tyrannical stepfather (Sergi Lpez) in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by the mysterious Pan (Doug Jones), an ancient satyr who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to her real father, Ofelia must complete three terrifying tasks in director Guillermo del Toro's Oscar-winning fairy tale for grown-ups.
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 | Jesus Camp - (7.6 from 9309 votes)
2006 | Documentary | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: America is being born again
IMDB Comment: Child Abuse
This riveting Oscar-nominated documentary offers an unfiltered look at a revivalist subculture in which devout Christian youngsters are being primed to deliver the fundamentalist community's religious and political messages. Building an evangelical army of tomorrow, the Kids on Fire summer camp in Devil's Lake, N.D., is dedicated to deepening the preteens' spirituality and sowing the seeds of political activism.
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 | Ne le dis personne - (7.6 from 11217 votes)
2006 | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: 8 years ago, Alexs wife was MURDERED. Today... She e-mailed him.
IMDB Comment: Canet at Cobens height !
Eight years ago, pediatrician Alexandre Beck (Franois Cluzet) was the prime suspect in his wife's murder. He's put all that behind him, but now that two dead bodies have been found near his home, he's suspected of wrongdoing once again. The case takes an unexpected turn when he receives an anonymous e-mail showing his wife alive -- and eight years older -- instructing him to "tell no one." Kristin Scott Thomas co-stars.
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 | Paris, je taime - (7.5 from 22569 votes)
2006 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Stories of Love. From the City of Love.
IMDB Comment: You are in the collective hands of 18 masters sit back and enjoy the ride
Paris comes to life in this whimsical patchwork of 18 five-minute shorts united by a common theme -- love in the City of Lights -- and helmed by an international cast of filmmakers, including Gus Van Sant, Olivier Assayas and Alexander Payne. Natalie Portman plays an American actress who captures the heart of a blind student; Juliette Binoche is visited by a ghostly Willem Dafoe; Bob Hoskins solicits a prostitute's advice on pleasing his wife.
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 | Rang De Basanti - (8.1 from 11602 votes)
2006 | Action | Comedy | Drama | History |
IMDB Tagline: A Generation Awakens
IMDB Comment: No words ...simply best
Traveling to India to film a docudrama about the country's revolution against British rule in the 1920s, an idealistic English filmmaker (Alice Patten) turns to a group of student actors (Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Kunal Kapoor, Sharman Joshi, Atul Kulkarni and Soha Ali Khan) to help her stay within her budget. It doesn't take long for her cast to realize, however, that their modern-day lifestyles do little to honor their forefathers' sacrifices.
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 | The Road to Guantanamo - (7.6 from 6643 votes)
2006 | Documentary | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Watch it.
Director Michael Winterbottom presents the true story of three British Muslim men, known as "the Tipton Three," who were unjustly arrested and held for more than two years in the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. By blending dramatic re-enactments, interviews with the surviving men and archival news footage, Winterbottom's Independent Spirit Award-winning docudrama delivers a chilling and shocking expos of out-of-control security measures.
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 | The Wind That Shakes the Barley - (7.6 from 16021 votes)
2006 | Drama | History | War |
IMDB Tagline: Winner of the PALME DOR at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
IMDB Comment: The truth hurts
As political tensions brew in early 1920s Ireland, brothers Damien and Teddy (Cillian Murphy and Padraic Delaney) abandon their civilian lives and take up arms to liberate their country from the oppressive "Black and Tan" squads of Britain. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Ken Loach's provocative drama examines a microcosm of civil war in Cork, Ireland. Liam Cunningham co-stars.
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 | This Film Is Not Yet Rated - (7.6 from 9061 votes)
2006 | Documentary |
IMDB Tagline: censorship, uncensored.
IMDB Comment: Maybe Not Rated, But Definitely Brilliant
Kirby Dick's provocative documentary investigates the secretive and inconsistent process by which the Motion Picture Association of America rates films, revealing the organization's underhanded efforts to control culture. Dick questions whether certain studios get preferential treatment and exposes the discrepancies in how the MPAA views sex and violence. Interviewees include John Waters, Darren Aronofsky, Maria Bello, Atom Egoyan and more.
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 | This Is England - (7.9 from 27837 votes)
2006 | Crime | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Run with the crowd, stand alone, you decide.
IMDB Comment: Best film of the Berlin Film Festival 2007
Set in 1983, this semiautobiographical drama from writer-director Shane Meadows follows a lonely 11-year-old boy named Shaun as he grieves over the recent death of his father, who was killed fighting in the Falklands War. When he falls in with a gang of young skinheads, Shaun's pain and anger make him susceptible to carrying out the group's hateful agenda, exposing a dark side of modern Britain not often seen in the movies.
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 | Brick - (7.5 from 35542 votes)
2005 | Crime | Drama | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline: A detective story.
IMDB Comment: Film Noir meets 90s High School flick
When a secret crush turns up dead and the murderer is anyone's guess, teenage loner Brendan Fry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is forced to navigate his school's social network through intense interactions with thespians, band geeks and druggies (including a grown-up Lukas Haas). This unconventional film noir marked a promising debut for writer-director Rian Johnson, picking up a Special Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
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 | Brokeback Mountain - (7.8 from 112975 votes)
2005 | Drama | Romance | Western |
IMDB Tagline: Love Is A Force Of Nature
IMDB Comment: A Cinematic Landmark
While working together near Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain in 1963, sheepherders Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) begin an increasingly passionate affair. But keeping their relationship a secret from their wives (Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams) proves agonizing and all-consuming. Ang Lee directs this Oscar-winning drama based on a short story by Pulitzer Prize winner E. Annie Proulx.
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 | C.R.A.Z.Y. - (8.0 from 12671 votes)
2005 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Growing up in this family, youd have to be... C.R.A.Z.Y.
IMDB Comment: Best Quebec movie ever? I'd say so!
There are five boys in the Beaulieu family -- Christian, Raymond, Antoine, Zachary and Yvan. But Zac (played by Emile Vallee and Marc-Andre Grondin) is the only one who's gay. That's why growing up in Montreal alongside his heterosexual brothers and his strict, emotionally distant father (Michel Cote) proves especially challenging for the blossoming outsider, who finds solace in the music of Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie.
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 | Chinjeolhan geumjassi - (7.7 from 18566 votes)
2005 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: All she wanted was a peaceful life...they didnt give it
IMDB Comment: Brilliant.
The final installment of director Chan Wook Park's revenge trilogy (preceded by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy) chronicles the efforts of Lee Geum-ja (Yeong-ae Lee) -- known to her cellmates as "the kind Ms. Geum-ja" -- to track down the man who betrayed her. Taking the rap for her accomplice and incarcerated for 13 long years, she plots an elaborate retribution with help from her fellow inmates.
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 | La marche de lempereur - (7.8 from 23359 votes)
2005 | Documentary | Family |
IMDB Tagline: In the harshest place on Earth, love finds a way
IMDB Comment: Luc Jacquet has done the impossible.
Award-winning photographer Luc Jacquet takes documentary film to new heights -- and depths -- with his first feature film, a stunning insider's look at the life of emperor penguins living in one of the cruelest climates on the planet. The product of more than a year of filming on the Antarctic ice, this Oscar-winning documentary reveals never-before-captured footage of the penguins' underwater life and explores their steadfast quest for monogamy.
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 | Serenity - (8.0 from 103778 votes)
2005 | Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Cant stop the signal.
IMDB Comment: Intense
Picking up where his cult show "Firefly" left off, writer-director Joss Whedon's tale of galactic unrest follows Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), captain of the transport ship
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 | Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage - (7.9 from 8868 votes)
2005 | Biography | Crime | Drama | History | War |
IMDB Tagline: In 1943, one young woman stood up to the Nazis, her courage made her a legend, this is her story . . .
IMDB Comment: One of the best German films ever!!!
Arrested for participating in the White Rose resistance movement, anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) is subjected to a highly charged interrogation by the Gestapo, testing her loyalty to her cause, her family and her convictions. Based on true events, director Marc Rothemund's absorbing Oscar-nominated drama explores maintaining human resolve in the face of intense pressure from a system determined to silence whistle-blowers.
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 | The Constant Gardener - (7.6 from 49599 votes)
2005 | Drama | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Love. At any cost.
IMDB Comment: Beautiful, Haunting and mesmerizing
Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a member of the British High Commission based in Africa, launches a quest for the truth and begins his own international investigation when his wife (Rachel Weisz, in an Oscar-winning turn) is murdered. Not even the rumors of his wife's infidelity will stop him from uncovering what really happened to her -- a conspiracy that's much more dangerous than he ever imagined.
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 | The Proposition - (7.5 from 20256 votes)
2005 | Crime | Drama | Western |
IMDB Tagline: This land will be civilized.
IMDB Comment: Leone meets Tarkovsky meets Patrick White meets Mad Max
When no-nonsense lawman Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone) apprehends the notorious Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and his younger sibling, Mikey (Richard Wilson), Stanley makes Charlie an unsavory proposition: If he murders his outlaw brother, Arthur (Danny Huston), Mikey will escape the hangman's noose. Emily Watson co-stars as Stanley's genteel wife in Aussie director John Hillcoat's gripping, epic-scale Western set in the thick of the 1880s outback.
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 | The Secret Life of Words - (7.5 from 5079 votes)
2005 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Good and Underrated
After surviving the war in Yugoslavia, taciturn nurse Hanna (Sarah Polley) heads to Ireland for some rest and relaxation. But when she hears about an oil-rig accident off the coast, she agrees to tend heroic burn victim Josef (Tim Robbins). Personalities clash aboard the derrick as Hanna contends with Josef, a Russian soldier (Sverre Anker Ousdal), a lively Spanish chef (Javier Cmara) and other oddballs in this compelling character study.
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 | The Worlds Fastest Indian - (8.0 from 19081 votes)
2005 | Biography | Drama | Sport |
IMDB Tagline: Based On One Hell Of A True Story
IMDB Comment: Surprising gem
This fact-based drama stars Anthony Hopkins as quirky New Zealander Burt Munro, a 67-year-old grandfather who flies across Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats and blazes into the record books at 183.586 mph on his customized Indian Scout motorcycle. Set in 1967, the film is the second pairing of Hopkins and writer-director Roger Donaldson; the duo also collaborated on the seafaring epic The Bounty (1984).
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 | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - (8.5 from 211069 votes)
2004 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: I already forget how I used to feel about you.
IMDB Comment: "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is a bizarre but wonderful movie, a very strange and remarkably tender experience.
After learning that his mercurial ex-girlfriend, Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet), has undergone an experimental medical process to purge all memories of him, mild-mannered Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) opts for the same procedure. But during the operation, he decides he doesn't want to lose what's left of their relationship and tries to conceal her image in his memory cells. This quirky romantic comedy won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
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 | Dead Mans Shoes - (7.9 from 17154 votes)
2004 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Hes in all of us.
IMDB Comment: A dirge, but my god, a riveting one.
Richard (Paddy Considine) comes home from the army bent on revenge against the local gang of dealers and thugs that brutalized his mentally disabled brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). Richard's one-man guerilla campaign terrorizes the bullies, who begin to turn on one another as he efficiently eliminates them one by one. This engrossing BAFTA-nominated drama powerfully illustrates the overriding bond of brotherly love.
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 | Diarios de motocicleta - (7.9 from 36268 votes)
2004 | Adventure | Biography | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Before he changed the world the world changed him
IMDB Comment: Bias is downfall of this movie
This foreign-language drama tells the incredible true story of a 23-year-old medical student from Argentina -- future revolutionary Che Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal) -- who motorcycled across South America with his friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna) beginning in 1951. Walter Salles's film is based on Guevara's diaries of the trek, a deeply personal odyssey that ultimately crystallized the young man's budding political beliefs.
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 | Gegen die Wand - (8.0 from 16263 votes)
2004 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Splashy chronicle of a generation in revolt against tradition (worth watching)
Cahit Tomruk (Birol Unel) and Sibel Guner (Sibel Kekilli) are immigrant Germans who live and work in the port town of Hamburg. In a bid to help Sibel break free of her family (which strictly adheres to Turkish customs, religious and otherwise), the couple decides to marry. But straitlaced families are just part of the problem; Cahit and Sibel must also counterbalance ancestral roots with their new life in a western democracy. Fatih Akin directs.
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 | Mar adentro - (8.1 from 23578 votes)
2004 | Biography | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Life is a right, not an obligation
Javier Bardem stars in this moving film based on a true story as Ramon Sampedro, a Spaniard who's condemned to life as a quadriplegic. Determined to die with dignity, Sampedro leads a 30-year campaign to win the right to end his life. His extraordinary example even inspires his lawyer, Julia (Belen Rueda), and a local woman (Lola Duenas) to reach for the heavens, with both women achieving far beyond their wildest dreams.
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 | Super Size Me - (7.6 from 32997 votes)
2004 | Documentary | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: A film of epic portions.
IMDB Comment: An entertaining and interesting movie but those who sneer at McDonalds or fat Americans are missing the point
On the heels of recent lawsuits against McDonald's, director Morgan Spurlock takes a hilarious and often terrifying look at the effects of fast food on the human body, using himself as the proverbial guinea pig. For one month, Spurlock eats nothing but McDonald's, ordering everything on the menu and "super-sizing" his order whenever asked. The result is a sobering examination of the line between personal and corporate responsibility.
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 | Swades: We, the People - (8.4 from 5679 votes)
2004 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: We, the people
IMDB Comment: Take a bow, Ashotosh, Shahrukh and ARR
Composer A.R. Rahman's music forms the backdrop for this film by Ashutosh Gowariker. Mohan Bhargava (Shah Rukh Khan), an Americanized NASA scientist, returns to his native India on a business trip and takes the opportunity to get back in touch with his roots by finding the nanny who helped raise him. His mission forces him to examine his ways and all the changes he's been through while pursuing what he defines as success.
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 | The Machinist - (7.8 from 64461 votes)
2004 | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: How do you wake up from a nightmare, when youre not asleep?
IMDB Comment: A strong mood piece, but not for everyone
Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) hasn't slept in a year, and his physical and mental health have eroded. So when cryptic notes pop up in his apartment and he has visions of a co-worker nobody else can see, is it reality -- or just the next level of insomnia? His call-girl girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) seems to be the only bright spot in Trevor's quickly deteriorating world. And he, too, seems to be breaking down.
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 | Capturing the Friedmans - (8.0 from 9150 votes)
2003 | Documentary | Biography | Crime | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline: Who do you believe?
IMDB Comment: The Friedmans Weren't Captured, They Submitted Entirely
A family in crisis is "captured" through home video in this searing documentary about the Friedmans, an upper-middle-class family who found their world turned upside down when father and son were charged with child molestation in 1987. The media inundated the airwaves with coverage of the alleged crime, but some of the best footage -- seen here publicly for the first time -- was shot by the Friedman family members themselves.
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 | Jeux denfants - (7.6 from 14104 votes)
2003 | Comedy | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: From the visionary mind of director Yann Samuell comes Frances hit comedy!
IMDB Comment: Love me - cap ou pas cap?
Ever since they were kids, Sophie (Marion Cotillard) and Julien (Guillaume Canet) have gotten their kicks out of a game where they continuously attempt to one-up the other with a chain of extreme pranks. When their relationship escalates to romance, the game turns harshly negative, and the two lovers' view of reality grows increasingly skewed.
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 | Oldboy - (8.3 from 92437 votes)
2003 | Drama | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: 15 years of imprisonment, five days of vengeance
IMDB Comment: Absolutely Sublime.......................................................
With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years -- and no one to hold accountable for his suffering -- a desperate businessman seeks revenge on his captors, relying on assistance from a friendly waitress. Korean director Chan Wook Park -- a former philosophy student and Hitchcock devotee -- uses his influences to create a mesmerizing psychological drama with a resolution that will leave you speechless.
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 | Ondskan - (7.9 from 12055 votes)
2003 | Drama | Sport |
IMDB Tagline: Its time to take a stand.
IMDB Comment: Come on! 7.7?
Adapted from a best-selling novel, this Swedish drama follows rebellious teenager Erik (Andreas Wilson) as he's expelled from high school for fighting and sent to the prestigious Stjrsnberg Academy. Having endured many beatings from his father, Erik is dismayed to face a similar threat from the academy's senior students, who bully the younger ones mercilessly. But this time, Erik is determined not to crack and lash out in violence.
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 | The Animatrix - (7.5 from 21099 votes)
2003 | Action | Drama | Animation | Sci-Fi |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Now THIS is more like it!
Straight from the creators of the groundbreaking Matrix trilogy, this collection of short animated films from the world's leading anime directors fuses computer graphics and Japanese anime to provide the background of the Matrix universe and the conflict between man and machines. The shorts include Final Flight of the Osiris, The Second Renaissance, Kid's Story, Program, World Record, Beyond, A Detective Story and Matriculated.
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 | The Pianist - (8.5 from 127942 votes)
2002 | Biography | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline: Music was his passion. Survival was his masterpiece.
IMDB Comment: the best holocaust movie ever made
Famed Polish concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody, in an Oscar-winning role) struggles to survive the onslaught of Nazi tyranny during World War II in this Roman Polanski-directed drama based on Szpilman's memoirs. In spite of his well-known musical talents, Szpilman spends several years holed up in Warsaw, barely alive and subsisting on scraps, until grace comes in the form of a second chance -- at music, at freedom and at life.
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 | Boksuneun naui geot - (7.8 from 15415 votes)
2002 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Revenge Was Never This Sweet
IMDB Comment: Modern masterpiece.
Chan-wook Park directs this tale of deaf and dumb Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin), who's romantically involved with revolutionary Young-Mi (Dun-na Bae) and loves his older sister so much that he sells his kidney on the black market to afford her a life-saving transplant. When Ryu finds he's been ripped off, Young-Mi hatches a better plan: She and Ryu will "borrow" the daughter of the capitalist boss who fired Ryu and raise the necessary funds that way.
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 | Far from Heaven - (7.5 from 19905 votes)
2002 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: What imprisons desires of the heart?
IMDB Comment: Welcome Back to the Fifties
When she finds her husband (Dennis Quaid) with another man, a Connecticut housewife (Julianne Moore) finds herself dealing with infidelity and the racial tension that epitomized the late 1950s at the advent of the Civil Rights movement in America. As a coping mechanism to deal with the emotional turmoil, she develops an unlikely friendship with her African-American gardener (Dennis Haysbert), who's full of sage wisdom.
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 | Interstate 60: Episodes of the Road - (7.7 from 10385 votes)
2002 | Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: It began as a wish, became an adventure, and ended as the ultimate road trip.
IMDB Comment: Under-rated and Under-distributed
In this highly unusual road flick, a man (James Marsden) in search of answers to life's great mysteries takes his quest on Interstate 60, a make-believe freeway that leads him to encounters with a motley group of strange characters living in surreal roadside towns. Gary Oldman co-stars, with cameos from Michael J. Fox, Chris Cooper and Kurt Russell.
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 | Tasogare Seibei - (8.1 from 8696 votes)
2002 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: A film of amazing depth and refined beauty.
A heartfelt elegy directed by Yoji Yamada, The Twilight Samurai tells the story of Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada), a man who has trained as a samurai and belongs to a samurai clan, but doesn't fight alongside them in any battles. Instead, Seibei, a recent widower, has devoted himself to caring for his two daughters and ailing mother. His reluctance to fight makes him a curiosity -- and soon lands him an assignment that could cost him his life.
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 | The Count of Monte Cristo - (7.5 from 39360 votes)
2002 | Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | History | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Prepare for adventure. Count on revenge.
IMDB Comment: Excellent!
In this beautifully photographed rekindling of the classic Alexandre Dumas story. Edmond Dants's (Jim Caviezel) life and plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk) are shattered when his best friend, Fernand (Guy Pearce), deceives him. After spending 13 miserable years in prison, Dants escapes with the help of a fellow inmate (Richard Harris) and plots his revenge, cleverly insinuating himself into the French nobility.
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 | Le fabuleux destin dAmlie Poulain - (8.6 from 173279 votes)
2001 | Comedy | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: One person can change your life forever.
IMDB Comment: What is left to say about this glorious joy ride?
When impish gamine Amlie (Audrey Tautou), who lives alone, finds a long-hidden trove of toys behind a baseboard in her apartment, she's inspired to repatriate the items, an impulse of generosity that sparks more benevolent acts. A celebration of life and love, French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Oscar-nominated charmer stresses the importance of small wonders that surround us, if only we paused to look.
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 | Black Hawk Down - (7.7 from 95900 votes)
2001 | Action | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline: Rangers Lead the Way.
IMDB Comment: I Felt Like I Was in that Black Hawk
When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy casualties, facing intense fighting from the militia on the ground. Director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) captures the brutal, incessant battle scenes with powerful and intimidating framework and pace in this military drama based on a true story.
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 | Das Experiment - (7.9 from 21962 votes)
2001 | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Bist du stark genug?
IMDB Comment: Compelling thriller that disturbs as much as it entertains.
An artificial prison has been built as part of a psychological experiment in which 20 male participants are asked to take roles as either prisoners or guards. As psychologists watch the results unfold, our focus is on a former journalist who is intrigued by the concept and volunteers to be one of the prisoners, thinking there might be a big story in it for him. But he ends up getting a lot more than he bargained for.
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 | Donnie Darko - (8.3 from 202792 votes)
2001 | Drama | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Life is one long insane trip. Some people just have better directions.
IMDB Comment: Stunning.
Writer-director Richard Kelly's trippy, mind-bending feature debut stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a troubled Midwestern teenager plagued by incessant sleepwalking, family drama and visions of a menacing 6-foot-tall, doomsday-prophesizing rabbit. Drew Barrymore, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell, Jena Malone, Patrick Swayze and Noah Wyle also star in this dark and intriguing psychological fantasy that swiftly earned a cult following.
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 | Elling - (7.5 from 6984 votes)
2001 | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Theyre packed and ready for the greatest adventure of their lives. All they have to do is get out of the house.
IMDB Comment: Funny, Charming Norwegian Film
Per Christian Ellefsen and Sven Nordin play the shy, retiring Elling and the imposing Kjell in this Norwegian movie about two mentally challenged friends who battle adversity and find their place in the sun. When the two become roommates, they attempt to create a life for themselves outside the confining, but protective, walls of the hospital. Petter Naess directs this Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.
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 | Monsters, Inc. - (8.0 from 108110 votes)
2001 | Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Fantasy |
IMDB Tagline: Monsters, Inc. : We Scare Because We Care
IMDB Comment: `Monsters, Inc.' is the best animated feature this year and one of the greatest of all time.
Pixar pitches another computer-animated classic with this family-friendly tale about the professional scarers of Monsters, Inc., who sneak into children's bedrooms at night to elicit screams that they convert into energy to run their world. Life is fine for top scarer Sulley (John Goodman) and his assistant, Mike (Billy Crystal), until a little girl named Boo accidentally finds her way into the monster world -- and into Sulley's heart.
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 | Mulholland Dr. - (8.0 from 97908 votes)
2001 | Drama | Mystery | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: A Love Story In The City Of Dreams
IMDB Comment: Possibly Lynch's best; brilliant, enigmatic, and masterfully filmed
Writer-director David Lynch weaves another mysteriously complex tale in this story about an amnesiac woman (Laura Herring) who's left stranded on Mulholland Drive and gets taken in by a young newcomer (Naomi Watts) who's moved to Hollywood to pursue her dreams. The two women gradually start to put the pieces of a troubling puzzle together, but the puzzle unravels a dark, sinister plot -- as well as unexpected passions.
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 | The Man Who Wasnt There - (7.7 from 40034 votes)
2001 | Crime | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: The last thing on his mind is murder.
IMDB Comment: one of the Coen brothers best, a film that becomes a masterpiece after a while.
In this black-and-white film noir by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Billy Bob Thornton stars as Ed Crane, an aimless barber who's dissatisfied with his life in a small northern California town in the summer of 1949. His wife's (Frances McDormand) infidelity presents Crane with an opportunity for blackmail that he thinks will turn his life around ... but his scheme lays bare even darker secrets that eventually lead to murder. James Gandolfini co-stars.
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 | The Royal Tenenbaums - (7.6 from 80518 votes)
2001 | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Family Isnt A Word... Its A Sentence.
IMDB Comment: Thank you Wes Anderson! The film is brilliant!
The early promise of Tenenbaum child prodigies Chas (Ben Stiller), Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Richie (Luke Wilson) is short-circuited by the flaws of their father, family patriarch Royal (Gene Hackman), in Wes Anderson's New York fairy tale about a dysfunctional clan of eccentrics. Despite Etheline's (Anjelica Huston) maternal influence, the Tenenbaums -- now grown -- display mere vestiges of their former potential.
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 | Memento - (8.6 from 259310 votes)
2000 | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Some memories are best forgotten
IMDB Comment: can't believe how much I'm still thinking the day after
Suffering short-term memory loss after a head injury, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) embarks on a grim quest to find the lowlife who murdered his wife in this gritty, complex thriller that packs more knots than a hangman's noose. To carry out his plan, Shelby snaps Polaroids of people and places, jotting down contextual notes on the backs of photos to aid in his search and jog his memory. He even tattoos his own body in a desperate bid to remember.
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 | Being John Malkovich - (7.9 from 111457 votes)
1999 | Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Ever wanted to be someone else? Now you can.
IMDB Comment: I want to be John Malkovich.
When puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) discovers a door that's, in fact, a portal into actor John Malkovich's brain, he concocts a plot to sell 15-minute excursions into Malkovich's mind -- and the ultimate head trip -- for $200 a pop. Spike Jonze directs this uncommon dramedy from writer Charlie Kaufman, co-starring Cameron Diaz as Craig's wife, Catherine Keener as his co-worker and Malkovich as himself.
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 | The Boondock Saints - (7.8 from 83254 votes)
1999 | Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Brothers. Killers. Saints.
IMDB Comment: Great unusual action film
Sensing a God-given mission to cleanse the earth of all evil, twin brothers Conner (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) set out to rid Boston of crime. But instead of joining the police force, these Irish Americans decide to kick criminal butt their own way. Willem Dafoe co-stars in writer-director Troy Duffy's crime thriller as the openly gay FBI special agent who's assigned to investigate the siblings' activities.
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 | The Insider - (8.0 from 67064 votes)
1999 | Biography | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Warning: Exposing the Truth May Be Hazardous
IMDB Comment: Intensity beyond intensity
Nominated for seven Oscars, this thought-provoking thriller from director Michael Mann is based on the true story of a Big Tobacco scientist who exposed industry secrets and the newsman who fought forces that would have squelched the story. When TV producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) coaxes researcher Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) to speak about his former employer's knowledge of tobacco's harmful qualities, the corporations try to silence them.
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 | The Iron Giant - (7.9 from 37534 votes)
1999 | Animation | Adventure | Family | Sci-Fi |
IMDB Tagline: It came from outer space!
IMDB Comment: YES!!!!! NO SONG OR DANCE NUMBERS!!!!!!
In rustic 1957 Maine, 9-year-old Hogarth finds a colossal but disoriented robot (of unknown origin), and the two form a strong bond of friendship. Before long, however, a government agent is on their trail -- and he's intent on destroying the automaton. This beautifully rendered parable based on British poet Ted Hughes' feted short story features the voices of Jennifer Aniston, Vin Diesel, Harry Connick Jr. and Cloris Leachman.
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 | The Sixth Sense - (8.2 from 230072 votes)
1999 | Drama | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: I see dead people
IMDB Comment: You'll be knocked for six
When young Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) inexplicably starts seeing dead people, he lands in the care of child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), who is determined to uncover the truth behind Cole's remarkable paranormal abilities. M. Night Shyamalan writes and directs this plot twist-filled chiller, which was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Olivia Williams and Toni Collette co-star.
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 | Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - (7.6 from 79228 votes)
1998 | Drama | Fantasy |
IMDB Tagline: Give us your brain for two hours and you will never be the same again.....(Icelandic)
IMDB Comment: Genius + Genius = ...
Director Terry Gilliam's episodic cult favorite chronicles the hallucinogenic misadventures of sportswriter Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his Samoan lawyer, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro), on a three-day romp from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Motoring across the Mojave Desert on the way to Sin City, Duke and his purple haze passenger ingest a cornucopia of drugs ranging from acid to ether. Mark Harmon, Cameron Diaz and Lyle Lovett turn up in cameos.
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 | Following - (7.6 from 12782 votes)
1998 | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Youre Never Alone.
IMDB Comment: Fascinating suspense film.
Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) writes and directs this odd, claustrophobic neo-noir film about a seedy young Brit (Jeremy Theobald) who's obsessed with following people -- albeit harmlessly at first. After meeting a like-minded bloke (Alex Haw), the twosome graduate to breaking and entering -- but meet their match in a tough blonde dame (Lucy Russell) who may have dubious plans of her own.
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 | Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - (8.1 from 120603 votes)
1998 | Crime | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: A Disgrace to Criminals Everywhere.
IMDB Comment: The essence of late 90's cinema -- hip, highly stylized, VISUAL
Looking to make a bundle in a high-stakes poker game, a quartet of shiftless lads from London's East End instead finds themselves up to their eyeballs in debt to underworld porn king "Hatchet" Harry when the game turns out to be rigged. With only a week to repay Harry, the frantic foursome hits upon the notion of robbing a gang of reefer thieves. Nick Moran, Jason Flemyng and Jason Statham star in director Guy Ritchie's stylish big-screen debut.
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 | Los amantes del Crculo Polar - (7.8 from 7146 votes)
1998 | Drama | Mystery | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Destiny cannot be denied.
IMDB Comment: One of Medem's masterpieces (again)
The moment they meet, 8-year-olds Ana (Sara Valiente) and Otto (Peru Medem) know they have a special connection. After all, their names are both palindromes -- spelled the same whether they're read forward or backward -- and each has a parent looking for a mate. But when their families finally meld, the two children, now young adults (played by Victor Hugo Oliveira and Kristel Daz) realize that they, too, may share a romantic destiny.
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 | The Big Lebowski - (8.2 from 170763 votes)
1998 | Comedy | Crime |
IMDB Tagline: They figured he was a lazy time wasting slacker. They were right.
IMDB Comment: My favourite Coen brothers movie and one of the most entertaining and original comedies ever made!
Slacker Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) gets involved in a gargantuan mess of events when he's mistaken for another man named Lebowski, whose wife has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. All the while, Dude's friend, Walter (John Goodman), stirs the pot. Brothers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen write and direct this cult comedy classic that also stars Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore and John Turturro.
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 | Chun gwong cha sit - (7.5 from 6328 votes)
1997 | Comedy | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: A film about alienation - inside and outside
Gay couple Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) and Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung) travel from Hong Kong to Argentina for a holiday to try to mend their dissolving relationship. They separate for a time, but when Po-Wing shows up at Yiu-Fai's door beaten up, Yiu-Fai takes him in. While Yiu-Fai begins a new relationship with another man, Po-Wing's life spins out of control. Director Kar Wai Wong's romantic drama won the Best Director award at Cannes.
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 | Donnie Brasco - (7.7 from 63498 votes)
1997 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Donnie Brasco. Based On A True Story.
IMDB Comment: A good gangster film with strong emotional under currents
When FBI agent Joe Pistone (Johnny Depp) goes undercover and becomes "Donnie Brasco" to infiltrate the Mob, he dangerously starts to identify more and more strongly with the made men he's charged with taking down. Mike Newell directs this fact-based drama that explores the relationship between the hunter and the hunted -- the mobster (Al Pacino) who grooms Brasco as his protg. Anne Heche and Bruno Kirby co-star.
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 | Fargo - (8.3 from 160104 votes)
1996 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: A homespun murder story.
IMDB Comment: You're darned tootin'!
Frances McDormand won an Oscar for her turn as pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson -- a serious sleuth who's sharper than her folksy accent suggests -- in this Coen brothers black comedy that also earned the siblings a nod for Best Screenplay. William H. Macy co-stars as a car dealer who conspires with hotheaded kidnappers (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife (Kristin Rudrd) so he can pocket part of the hefty ransom.
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 | Lappartement - (7.6 from 5313 votes)
1996 | Drama | Mystery | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Don't be misled by "the French Single White Female" tag. This is a fascinating romantic thriller in the Hitchcock tradition.
A chance sighting of his ex-girlfriend, Lisa (Monica Bellucci), sends Max (Vincent Cassel) into a tailspin, as he ditches travel plans and his fiance to get closer to her. But when he busts into her apartment, he gets dangerously entwined with Alice (Romane Bohringer), a woman who looks like Lisa. Meanwhile, a wealthy and shady lover trails Lisa. Jean-Philippe coffey co-stars in writer-director Gilles Mimouni's romantic mystery
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 | Star Trek: First Contact - (7.6 from 44295 votes)
1996 | Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Resistance is Futile.
IMDB Comment: Not just the best Star Trek film
The Borg are back! Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) confronts the archenemies who kidnapped and assimilated him in a "Next Generation" TV episode. Now, the Borg have time-traveled to Earth's past to preclude the first contact between humans and Vulcans, which resulted in the Federation's birth. Bent on revenge, Picard follows the Borg to the 21st century. Will Picard sacrifice everything to stop the villains?
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 | Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge - (7.9 from 5816 votes)
1995 | Comedy | Family | Musical | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Srk-Kajol's chemistry at its best.
Raj (Shahrukh Khan) is blessed with charm, good looks and money, but when he meets working-class beauty Simran (Kajol) on a train, he's instantly smitten. She feels the same, but she has already promised her father that she'll marry a man she's never met. Raj isn't about to give up, though, and follows Simran from London to India to win her over. This epic redefined romance for young Indians, and ranks among the biggest Bollywood hits of all time.
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 | Heat - (8.3 from 139277 votes)
1995 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: A Los Angeles crime saga.
IMDB Comment: Masterful on all counts
As two driven professionals -- an illustrious detective (Al Pacino) and a sophisticated thief (Robert De Niro) -- face off, they learn how much they need each other, and that the line between cop and criminal isn't always well-defined. Brilliantly directed by Michael Mann, Heat is a hyperkinetic crime drama about two men on opposite sides of the law who approach life in much the same way. Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore and Jon Voight co-star.
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 | Twelve Monkeys - (8.1 from 163616 votes)
1995 | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The future is history.
IMDB Comment: these monkeys will go to heaven...
In the year 2035, convict James Cole (Bruce Willis) volunteers reluctantly to be sent back in time by scientists to discover the origin of a deadly virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth's population decades earlier. But when Cole is sent mistakenly to 1990 instead of 1996, he's arrested and locked up in a mental hospital, where he meets a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) and the son (Brad Pitt) of a famous virus expert (Christopher Plummer).
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 | Forrest Gump - (8.6 from 286783 votes)
1994 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: The story of a lifetime.
IMDB Comment: Forrest is here to save the day
Winner of six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, director Robert Zemeckis's charming blend of comedy and drama stars Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump, a simpleminded man who finds himself in the middle of nearly every major event of the 1960s and '70s. Along the way, he makes friends, changes lives and searches for a soul mate. Hanks nabbed a Best Actor Oscar for his remarkable portrayal of the unsophisticated yet surprisingly wise Forrest.
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 | The Shawshank Redemption - (9.2 from 493615 votes)
1994 | Crime | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.
IMDB Comment: Shawshank Redeems Hollywood
Framed in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden (Bob Gunton). During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red (Morgan Freeman) -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
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 | Hoop Dreams - (8.0 from 9289 votes)
1994 | Documentary | Drama | Sport |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: As Dick Vitale would say, "AWESOME, BABY!"
The filmmakers of this groundbreaking documentary meant for it to be a short movie, but wound up weaving a widely celebrated feature-length film spanning years filled with grace and honesty. Meet Arthur Agee and William Gates, two young boys from equally rough Chicago neighborhoods who make use of their prodigious basketball talents to aim for a life outside the ghetto. But strife and setbacks befall them at every turn. Will they succeed?
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 | Batman: Mask of the Phantasm - (7.6 from 10144 votes)
1993 | Animation | Action | Crime | Family | Mystery | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The Dark Knight fights to save Gotham city from its deadliest enemy.
IMDB Comment: INTELLIGENT AND MATURE BATMAN CARTOON
In this animated adventure that rivals live-action adaptations, the wealthy Bruce Wayne is torn when an old flame returns to Gotham City. At the same time, the Phantasm, a "hero" who's killing Gotham's gangsters, confronts Wayne's alter ego, Batman. Through flashback, the film reveals the origins of Batman's costume and his ongoing rivalry with the devilishly villainous Joker (voiced by Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame).
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 | Carlitos Way - (7.9 from 50042 votes)
1993 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Way underrated
Sprung from prison on a technicality, Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino) vows to use his unexpected second chance to his best advantage. But every time he tries to get out of the rackets, the bad guys pull him back in. Director Brian De Palma stamps his signature electric visual style onto this searing drama about the challenges of trying to go straight in a crooked world. Sean Penn, Viggo Mortensen and John Leguizamo co-star.
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 | Philadelphia - (7.6 from 51672 votes)
1993 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: No one would take on his case... until one man was willing to take on the system.
IMDB Comment: Philadelphia is about life, and making it matter.
Philadelphia attorney Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks, in an Oscar-winning role) launches a wrongful termination suit against the hand that feeds him when his law firm finds out about his HIV-positive status -- and his homosexuality -- and fires him. Denzel Washington co-stars as a homophobic lawyer who reluctantly agrees to take Andy's case in this Jonathan Demme-directed film, the first major-studio picture to tackle the topic of AIDS.
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 | The Remains of the Day - (7.9 from 21327 votes)
1993 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Yes, They Can Still Make 'Em Like They Used To
Dutiful butler Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) dedicates himself wholly to tending Lord Darlington's (James Fox) house, turning a blind eye to Darlington's Nazi sympathies. When housekeeper Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) tries to coax Stevens out of his staid shell, his reluctance may cost him dearly. He finally seeks out Miss Kenton later in life, but is it too late? This Merchant-Ivory period drama was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture.
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 | Whats Eating Gilbert Grape - (7.8 from 49323 votes)
1993 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Arnie knows a secret. His big brother Gilbert is the greatest person on the planet.
IMDB Comment: can you believe Leo is not brain damaged?!
In a backwater Iowa town, Gilbert (Johnny Depp) struggles to take care of his mentally disabled brother, Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio), and provide for the rest of his family. But after falling for the stranded Becky (Juliette Lewis), Gilbert discovers exciting new possibilities for his life. Co-starring Mary Steenburgen, John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover, this tender drama earned DiCaprio an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
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 | Cest arriv prs de chez vous - (7.6 from 12583 votes)
1992 | Comedy | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: A Killer Comedy
IMDB Comment: A disturbing farce
A satirical look at how the media affects and promotes violence in modern society. Spoofing reality television, a fascinated documentary crew follows a charismatic yet unrepentant serial killer on his murder sprees. The crew attempts to objectively document the horror, but as the violence escalates, they ultimately get sucked into participating. Man Bites Dog won the International Critics' Prize at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.
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 | Malcolm X - (7.7 from 22406 votes)
1992 | Biography | Drama | History |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: The Denzel Washington Show.
Spike Lee's Oscar-nominated drama illuminates the life of black nationalist Malcolm X (Denzel Washington), following him from his early days in prison to his conversion to Islam, marriage to Betty Shabazz (Angela Bassett) and discovery of Elijah Mohammad's (Al Freeman Jr.) Nation of Islam writings. When Malcolm turns his back on the Nation of Islam (following a pilgrimage to Mecca), he becomes a murder target.
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 | Of Mice and Men - (7.5 from 14021 votes)
1992 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: We have a dream. Someday, well have a little house and a couple of acres. A place to call home.
IMDB Comment: Beautifully done!
Based on John Steinbeck's 1937 classic tale, this drama tells the story of friends George (Gary Sinise, who also directed) and dim-witted gentle giant Lennie (John Malkovich), who wander the country during the Depression. They find work on a California farm and get closer to realizing their dream of settling down, but it all goes tragically wrong when the boss's wife (Sherilyn Fenn) makes advances.
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 | Scent of a Woman - (7.7 from 50868 votes)
1992 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Col. Frank Slade has a very special plan for the weekend. It involves travel, women, good food, fine wine, the tango, chauffeured limousines and a loaded forty-five. And hes bringing Charlie along for the ride.
IMDB Comment: Modern classic
Hoping to earn some extra cash during the Thanksgiving holiday, poor prep-school student Charlie Simms (Chris O'Donnell) agrees to look after blind -- and cantankerous -- Lt. Col. Frank Slade (Al Pacino, in a tour-de-force performance). Though the callow student and jaded colonel are mismatched, their relationship grows as Simms follows Slade around Manhattan on a string of wild escapades, and Slade is unmasked as a sentimental romantic.
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 | Terminator 2: Judgment Day - (8.5 from 227733 votes)
1991 | Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Its nothing personal
IMDB Comment: the best action film of all time, and NOT due to the CGI
In this sequel, director James Cameron delivers scene after scene of action-packed thrills. A bigger, better Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is gunning for a shape-shifting T-1000 who's out to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong), the son of Sarah (Linda Hamilton), the original Terminator's nemesis. This Extreme Edition of the film includes 16 minutes of unseen footage and other extras.
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 | Delicatessen - (7.9 from 28951 votes)
1991 | Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: A futuristic comic feast
IMDB Comment: One most inventive and original films to grace the silver screen
Gentle clown Louison (Dominique Pinon) moves into a tenement with a deli on the ground floor and falls for the butcher's daughter, Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac). But it's soon discovered that her father (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) is really butchering people ( la Sweeney Todd) and selling the meat to tenants. At a crossroads, Julie must decide whether to remain loyal to her father or expose him to save Louison from becoming the next entre.
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 | Europa - (7.6 from 6801 votes)
1991 | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Another utterly dazzling film from von Trier.
When American pacifist Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr) journeys to post-World War II Germany, he lands a job as a sleeping-car conductor on the nightmarish Europa railway line, where he discovers a group of partisans violently resisting the Allied occupation. Though he steadfastly remains neutral, before long, his lover (Barbara Sukowa) reveals a secret that forces to him make a stand. Lars von Trier directs this surrealistic thriller.
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 | Nikita - (7.5 from 24135 votes)
1990 | Crime | Drama | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The Hit of Paris and London Has Come to America. [US Poster]
IMDB Comment: Accept no substitutes
Internationally acclaimed director Luc Besson delivers the action-packed story of Nikita (Anne Parillaud), a ruthless street junkie whose killer instincts could make her the perfect weapon, in this French film that was remade as Point of No Return in the U.S. Recruited against her will into a secret government organization, Nikita is broken and transformed into a sexy, sophisticated "lethal weapon."
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 | Rosencrantz Guildenstern Are Dead - (7.5 from 9946 votes)
1990 | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: The Play Without the Play
Director Tom Stoppard turns William Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet" topsy-turvy in this witty, existential puzzle box, presenting the play from the view of trivial characters Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth). Beckoned to find the cause of the Danish prince's malaise, the duo strolls into the midst of the royal intrigue. But with no memory of Hamlet (or anything else), they're mystified by their mission.
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 | Do the Right Thing - (7.9 from 26156 votes)
1989 | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Its the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can...
IMDB Comment: That's the double-truth, Ruth
What begins as an uproarious comedy evolves into a provocative, disquieting drama as director Spike Lee chronicles trivial events that bring festering racial tensions to the surface on a sweltering day in a largely black Brooklyn neighborhood. After a number of minor misunderstandings -- and an effort to boycott the local pizza parlor -- a young man (Bill Nunn) lies dead, the pizzeria lies in ashes, and the racial schism is wider than ever.
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 | Driving Miss Daisy - (7.5 from 21944 votes)
1989 | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: The comedy that won a Pulitzer Prize
IMDB Comment: A gem
This four-time Academy Award-winning story based on Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play chronicles the unlikely bond between a genteel but strong-willed Southern matron (Jessica Tandy) and her good-natured African-American chauffeur (Morgan Freeman). It's a contest of wills as they learn how much they have in common, despite their obvious differences. The bumpy road they travel ultimately leads to the friendship of a lifetime.
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 | My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown - (7.8 from 14999 votes)
1989 | Biography | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: A film about life, laughter, and the occasional miracle.
IMDB Comment: A remarkable film and performances by Day-Lewis and Fricker
Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for his emotionally and physically complex portrayal of Irish writer Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy and misdiagnosed as mentally disabled for the first 10 years of his life. The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks with Hugh O'Conor starring as the young Christy, who eventually learned to write using the only body part he could control: his left foot.
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 | When Harry Met Sally... - (7.7 from 48536 votes)
1989 | Comedy | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Can two friends sleep together and still love each other in the morning?
IMDB Comment: One of the best romantic comedies ever!
Can men and women remain friends without sex getting in the way? Nora Ephron's episodic screenplay introduces womanizing, neurotic Harry (Billy Crystal) and ambitious, equally neurotic Sally (Meg Ryan) as chums who resist sexual attraction to maintain their friendship -- a relationship always teetering on the brink of love. As the two draw closer, the question resurfaces: Can they stay just pals? Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby co-star.
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 | Spoorloos - (7.9 from 10262 votes)
1988 | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: How far would you go to find the truth?
A young man obsessively searches for his girlfriend for three years after she disappears into thin air at a rest stop while on vacation. His investigation catches the eye of her calculating abductor, an apparently unassuming professor and family man. Using flashbacks, we see how the kidnapper carefully plans the woman's abduction and contacts the boyfriend, promising to reveal to him the woman's fate. George Sluizer directs this Dutch thriller.
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 | The Last Temptation of Christ - (7.5 from 20481 votes)
1988 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: an alternative reality for Christ
Nikos Kazantzakis's landmark novel comes to life in director Martin Scorsese's moving, spiritual and highly controversial film that challenges the Christian notion that Jesus (Willem Dafoe) was both a man and a divine being. With an all-star cast that includes Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Harry Dean Stanton and David Bowie, the film portrays Jesus as unmistakably human, susceptible to the desires, doubts and temptations that all men face.
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 | The Thin Blue Line - (7.9 from 5188 votes)
1988 | Documentary | Crime | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline: A softcore movie, Dr. Death, a chocolate milkshake, a nosey blonde and The Carol Burnett Show. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.
IMDB Comment: Stunning depiction of a gross miscarriage of justice
Filmmaker Errol Morris's gripping investigation into the murder of a Dallas police officer was responsible for freeing the man who was originally -- and erroneously -- charged with and convicted of the crime. Through archival footage, interviews and reenactments, Morris skillfully makes a case for the innocence of a man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Widely acclaimed, this breakthrough documentary won numerous awards.
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 | Au revoir les enfants - (8.1 from 9524 votes)
1987 | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Terribly sad...but still wonderful
As World War II rages on, two students at a boarding school -- the French-Catholic Julien Quintin (Gaspard Manesse) and the Jewish Jean Bonnet (Raphael Fejto) -- form an unlikely friendship in director Louis Malle's powerfully moving drama based on events from his own life. Although the boys begin as adversaries, they soon find common ground, especially when it becomes clear that Jean is merely trying to survive the tyranny of the Nazis.
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 | Full Metal Jacket - (8.4 from 145788 votes)
1987 | Action | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline: An Epic Story of the Vietnam War [Australia Theatrical]
IMDB Comment: This film's divergent halves confuse too many people
Marine recruits (including Matthew Modine and Vincent D'Onofrio) endure the grueling ordeal of basic training and later face the unrelenting Viet Cong during the 1968 Tet Offensive in this grim Stanley Kubrick drama, based on a novel by Gustav Hasford. One of the most authentic depictions of warfare ever put on the big screen, the film teems with howling madness, stark images and troubling questions about duty, honor and sacrifice.
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 | Raising Arizona - (7.5 from 45959 votes)
1987 | Adventure | Comedy | Crime | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline: A comedy beyond belief.
IMDB Comment: "They GOT more than they can handle!"
Ex-cop Edwina "Ed" McDonnough (Holly Hunter) and her ex-con husband, H.I. (Nicolas Cage), are devastated when they learn they can't have children. Not to worry: They reckon they'll just "borrow" one of furniture magnate Nathan Arizona's (Trey Wilson) new quintuplets. Featuring oodles of idiosyncratic humor, this kidnapping farce from Joel Coen and Ethan Coen is a deft nod to classic screwball comedy. John Goodman and William Forsythe co-star.
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 | The Last Emperor - (7.9 from 23543 votes)
1987 | Biography | Drama | History |
IMDB Tagline: He was the Lord of Ten Thousand Years, the absolute monarch of China. He was born to rule a world of ancient tradition. Nothing prepared him for our world of change.
IMDB Comment: In this unprecedented Sino-Western co-production, Bernardo Bertolucci turned the strange life of final Chinese crown ruler Puyi into a sumptuous epic.
Recounting the last years of China's Ching Dynasty through flashbacks and flash-forwards, this Oscar-winning epic charts the life of Pu Yi (John Lone) -- who ascended the throne at age 3 -- from coddled aristocrat to enlightened insurgent to ordinary citizen. Co-starring Peter O'Toole as Pu Yi's Scottish tutor and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, the lavish drama collected nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
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 | The Princess Bride - (8.1 from 120592 votes)
1987 | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Fantasy | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Scaling the Cliffs of Insanity, Battling Rodents of Unusual Size, Facing torture in the Pit of Despair. - True love has never been a snap.
IMDB Comment: "As you wish" means "I love you."
In this enchantingly cracked fairy tale, the beautiful Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright Penn) and the dashing Westley (Cary Elwes) must overcome staggering odds to find happiness amid six-fingered swordsmen (Christopher Guest), murderous princes (Chris Sarandon), Sicilians (Wallace Shawn) and rodents of unusual size. But even death can't stop these true lovebirds from triumphing. Fred Savage and Peter Falk co-star.
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 | Stand by Me - (8.2 from 86632 votes)
1986 | Adventure | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: For some, its the last real taste of innocence, and the first real taste of life. But for everyone, its the time that memories are made of.
IMDB Comment: Stephen King with a great story
In this Rob Reiner dramatization of Stephen King's novella
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 | The Fly - (7.5 from 33178 votes)
1986 | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Something went wrong in the lab today. Very wrong.
IMDB Comment: Brussels, Belgium
While testing his teleportation device, scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) accidentally merges his cells with those of a housefly. As his reporter girlfriend (Geena Davis) bears witness, Seth slowly -- and quite disgustingly -- morphs into an insect. David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of the Vincent Price original achieves an unlikely concoction of horror, romance and pathos, thanks largely to Goldblum's strangely touching performance.
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 | Mitt liv som hund - (7.7 from 7582 votes)
1985 | Drama | Comedy |
IMDB Tagline: Det kunde ha varit vrre. Jag har faktiskt haft tur. Om man jmfr...
IMDB Comment: the most heartwarming, my best.
This Oscar-nominated gem offers an honest depiction of the often-confusing nature of childhood. Shipped off to live with his uncle for the summer, 12-year-old Ingmar finds unexpected adventures with the help of the town's warmhearted eccentrics. These experiences give him the strength to accept his life and eventually enjoy childhood.
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 | The Breakfast Club - (7.9 from 67965 votes)
1985 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: They only met once, but it changed their lives forever.
IMDB Comment: One of the best portrayals of adolescent life ever done
In writer-director John Hughes's seminal 1980s Brat Pack film, the athlete (Emilio Estevez), the brain (Anthony Michael Hall), the criminal (Judd Nelson), the princess (Molly Ringwald) and the basket case (Ally Sheedy) break through the social barriers of high school during Saturday detention. The disparate group clashes at first but begin to bond as they reveal their feelings and find a common enemy in their bully principal (Paul Gleason).
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 | Amadeus - (8.4 from 93510 votes)
1984 | Drama | Music |
IMDB Tagline: Amadeus. The man. The music. The magic. The madness. The murder. The mystery. The motion picture.
IMDB Comment: The Movie That Made Me Appreciate Mozart
F. Murray Abraham earned a Best Actor Oscar for his imperious performance as Antonio Salieri, a mediocre composer whose churlish young rival, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce), wins immortality with his musical genius. Not happy to see his talent eclipsed, Salieri dons a disguise and deviously plots revenge, obsessed with muffling Mozart's maddening laughter. Milos Forman's masterful drama also won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director.
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 | Paris, Texas - (7.9 from 15694 votes)
1984 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: A place for dreams. A place for heartbreak. A place to pick up the pieces.
IMDB Comment: Excellent and potent tale of loss
Director Wim Wenders is at his offbeat best in this "road movie" about weary drifter Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton). In a quest to rebuild his life and reconnect with his son, Travis -- who's been gone four years -- tries to untangle his thorny past with his wife (Nastassja Kinski). Dean Stockwell shines as Stanton's brother in this haunting study of an emotionally scarred man trying to heal a surfeit of psychological wounds.
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 | The Right Stuff - (7.9 from 23853 votes)
1983 | Adventure | Drama | History |
IMDB Tagline: By flying higher and faster than any other man had ever dared before, Chuck Yeager set the pace for a new breed of hero. Those that had just one thing in common...THE RIGHT STUFF.
IMDB Comment: Historical Drama, at it's best.
Director Philip Kaufman and a stellar cast -- including Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn and Ed Harris -- chronicle NASA's early transition from breaking the sound barrier in 1947 to the expeditions of the Mercury astronauts in the 1960s. Richly variegated and surprisingly funny, this film adaptation of a novel by Tom Wolfe brilliantly depicts the personal, political and technological achievements it took for America to get ahead in the space race.
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 | Blade Runner - (8.3 from 179889 votes)
1982 | Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: A Futuristic Vision Perfected [2007 Final Cut]
IMDB Comment: The Last Great Noir
In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is called out of retirement to snuff a quartet of "replicants" -- androids consigned to slave labor on remote planets. They've escaped to Earth seeking their creator and a way to extend their short life spans. Director Ridley Scott's reedited version comes with a different ending and the omission of Ford's narration, giving the film a different tone.
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 | Fanny och Alexander - (8.1 from 13944 votes)
1982 | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline: En film av Ingmar Bergman
IMDB Comment: Probably Bergman's best
Director Ingmar Bergman's autobiographical drama, the 1984 Best Foreign Film Oscar winner, depicts a family in crisis after its lively patriarch (Allan Edwall) dies unexpectedly, leaving his grieving wife (Ewa Froling) desperate to provide stability for her children. The widow marries a minister, but their new life proves to be foreboding and lonesome, so it's up to the children's grandmother (Gunn Wallgren) to infuse joy into their existence.
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 | Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan - (7.8 from 35354 votes)
1982 | Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance.
IMDB Comment: Run Silent, Run Deep Space.
To escape his desk job, Adm. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) returns to the USS
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 | Gallipoli - (7.7 from 13848 votes)
1981 | Adventure | Drama | History | War |
IMDB Tagline: Peter Weirs film of...Gallipoli
IMDB Comment: A great anti-war film
Australian Director Peter Weir takes on one of his country's most tragic moments in history: the World War I confrontation with the German allied Turks. As the film leads up to the battle in act three, we get to know the young men destined to be casualties of war. A young Mel Gibson (on the heels of his successful turn in Mad Max) plays one of the innocent doomed. This poignant war drama swept the Australian Film Institute Awards with eight wins.
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 | The Evil Dead - (7.6 from 43621 votes)
1981 | Horror | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Can They Be Stopped?
IMDB Comment: The be all end all of horror movies!!!!!!!!!!!!
After all his teen pals have become possessed, flesh-eating zombies while vacationing at a cabin in the Tennessee woodlands, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) tries to overpower the spirits of the evil dead and save his own life. Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, The Grudge) writes and directs this special effects-laden low-budget thriller that co-stars Theresa Tilly, Betsy Baker, Ellen Sandweiss and Richard DeManincor.
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 | Breaker Morant - (8.1 from 5985 votes)
1980 | Drama | History | War |
IMDB Tagline: When they speak of heroes - of villains - of men who look for action, who choose between honor and revenge - they tell the story of Breaker Morant
IMDB Comment: Powerful war movie
Three Australian soldiers (Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown and Lewis Fitz-Gerald) find themselves court-martialed for murder in 1901, at the end of South Africa's bloody Boer War. With just one day to prepare a defense, attorney major J.F. Thomas (Jack Thompson) must retrace his clients' steps -- and prove they acted under orders. Based on a play by Kenneth Ross, the film won 10 Australian Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.
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 | The Blues Brothers - (7.9 from 61434 votes)
1980 | Action | Comedy | Music |
IMDB Tagline: Theyll never get caught. Theyre on a mission from God.
IMDB Comment: Wild "musical comedy" offers long-lasting fun and excitement.
John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd lay waste to Chicago as the title characters, a pair of two-bit crooks on a quest to save the Catholic orphanage where they were raised by reuniting their former band for a charity gig. Along the way, the duo runs afoul of Illinois state troopers, a neo-Nazi leader (Henry Gibson) and a vindictive ex-girlfriend (Carrie Fisher). Musical turns by Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown punctuate the frenetic action.
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 | Being There - (8.0 from 24200 votes)
1979 | Drama | Comedy |
IMDB Tagline: Getting there is half the fun; being there is all of it!
IMDB Comment: A great work from two great men
In director Hal Ashby's Oscar-winning satire, illiterate gardener Chance (Peter Sellers) is run over by wealthy Eve (Shirley MacLaine) and suddenly becomes educated gent Chauncey Gardiner, thanks to Eve's misunderstanding of his mumbled introduction. Taken in by Eve's family, Chance simply regurgitates what he's heard on TV -- from gardening instructions to economic predictions -- and Washington's political elite hail him as their next star.
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 | Kramer vs. Kramer - (7.7 from 24478 votes)
1979 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: There are three sides to this love story!
IMDB Comment: Le Divorce Et LInfant
Ted (Dustin Hoffman) is a career-driven yuppie -- until he finds out his dissatisfied wife (Meryl Streep) is leaving him and their 6-year-old son. But just as Ted begins to love being a full-time parent, his wife reappears to reclaim the boy. Poignant and beautifully acted, this cinematic tearjerker swept the 1979 Academy Awards, winning Oscars for Hoffman and Streep in addition to Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay honors.
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 | Jui kuen - (7.6 from 6739 votes)
1978 | Comedy | Action |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: bruce lee meets the three stooges...
Jackie Chan stars as Wong Fei-Hung, whose mischievous antics land him in hot water. Having tolerated enough of his son's mishaps, Fei-Hung's dad enlists his sadistic uncle (Siu Tien Yuen), who specializes in drunken-style kung fu, to teach the lad some discipline. Directed by Woo-ping Yuen (fight choreographer for The Matrix), this Hong Kong martial-arts comedy helped establish the slapstick fighting style that would become Chan's trademark.
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 | Taxi Driver - (8.6 from 149188 votes)
1976 | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: On every street in every city, theres a nobody who dreams of being a somebody.
IMDB Comment: A Shattering Tale In First Person Singular
Martin Scorsese crafts a violently prophetic, gripping vision of urban decay and insanity in which mentally unstable Vietnam vet Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) drives a cab through the sleaziest streets of pregentrified New York City and befriends a child hooker (Jodie Foster). The groundbreaking film earned four Oscar nominations, including nods for Best Picture, Best Score, and for De Niro and Foster's haunting performances.
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 | All the Presidents Men - (8.0 from 31726 votes)
1976 | Drama | History | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: At times it looked like it might cost them their jobs, their reputations, and maybe even their lives.
IMDB Comment: THE GREATEST POLITICAL THRILLER EVER!!!
The film that launched a thousand journalism school students, All the President's Men chronicles how the work of reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) contributed to the public downfall of President Richard M. Nixon. The duo connected a Washington, D.C., hotel break-in with a Nixon "dirty tricks" team assigned to discredit Democratic rivals, launching a series of tense events that forced Nixon to resign.
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 | One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - (8.9 from 204611 votes)
1975 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: If hes crazy, what does that make you?
IMDB Comment: One Flew Over One of the Best Movies Ever Made!!! (And that person was me)
While serving time for insanity at a state mental hospital, implacable rabble-rouser Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) inspires his fellow patients to rebel against the authoritarian rule of head nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher). This Milos Forman masterpiece was the first film since It Happened One Night (1934) to take all five major Oscar prizes for picture, director, screenplay, actor (Nicholson) and actress (Fletcher).
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 | Barry Lyndon - (8.1 from 38323 votes)
1975 | Drama | Romance | War |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Great Paintings Come To Life
Based on William Makepeace Thackeray's novel, this gorgeously painted tale yields a slow-moving portrait of a young Irishman (Ryan O'Neal) who moves up the social ladder through soldiering, spying and a marriage to a wealthy countess (Marisa Berenson). Although this Stanley Kubrick-directed film was a box office flop, it was eventually recognized as a masterpiece, winning four Academy Awards (including Best Cinematography).
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 | Picnic at Hanging Rock - (7.7 from 10265 votes)
1975 | Drama | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Australias First International Hit! [Video Australia]
IMDB Comment: If you're up for a free-form dramatization of the word 'unease'...
To celebrate Valentine's Day, teachers at an austere Australian boarding school take a group of students on an outing to the mysterious Hanging Rock. Soon after their arrival, the headmistress and three girls go exploring and mysteriously disappear. One week later, a sole survivor returns to school -- with hardly any memory of the incident. Peter Weir's haunting tragedy alludes to several explanations but offers no clear-cut answers.
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 | Three Days of the Condor - (7.5 from 13671 votes)
1975 | Drama | Mystery | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: His CIA code name is Condor. In the next seventy-two hours almost everyone he trusts will try to kill him.
IMDB Comment: The best thriller I've ever seen
Robert Redford stars as Joe Turner, a New York-based CIA researcher who returns from lunch to find all his co-workers murdered. In the next 72 hours, everyone Turner trusts will try to kill him, in this conspiracy thriller by director Sydney Pollack. Double-crossed and forced to go underground, Turner kidnaps a young woman (Faye Dunaway) and holds her hostage as he unravels the mystery. Max von Sydow and Cliff Robertson co-star.
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 | Paper Moon - (8.1 from 9363 votes)
1973 | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: As P.T. Barnum put it, Theres a sucker born every minute.
IMDB Comment: The Depression- The Good Guys Started it!!!
A con man (Ryan O'Neal) and his precocious "daughter" (Tatum O'Neal, in an Oscar-winning role as Best Supporting Actress) grift their way across the heartland of depression-era America in director Peter Bogdanovich's nostalgic look at the 1930s. As the two try desperately to scrounge up enough money to live on, their "father/daughter relationship" soon becomes a business partnership when they realize they need each other for survival.
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 | Serpico - (7.7 from 24654 votes)
1973 | Biography | Crime | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Many of his fellow officers considered him the most dangerous man alive - An honest cop.
IMDB Comment: Pacino's breakthrough is a timeless classic that shouldn't be missed
Based on the real-life story of New York City undercover cop Frank Serpico (an honest man who was grievously wounded for refusing to take part in the corruption forced upon him by his peers), this movie ranks among Al Pacino's greatest film roles. Directed by Sidney Lumet, Serpico is at once an indictment of corrupted authority and a shining testament to one man's effort to reform the New York City Police Department.
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 | The Exorcist - (8.1 from 98830 votes)
1973 | Drama | Horror | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The movie youve been waiting for...without the wait.
IMDB Comment: The Exorcist....more than a mere horror film
When movie actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) begins to suspect that an evil spirit is possessing her young daughter, Regan (Linda Blair), she calls in two priests (Max von Sydow and Jason Miller) to try and exorcise the demon against frightening and formidable odds. Writer William Peter Blatty scored an Academy Award for his big-screen adaptation of his own novel; the film also won an Oscar for Best Sound.
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 | The Last Detail - (7.5 from 6870 votes)
1973 | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: No *#@!!* Navys going to give some poor **!!@* kid eight years in the #@!* brig without me taking him out for the time of his *#@!!* life.
IMDB Comment: Beautifully Crafted Piece of Character
In this classic 1970s road movie, Officers Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and Mulhall (Otis Young) must escort a young sailor (Randy Quaid) to a New England military prison, where the 18-year-old is about to serve eight years for a trivial offense. Determined to cram all the living they can into one lost weekend, the boys booze, brawl and fornicate their way to their ultimate destination. Both Nicholson and Quaid deliver Oscar-nominated performances.
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 | Solyaris - (8.0 from 19032 votes)
1972 | Adventure | Drama | Mystery | Romance | Sci-Fi |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: the dream language
Scientist Kris Kelvin travels to the mysterious planet Solaris to investigate the failure of an earlier mission. But when his long-dead wife appears on the space station, he realizes the planet has the power to materialize human desires. Director Andrei Tarkovsky's sci-fi cult classic, based on Stanislaw Lem's novel, presents an uncompromisingly unique and poetic meditation on space travel and its physical and existential ramifications.
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 | And Now for Something Completely Different - (7.5 from 9292 votes)
1971 | Comedy |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: An introduction to Britain's famous comedy team.
Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam provide a hilarious romp through their madcap minds in this compilation of the best sketches from their hit television show. Featured favorites include "The Lumberjack Song," "Hell's Grannies," "The Upper-Class Twit of the Year Race" and "The Dead Parrot." Regular Monty Python guest stars Carol Cleveland and Connie Booth also appear.
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 | Dirty Harry - (7.9 from 39291 votes)
1971 | Action | Crime | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: You dont assign him to murder cases, You just turn him loose.
IMDB Comment: Classic renegade justice
When a madman dubbed the "Scorpio Killer" terrorizes San Francisco, hard-boiled cop Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) -- famous for his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement -- is tasked with hunting down the psychopath. Harry eventually collars Scorpio in the process of rescuing a kidnap victim, only to see him walk on technicalities. Now, the maverick detective is determined to nail the maniac himself.
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 | Harold and Maude - (8.1 from 27755 votes)
1971 | Comedy | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: They will defy everything youve ever seen or heard about screen lovers! [Video]
IMDB Comment: Ashby The Great
Death-obsessed teen Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) is being hassled by his domineering mother (Vivian Pickles) to play the dating game, but he'd much rather attend funerals, which is where he meets the feisty Maude (Ruth Gordon), a geriatric widow who's high on life. The seemingly mismatched pair forms a bond that turns into a highly unconventional -- but ultimately satisfying romance in this comical cult favorite from director Hal Ashby.
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 | The Last Picture Show - (8.1 from 14844 votes)
1971 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Anarene, Texas, 1951. Nothing much has changed...
IMDB Comment: It Makes You Sweat
There's not much to do in the windswept Texas hamlet of Anarene, where the town's only cinema is about to close forever. So high schoolers Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) lust after incorrigible flirt Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd) while trying to chart their uncertain futures. When Duane heads for Korea after joining the service and Jacy gets shipped off to college, Sonny is left behind in a veritable ghost town.
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 | Walkabout - (7.7 from 6657 votes)
1971 | Adventure | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: A boy and girl face the challenge of the worlds last frontier. Dangers they had never known before... A people they had never seen before...
IMDB Comment: Beautiful lead character and a film with a subtle message
Horrific circumstances strand an urban brother and sister (Lucien John and Jenny Agutter) in the Australian outback, where they're found by an aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) who helps the pair return to their city. As they wander, the siblings survive danger with the help of their new friend. The bond between the three grows, but when they reach civilization, the aboriginal boy finds he's unwelcome.
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 | Willy Wonka the Chocolate Factory - (7.8 from 45712 votes)
1971 | Family | Fantasy | Musical |
IMDB Tagline: Its everybodys non-pollutionary, anti-institutionary, pro-confectionery factory of fun!
IMDB Comment: A Good Message In Which Goodness Prevails
Eccentric candy man Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) prompts a worldwide frenzy when he announces that golden tickets hidden inside five of his delicious candy bars will admit their lucky holders (including Peter Ostrum and Jack Albertson) into his top-secret confectionary. But does Wonka have an agenda hidden amid a world of Oompa Loompas and chocolate rivers? Mel Stuart directs this Oscar-nominated fantasy based on Roald Dahl's award-winning book.
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 | Five Easy Pieces - (7.5 from 11480 votes)
1970 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: He Rode The Fast Lane On The Road To Nowhere.
IMDB Comment: When There's a Fire In Your Heart
In director Bob Rafelson's penetrating character study, a promising concert pianist (Jack Nicholson) chucks it all to work on a California oil rig but returns home to confront the cultured and dysfunctional family he left behind when he learns his father is ill. With Nicholson's famed "chicken salad sandwich" scene, Five Easy Pieces catapulted him into Hollywood's big leagues and helped cement him as an A-list star.
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 | Patton - (8.1 from 38204 votes)
1970 | Biography | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: The Classic War Movie
Gen. George S. Patton (George C. Scott) earned the nickname "Blood and Guts" for his determination on the battlefield. This epic-scale production follows the commander as he guides his troops across Africa and Europe, illuminating a man whose life was defined by war. Director Franklin J. Schaffner's multiple Oscar winner is a character study masquerading as a World War II film, with astonishing combat scenes and reflection on Patton's inner life.
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 | Z - (8.1 from 8097 votes)
1969 | Crime | Drama | History | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: conspiracy, tension and
Based on true events, director Costa-Gavras's Oscar-winning film closely parallels the real-life assassination of a Greek doctor and humanist whose 1963 murder led to public scandal and eventual overthrow of the democratic government in Greece. Part mystery and part thriller, the film made its mark as a groundbreaking political roman clef, and its edge-of-your-seat plot, vrit photography and driving score resonate even today.
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 | Bullitt - (7.5 from 20163 votes)
1968 | Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Steve McQueen As Bullitt
IMDB Comment: Maximum Cool
Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen, who serves as the prototype for every movie cop who refuses to play by the book) must babysit a gangster for 48 hours. But when hit men snuff the witness, Bullitt won't be stopped in his quest for vengeance. This classic 1960s thriller earned immortality in part for a memorable 100-mph car-chase sequence that saw two automobiles bottom out their shock absorbers roaring through San Francisco's hills.
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 | Night of the Living Dead - (8.0 from 37794 votes)
1968 | Horror | Sci-Fi |
IMDB Tagline: They keep coming back in a bloodthirsty lust for HUMAN FLESH!...
IMDB Comment: The king of low budget horror films
As dead bodies inexplicably return to life and feast on human flesh, young Barbara (Judith O'Dea) joins a group of survivors in a farmhouse hoping to protect themselves from the hordes of advancing zombies. But soon enough, only one person remains. Writer-director George A. Romero's low-budget horror classic continues to inspire heebie-jeebies, in part because of the randomness of the zombies' targets.
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 | Oliver! - (7.6 from 8909 votes)
1968 | Crime | Drama | Family | Musical |
IMDB Tagline: More of a Masterpiece Than a Musical! [re-release]
IMDB Comment: Broadway to Hollywood transition...SUCCESS!!!
Director Carol Reed's lively musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's classic tale stars Mark Lester as the titular orphan who escapes the workhouse and is taken under the wing of wily pickpocket Fagin (Ron Moody). Befriended by the crafty Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and resented by the brutish Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed), Oliver navigates his way through 19th-century London in this highly touted film that captured six Oscars, including Best Picture.
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 | Planet of the Apes - (8.0 from 55405 votes)
1968 | Adventure | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Somewhere in the universe there must be something better than man. In a matter of time, an astronaut will wing through the centuries and find the answer. He may find the most terrifying one of all on the planet where apes are the rulers and man the beast.
IMDB Comment: Get your hands off this movie, you damn dirty remake!
Charlton Heston stars in one of the '60s' most beloved camp classics. Bewildered astronaut George Taylor (Heston) crash-lands on a strange planet ruled by intelligent apes who use primitive humans for experimentation and sport. Taylor quickly finds himself among the hunted as he struggles to escape the apes' power -- and uncover their darkest secret.
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 | Cool Hand Luke - (8.3 from 43688 votes)
1967 | Crime | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: What weve got here is failure to communicate.
IMDB Comment: real cool
"What we have here is a failure to communicate." Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is a man who likes to do things his own way, which leads to a world of hurt when he ends up in a Southern prison camp -- and on the wrong side of its warden (Strother Martin). George Kennedy copped an Oscar as a fellow prisoner who tries to break Luke and later comes to revere him. The cast also includes a young Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton and Joe Don Baker.
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 | Guess Whos Coming to Dinner - (7.8 from 11524 votes)
1967 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: a love story of today
IMDB Comment: Sorry, guys, it is a sell-out
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn star as wealthy Californians who consider themselves progressive until their only daughter (Katharine Houghton) brings home her African American fianc (Sidney Poitier) in this snapshot of race relations in the late 1960s. The film earned two Academy Awards (for Hepburn's performance and William Rose's screenplay) and eight other nominations. Stanley Kramer directs.
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 | In Cold Blood - (8.1 from 10291 votes)
1967 | Crime | Drama | History |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Meticulous Celluloid Version Of Truman Capote's Book
Based on Truman Capote's nonfiction novel of the same name and filmed in the house where the real-life incident occurred, this chilling tale follows two drifters (Robert Blake and Scott Wilson) who allegedly murder a rich Kansas family and flee to Mexico. Nominated for four Oscars, this disturbing black-and-white movie paints a compassionate portrait of the Clutter family ... and their killers. John Forsythe also stars.
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 | To Sir, with Love - (7.6 from 5420 votes)
1967 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: A story as fresh as the girls in their minis. . .and as tough as the kids from Londons East End! [UK Theatrical]
IMDB Comment: Touching film; anchored by Poitiers flawless performance
Sidney Poitier stars as Mark Thackeray, an engineer by training who reluctantly takes a teaching job in a working-class London high school. His unruly students (played by an impressive group of unknowns) assume they'll easily gain the upper hand. Poitier, of course, has other ideas. Eventually he wins the students over, changing their lives -- and his -- in the process.
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 | A Man for All Seasons - (8.1 from 12214 votes)
1966 | Biography | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: ...a motion picture for all times!
IMDB Comment: Definitely worth watching every single season
When Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) seeks approval from the English aristocracy to divorce his wife and marry commoner Anne Boleyn, Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) finds himself caught between a murderous king and the powerful Roman Catholic Church. Richly crafted with a fine supporting cast, director Fred Zinnemann's period drama swept the 1966 Oscars, winning six golden statuettes, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director.
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 | La battaglia di Algeri - (8.2 from 13170 votes)
1966 | Drama | History | War |
IMDB Tagline: The French Colonel...who was forced even to torture! One of the many women...who stopped at nothing to win! The Algerian Street Boy...who became a rebel hero!
IMDB Comment: Great war movie? Yes---and maybe the best POLITICAL movie ever.
One of the most influential films in the history of political cinema, Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers focuses on the events of 1957, a key year in Algeria's struggle for independence from France. Shot in the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film vividly re-creates the tumultuous Algerian uprising against the occupying French. The violence soon escalates on both sides in this war drama that's still astonishingly relevant.
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 | Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - (8.1 from 18773 votes)
1966 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: You are cordially invited to George and Marthas for an evening of fun and games.
IMDB Comment: Distilled Human Viciousness
On a serene New England campus, emasculated professor George (Richard Burton) and his rancorous wife, Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), turn an evening of cocktails into an unrelenting onslaught of wrenching disclosures and bellowed epithets. Soon, the couple's guests -- junior professor Nick (George Segal) and his wife, Honey (Sandy Dennis) -- get sucked into the vortex of the warring duo's unbounded fury. Taylor nabbed an Oscar for her role.
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 | Pierrot le fou - (7.6 from 6223 votes)
1965 | Comedy | Crime | Drama | Musical | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Crime Story and Musical, Melodrama and Grotesque Comedy
Director Jean-Luc Godard's popular 1965 drama captures '60s French cool as only Godard could depict it. After attending a mindless party full of shallow chatter, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) suddenly feels a desperate need to escape and runs away with his baby-sitter, Marianna (Anna Karina). But Marianna's dark past still haunts her, and what follows is a roller-coaster ride filled with passion and desperation as the two lovers meet their fate.
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 | Fail-Safe - (8.0 from 7904 votes)
1964 | Adventure | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The screen zeros in on the most suspenseful adventure drama of our age!
IMDB Comment: A Great Film!
Director Sidney Lumet transforms the doomsday scenario played for laughs in Dr. Strangelove into a taut thriller. When a computer glitch sends a bomber crew on a suicide mission to Moscow, the U.S. president (Henry Fonda) agonizes over how to stop it. Will Fonda tell the Russians to shoot down the plane? Global thermonuclear war may hinge on his decision.
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 | Les parapluies de Cherbourg - (7.8 from 6759 votes)
1964 | Drama | Musical | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: FOR ALL THE YOUNG LOVERS OF THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD...
IMDB Comment: Changing The Wallpaper
Beautiful umbrella-store clerk Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) and charming gas station attendant Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) fall in love in the rainy coastal town of Cherbourg, but their romance is cut short when Guy is drafted into the army in this singular cinematic classic. French director Jacques Demy's musical love story is an explosion of color and emotion, in which every word of dialogue is sung to melodies of beloved composer Michel Legrand.
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 | Zulu - (7.9 from 12324 votes)
1964 | Action | Adventure | Drama | History | War |
IMDB Tagline: Dwarfing The Mightiest! Towering Over The Greatest!
IMDB Comment: Courage, Honor, Humanity .... War
Based on a real-life battle, Zulu follows a group of British soldiers (led by Michael Caine, in his first starring role) stationed in South Africa who must defend their tiny outpost against an attack by an overwhelming force of Zulu warriors. Outnumbered 40 to 1, the stoic British soldiers are still ready to fight to the finish. Richard Burton narrates this epic war film shot on location in Natal.
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 | 8 - (8.2 from 28416 votes)
1963 | Drama | Fantasy |
IMDB Tagline: A picture that goes beyond what men think about - because no man ever thought about it in quite this way!
IMDB Comment: A Five Martini Cinematic Experience
Dog-tired movie director Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) retreats to thoughts of yesteryear when his producers, his wife (Anouk Aimee) and his mistress (Sandra Milo) all pressure him to start making another movie. Director Federico Fellini's semiautobiographical rumination on the joys and rigors of filmmaking -- as well as lovers past and present -- won two Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.
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 | Charade - (8.0 from 21936 votes)
1963 | Comedy | Mystery | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: You can expect the unexpected when they play...Charade
IMDB Comment: They Don't Make 'Em Like this Anymore
Cary Grant stars as Peter, who may or may not be a flimflam man who aids the recently widowed Regina (Audrey Hepburn) in her mission to recover a fortune hidden by her late husband. But three sinister crooks (Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy) -- who'll stop at nothing -- also covet the loot. A cast of legendary stars has chemistry to burn in director Stanley Donen's suave comedy with an Oscar-nominated score by Henry Mancini.
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 | Tengoku to jigoku - (8.2 from 7510 votes)
1963 | Crime | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: I was enthralled from start to finish.
Known for his historical epics, director Akira Kurosawa was also a fan of American film noir and detective novels -- which explains why he based High and Low (also known as Heaven and Hell) on an Ed McBain story. Toshir Mifune plays a wealthy corporate boss who must choose between saving his company and paying the ransom for his chauffeur's kidnapped child. Kurosawa uses his brilliant visual style to reinforce the film's sociological themes.
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 | Jules et Jim - (7.8 from 11524 votes)
1962 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: You end up loving it!
Writers Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) are close friends who fall in love with the same woman, the unpredictable Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), amid the turbulence of World War I Paris in one of director Franois Truffaut's best-loved films, adapted from the novel by Henri-Pierre Roch. What results is a decades-long love triangle that both tests and strengthens the bond between the two men.
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 | Nz w wodzie - (7.6 from 6386 votes)
1962 | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Surprisingly free of violence
Director Roman Polanski ratchets up the suspense with a story that takes place almost entirely within the confined setting of a sailboat owned by a wealthy journalist and his much younger wife. On their way to the lake for a weekend of sailing, the couple invites a young hitchhiker to join them on their boat. But hostility looms as each man tries to humiliate the other in front of the woman.
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 | Tsubaki Sanjr - (8.0 from 8367 votes)
1962 | Action | Adventure | Comedy | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Sanjuro is the sequel to Yojimbo but better.
Akira Kurosawa's sequel to Yojimbo is a dark comedy about surly Sanjuro (Toshir Mifune), a larger-than-life samurai who, adrift in an era of fading tradition and increasing lawlessness, instructs a gang of scheming radicals in samurai wisdom. An unlikely hero who loves an action-packed swordfight and is quick with the sarcasm, Sanjuro doesn't always practice what he preaches, but he always remains true to himself.
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 | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? - (8.0 from 12040 votes)
1962 | Crime | Drama | Horror | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Sister, sister, oh so fair, why is there blood all over your hair?
IMDB Comment: Impressive Thriller
In this Grand Guignol chiller, Hudson sisters Jane (Bette Davis) and Blanche (Joan Crawford), both aging actresses, share a rotting Los Angeles mansion, where Jane, once a vaudeville headliner, remains lost in her deranged childhood fantasies. When a devastating car crash -- blamed on a drunken Jane -- leaves Blanche wheelchair-bound, her increasingly psychotic sister seizes the chance to settle a jealous score.
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 | Splendor in the Grass - (7.6 from 5746 votes)
1961 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: A LOVE STORY UNLIKE ANY OTHERS !!
IMDB Comment: Powerful Movie With A Timeless Message
Young lovers Deanie Loomis (Natalie Wood) and Bud Stamper (Warren Beatty, in his big-screen debut) find their awakening sexuality at odds with their own moral standards -- and those of their 1920s rural Kansas community. But trying to resist their carnal urges leads to mutual heartbreak ... and to madness for the fragile Deanie. Director Elia Kazan's profile of the repercussions of pent-up pubescent lust netted an Oscar for Best Screenplay.
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 | The Guns of Navarone - (7.6 from 14072 votes)
1961 | Action | Drama | War | Adventure |
IMDB Tagline: Still! The Greatest High Adventure Ever Filmed! [re-issue]
IMDB Comment: This has everything that I'm looking for in a classic war movie...
The Germans will annihilate thousands of British soldiers trapped in Greece unless help arrives quickly. But the dreaded guns of Navarone will destroy any rescue ship that comes within their mighty reach. Can a commando team of Allied soldiers and Greek partisans (including Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven) succeed in doing the impossible? Classics fans will love the must-see bonus features.
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 | bout de souffle - (8.0 from 20024 votes)
1960 | Crime | Drama | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The film that was banned for 4 years. Why..? (original Finnish poster tagline)
IMDB Comment: Too cool for (film) school
After shooting a cop, young thief Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) meets and shacks up with Patricia (Jean Seberg), an American who sells the
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 | Lavventura - (7.9 from 6581 votes)
1960 | Drama | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: A fine series of tableaux, but not a great film.
Italian superstar Monica Vitti intrigues as a rich woman vacationing on a resort island in the Mediterranean who goes on a search for a missing friend, an investigation that evolves into a search for love and the meaning of life. As the breakthrough film for Michelangelo Antonioni -- the man who would go on to direct Blow-Up -- this art-house classic was discussed and debated by critics the world over in 1960 and won the Jury Prize at Cannes.
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 | Peeping Tom - (7.8 from 8861 votes)
1960 | Crime | Drama | Horror | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Years ahead of its time and still one of the most disturbing and psychologically complex horror films ever made! (DVD)
IMDB Comment: bizarre
A disturbed filmmaker (Carl Boehm) literally kills with his camera in this ahead-of-its-time shocker from revered British director Michael Powell. Like the same year's Psycho, this film's combination of voyeurism, eroticism and horror repelled some 1960 critics, but its cult reputation soared in later years. Moira Shearer (star of Powell's The Red Shoes) makes an appearance, as does Powell himself (as Boehm's father in flashback).
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 | Tirez sur le pianiste - (7.6 from 5230 votes)
1960 | Drama | Thriller | Romance | Crime |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: 9 out of 10
Charlie (Charles Aznavour), a once-famous pianist, is now stroking the keys in a Parisian saloon. When his brothers get in trouble with gangsters, Charlie inadvertently gets swept up in the chaos and is forced to rejoin the family he once fled. This highly stylized melodrama from director Franois Truffaut employs all of the hallmarks of French new wave cinema: extended voice-overs, out-of-sequence camera shots, sudden jump-cutting and more.
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 | Les quatre cents coups - (8.1 from 22795 votes)
1959 | Crime | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Angel faces hell-bent for violence.
IMDB Comment: Memorable Story With Thoughtful Direction By Truffaut
After young Antoine (Jean-Pierre Laud) runs away, life on the streets of Paris leads to nothing but trouble and guilt in this gritty feature film debut from legendary director Franois Truffaut. Though he turns to petty crime to survive, Antoine's remorse often leads him to try to return things he's stolen -- with disastrous results. The film was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
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 | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin - (8.0 from 11289 votes)
1958 | Action | Adventure | Comedy |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Another Masterpiece of Master Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa directs this spirited period action-adventure in which two conniving peasants (Minoru Chiaki and Makatari Fujiwara) are tasked with smuggling a general (Toshir Mifune), a princess (Misa Uehara) and the remains of her family's wealth through mountainous, hostile territory in feudal Japan. Recognized as an influence on director George Lucas's original Star Wars movie, this humorous epic samurai film has been newly restored.
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 | Mon oncle - (7.7 from 5551 votes)
1958 | Comedy |
IMDB Tagline: Mr. Hulot Ventures Into Suburbia...And Disrupts...Disassembles...And Demolishes With His Very Subtle Satire
IMDB Comment: Tati's Masterpiece
Jacques Tati plays Monsieur Hulot, a self-absorbed chucklehead wrestling with neoteric gadgetry -- and losing -- in this satirical masterpiece that makes sport of mechanization, class distinctions and modernity. While visiting his sister's surreal, ultra-trendy home, Hulot finds himself incessantly at odds with newfangled contraptions that get the better of him. The tongue-in-cheek French comedy garnered a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
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 | Paths of Glory - (8.6 from 42928 votes)
1957 | Crime | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline: Never has the screen thrust so deeply into the guts of war!
IMDB Comment: An anti-war movie hitting closer to home.
Writer-director Stanley Kubrick's powerful anti-war statement stars Kirk Douglas as Col. Dax, the commander of a weary regiment of French army soldiers stationed along the western front during World War I. When French generals order the regiment to carry out what amounts to a suicide mission against heavy German fire, some of the men refuse. But when the army tries three of the soldiers on charges of cowardice, Dax acts as their defense attorney.
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 | Det sjunde inseglet - (8.4 from 35284 votes)
1957 | Drama | Fantasy |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Top ten favorites. The Seventh Seal.
Exhausted and disillusioned, a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) makes the journey home after years of combat in the Crusades. But when the black-robed figure of Death confronts him, the knight challenges him to a game of chess. A powerful meditation on the existence of God and the meaning of life, this drama is considered one of Ingmar Bergman's best and took the Cannes Film Festival Prize in 1957.
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 | The Killing - (8.2 from 23762 votes)
1956 | Crime | Film-Noir | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: These 5 Men Had a $2,000,000 Secret Until One of them told this Woman!
IMDB Comment: Really fantastic film noir
In Stanley Kubrick's noir classic, career criminal Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) plans one last heist before settling down to a respectable life with Fay (Colleen Gray). Clay and several cohorts devise a complex racetrack robbery, but inner tensions and bad luck work against them. Kubrick wrote the script with Jim Thompson, who penned pulp novels such as
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 | The Searchers - (8.0 from 29124 votes)
1956 | Adventure | Drama | Western |
IMDB Tagline: The story that sweeps from the great Southwest to the Canadian border in VistaVision.
IMDB Comment: Forgotten theme
After his entire family is viciously wiped out, hardened war veteran Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) embarks on a long journey to find his only surviving niece, Debbie (Natalie Wood), who has been captured by hostile Comanche Indians. Director John Ford's richly scenic -- and controversial -- Western also stars Vera Miles, Hank Worden, Ward Bond and Jeffrey Hunter, as Edwards's riding companion, Martin Pawley.
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 | East of Eden - (8.1 from 12283 votes)
1955 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Of what a girl did . . . what a boy did ... of ecstasy and revenge!
IMDB Comment: Deans Best Performance-An Outstanding Film
Set in California's Salinas Valley, Elia Kazan's adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel centers on Cal Trask (James Dean), the black sheep son of a stern farmer(Raymond Massey). Tired of being compared to his perfect brother, troublemaker Cal tries in vain to please his father. The two finally face off when Cal confronts his dad with the truth about his allegedly dead mother. Julie Harris, Jo Van Fleet and Burl Ives co-star.
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 | Les diaboliques - (8.3 from 13876 votes)
1955 | Crime | Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: See it, be amazed at it, but... BE QUIET ABOUT IT! (original Finnish poster tagline)
IMDB Comment: Perhaps the greatest suspense film ever
The ailing spouse (Vra Clouzot) and manhandled mistress (Simone Signoret) of a sadistic boarding school headmaster (Paul Meurisse) plan and execute the man's murder -- but their plan goes haywire when the corpse vanishes. Henri-Georges Clouzot directs his real-life wife in this icy, black-and-white masterwork of homicide and Grand Guignol suspense, which ranked No. 49 on the Bravo network's "100 Scariest Movie Moments."
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 | Rebel Without a Cause - (7.9 from 26609 votes)
1955 | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Teenage terror torn from todays headlines
IMDB Comment: My favorite Nick Ray film
When Jim Stark (James Dean) arrives in a new town with his troubled past firmly in tow, he quickly falls for the girl next door (Natalie Wood) and befriends the vulnerable Plato (Sal Mineo), forming a surrogate family fueled by alienation. From a deadly game of chicken to the spectacular climax at Los Angeles's Griffith Park Observatory, director Nicholas Ray's Oscar-nominated portrait of teen angst provided a jolt to 1950s America.
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 | Shichinin no samurai - (8.8 from 93039 votes)
1954 | Action | Adventure |
IMDB Tagline: Will Take Its Place With the Seven Greatest Films of All Time!
IMDB Comment: Kurosawas triumphant epic- totally & successfully driven by character and story
Akira Kurosawa's heroic tale of honor and duty begins with master samurai Kambei (Takashi Shimura) posing as a monk to save a kidnapped child. Impressed by his bravery, a group of farmers begs him to defend their village from encroaching bandits. Kambei agrees and assembles a group of six other samurai, and together they build a militia with the villagers while the bandits loom nearby. Soon the raids begin, culminating in a bloody battle.
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 | La strada - (8.2 from 17063 votes)
1954 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Youve been hearing about a great picture called La Strada (The Road)...now it is here!
IMDB Comment: Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic!
Filmmaker Martin Scorsese introduces this restored special edition of Italian auteur Federico Fellini's powerful rumination on love and hate, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1956. The story follows the plight of gentle Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), who's sold by her mother to a bullying circus performer (Anthony Quinn), only to have a clown (Richard Basehart) win her heart and ignite a doomed love triangle.
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 | On the Waterfront - (8.4 from 39689 votes)
1954 | Crime | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: The Man Lived by the Jungle Law of the Docks!
IMDB Comment: More and more, the Rolled-out Dough will crook the Rolling Pin
Winner of eight Oscars, director Elia Kazan's classic morality tale stars Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy, a has-been boxer who experiences a crisis of conscience while working for mobbed-up union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). Terry turns a blind eye when Friendly's thugs kill a fellow dockworker to keep him from testifying in a corruption case, but he has second thoughts when the victim's sister (Eva Marie Saint) urges him to take a stand.
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 | From Here to Eternity - (7.9 from 14740 votes)
1953 | Drama | Romance | War |
IMDB Tagline: Pouring out of impassioned pages...brawling their way to greatness on the screen!
IMDB Comment: Maybe Donna Reeds Best Movie
This gripping adaptation of James Jones's novel about army life in Hawaii in the idyllic days just before December 7, 1941, boasts one of the hottest love scenes in screen history: Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr rolling around in the sandy surf. All told, the film won eight Oscars, including awards for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (Donna Reed) and Best Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra).
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 | Le salaire de la peur - (8.3 from 13567 votes)
1953 | Action | Drama | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The complete restored version of the 1953 French classic [reissue]
IMDB Comment: The kind of film that instantly announces that it's the best of its kind
An oil company enlists four destitute drifters -- Mario (Yves Montand), Luigi (Folco Lulli), Bimba (Peter Van Eyck) and Jo (Charles Vanel) -- for a dangerous mission transporting volatile explosives across Central America's treacherous terrain. Packed with nerve-racking tension that never lets up, director Henri-Georges Clouzot's gritty masterpiece took home the Grand Prize at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.
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 | Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot - (7.5 from 5428 votes)
1953 | Comedy |
IMDB Tagline: Its laugh-vacation time as Jacques Tati romps through the most gloriously mad lark ever to tickle the ribs of young and old alike!
IMDB Comment: All summers used to be like this
Jacques Tati follows his acclaimed directorial debut Jour de Fte with this gentle satire that introduced Tati's alter ego, Monsieur Hulot. When Hulot spends a holiday at a seaside resort, he accidentally wreaks good-natured havoc wherever he goes. Falling all over himself to impress a beautiful girl, Hulot inadvertently crashes a funeral, topples a priceless vase and ignites fireworks with his pipe -- all to hilarious effect.
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 | Tky monogatari - (8.0 from 8109 votes)
1953 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: "Isn't Life Depressing?"
Director Yasujiro Ozu focuses on an elderly couple (Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama) in post-World War II Japan who travel to Tokyo to visit their children but are received rather coldly by their offspring; in fact, the only one happy to see them is their widowed daughter-in-law (Setsuko Hara). In an attempt to get them out of the way, the children shuttle their aging parents off to a health spa, a decision that could come back to haunt them.
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 | Ugetsu monogatari - (8.1 from 5960 votes)
1953 | Drama | Horror | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: A film of haunting beauty by the precursor of Kurosawa
With 16th century Japan's feudal wars as a backdrop, director Kenji Mizoguchi's lyrical masterpiece delivers a profound message about the ephemeral nature of human life. Despite the conflict raging around them, a potter (Masayuki Mori) and a farmer (Saka Ozawa) -- two peasants with visions of grandeur -- journey to the city seeking wealth and glory. But their blind ambition ultimately takes its toll on the families they left behind.
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 | Ikiru - (8.2 from 15270 votes)
1952 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: a cinematic experience thats a near-nexus of existentialism- life, living, dying, death, and can be done while alive- remarkable
When a stoic government official (Takashi Shimura) in post-war Japan learns he has terminal cancer, he suddenly realizes he's squandered his life on meaningless red tape and has no close family or friendships to lean on, in this drama from director Akira Kurosawa. Resolving to use his remaining time wisely, he sets out to steer a children's playground project through the bureaucracy he knows so well.
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 | Umberto D. - (8.3 from 8193 votes)
1952 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: A classic neo-realist film!
Bankrupt and lonely, an old man (Carlo Battisti) considers committing suicide. Since he has only a devoted dog and a maid (Lina Genneri) as his companions, things look bleak -- until one day when the old man's luck changes, giving him new hope. Director Vittorio De Sica's touching portrait of one man's effort to retain his pride in the face of adversity is a treasure of Italian post-war cinema.
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 | A Streetcar Named Desire - (8.1 from 32499 votes)
1951 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: ...When she got there she met the brute Stan, and the side of New Orleans she hardly knew existed.
IMDB Comment: A true milestone in cinema history
After losing the family plantation to creditors, aging Southern belle Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) travels to New Orleans seeking solace in her sister, Stella (Kim Hunter). Instead, she goes toe-to-toe with Stella's brute of a husband, Stanley (Marlon Brando). Leigh, Hunter and Karl Malden all took home Oscars for their work in this sizzling adaptation of Tennessee Williams's classic rumination on carnal attraction and faded gentility.
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 | All About Eve - (8.4 from 33940 votes)
1950 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Its all about women---and their men!
IMDB Comment: A Magnificent Timeless Tale of Ambition, Manipulation and Betrayal - Certainly One of the Best Classics Ever
Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's sharp script anchors this story about New York City theater life, with Bette Davis playing an aging Broadway diva who employs a starstruck fan (Anne Baxter) as her assistant, only to learn the woman is a conniving upstart. The now-classic All About Eve won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Mankiewicz), Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders).
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 | Rashmon - (8.4 from 37545 votes)
1950 | Crime | Drama | Mystery |
IMDB Tagline: The husband, the wife...or the bandit?
IMDB Comment: Kurosawa is just so damn good
Considered one of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's masterpieces, this Oscar-winning crime drama unfolds as four witnesses to a rape and murder report their versions of the attack, leaving the viewer to decide what really happened. But the chain of events depicted by the bandit (Toshiro Mifune), the rape victim (Machiko Kyo), the murdered man's ghost (Masayuki Mori) and the woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) have more differences than similarities.
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 | The Third Man - (8.5 from 49311 votes)
1949 | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: Carol Reeds Classic Thriller
IMDB Comment: A glorious thriller
After arriving in post-World War II Vienna, unemployed pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) learns that his friend Harry (Orson Welles) has died in an accident. Compelled to investigate the death, Holly slowly uncovers startling revelations about Harry's life. Based on a novel by Graham Greene, this classic film noir thriller earned an Academy Award nomination for director Carol Reed and won an Oscar for Best Cinematography.
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 | Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein - (7.5 from 5266 votes)
1948 | Comedy | Horror | Sci-Fi |
IMDB Tagline: Its a grand new Idea for FUN !
IMDB Comment: A comedy gem. The team finally hit the laughter heights.
This Abbott and Costello horror-comedy flick features the bumbling buddies as railroad baggage clerks who receive a strange shipment -- the last remains of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. Trouble is they're still alive! When the deadly duo escape to a remote island, Abbott and Costello follow their trail and find not only the two ghouls, but also a mad scientist who wants to switch Costello's brain with that of Frankenstein's monster.
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 | Fort Apache - (7.6 from 5542 votes)
1948 | Western |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: One of the Best
This classic Western from legendary director John Ford explores the darker side of the Old West. When arrogant Lt. Col. Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda) takes command of Fort Apache, he's determined to make a name for himself. Against the advice of seasoned soldier Capt. Kirby York (John Wayne), Thursday wages war against Apache chief Cochise and his tribe -- and the Fort Apache troops must follow the misguided command of their glory-seeking leader.
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 | Ladri di biciclette - (8.4 from 26277 votes)
1948 | Crime | Drama |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: The greatest neorealism film ever made
Widely considered a landmark Italian film, Vittorio De Sica's tale of a man who relies on his bicycle to do his job during Rome's post-World War II depression earned a special Oscar for its devastating power. The same day Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) gets his vehicle back from the pawnshop, someone steals it, prompting him to search the city in vain with his young son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola). Increasingly, he confronts a looming desperation.
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 | The Red Shoes - (8.2 from 7918 votes)
1948 | Drama | Romance | Music |
IMDB Tagline: Dance she did, and dance she must - between her two loves
IMDB Comment: One of the few films impossible to over-praise
Fledgling ballerina Victoria (Moira Shearer) falls in love with brilliant composer Julian (Marius Goring) while they collaborate on a ballet that makes her a star. But overbearing company owner Boris (Anton Walbrook), jealous of their love, fires Julian and forbids Victoria from performing. Julian and Victoria wed, and his career takes off, but she longs for an opportunity to dance. When Boris makes an offer, she faces a heart wrenching choice.
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 | Black Narcissus - (8.0 from 6589 votes)
1947 | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: Exquisite Yearning ! . . . Exotic Living ! High in a hidden mountain village of a strange land and extravagant dreams and desires become exciting realities !
IMDB Comment: The palace in the mountain
Secular matters consume five missionary nuns who head to the Himalayas to establish an Anglican school. In the meantime, the quintet's leader (Deborah Kerr) must grapple with the envy of one nun (Kathleen Byron), the bitterness of a man (David Farrar) and the cruelty of the elements. The film received Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography, in part for its Technicolor innovations.
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 | The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - (7.8 from 5412 votes)
1947 | Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Is Lucy Muirs love really a ghost, or is it a man of flesh and blood she yearns for?
IMDB Comment: Exquisite romance, like fine china
This lovingly made fantasy, based on R.A. Dick's novel of the same name, centers on a lonely widow (Gene Tierney) who refuses to be scared away when the ghost of a salty sea captain (Rex Harrison) unexpectedly turns up in her cottage. When her debts mount, he helps her write a successful novel about his life, but she's ultimately forced to choose between her love for his spirit and a flesh-and-blood man.
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 | Gilda - (7.7 from 8608 votes)
1946 | Drama | Film-Noir | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: I was true to one man once... and look what happened...
IMDB Comment: The Great Tungsten Cartel Caper
Curvy bombshell Rita Hayworth "Puts the Blame on Mame" in this South American thriller that became her biggest hit and forever linked the stunning actress to the specter of her most popular character. Hayworth, Glenn Ford and George Macready comprise the three sides of a steamy love triangle that threatens to destroy Macready's thriving casino and wreck all of their lives. Hayworth's sinuous vamp of the aforementioned tune is a classic moment.
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 | La belle et la bte - (8.1 from 9217 votes)
1946 | Drama | Fantasy | Romance |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: As beautiful as they come...
Lost in the woods, a hapless merchant is captured and held prisoner in the castle of a beastlike man (Jean Marais), who vows to kill the merchant unless he's replaced by one of his daughters. The lovely Belle (Josette Day) gives herself up to save her father. But before long, she finds the beauty hiding inside her grotesque captor in this lyrical masterpiece, the most celebrated film of the French director and poet Jean Cocteau.
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 | The Big Sleep - (8.3 from 27994 votes)
1946 | Crime | Film-Noir | Mystery | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The type of man she hated . . . was the type she wanted !
IMDB Comment: I collect blondes and bottles...
A dangerous blackmailer has targeted the Sternwoods, a wealthy family once tucked away in the safety of their Los Angeles mansion. But while private eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) works on the case, he ends up falling for the clan's fiery daughter (Lauren Bacall). Crackling dialogue and the perfect pairing of Bogart and Bacall make this adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel a timeless classic. Howard Hawks directs.
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 | Brief Encounter - (8.2 from 12887 votes)
1945 | Romance | Drama |
IMDB Tagline: A story of the most precious moments in womans life!
IMDB Comment: "Huge Cloudy Symbols Of A High Romance"
In this film based on a Noel Coward play, director David Lean explores the thrill and pain of an illicit romance in 1945 Britain. From a chance meeting on a train platform, a middle-aged doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) enter into a quiet yet passionate love affair, knowing there's no possibility for a lasting relationship. The two meet every Thursday at a small caf at the station to play out their doomed romance.
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 | Roma, citt aperta - (8.2 from 6104 votes)
1945 | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Masterpiece of the Italian Neo-Realism
Director Roberto Rossellini's unsettling drama portrays the harrowing struggle of everyday women and children as they try to shield resistance forces from the Nazis and to maintain compassion and self-respect despite Rome's de facto occupation during World War II's waning days. Rossellini's landmark film, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, brilliantly depicts the Italian people's weary despair and collective resolve.
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 | Laura - (8.1 from 13757 votes)
1944 | Crime | Film-Noir | Mystery | Romance | Thriller |
IMDB Tagline: The story of a love that became the most fearful thing that ever happened to a woman!
IMDB Comment: Classic Film Noir with Perfect Cast
Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) has been murdered, and as New York Det. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) investigates, he finds that everyone seems to be in love with her -- and he, too, gradually falls under her spell. But things aren't always as they seem. Otto Preminger's classic mystery received four Academy Award nominations, including a nod for Best Director, and won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.
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 | To Be or Not to Be - (8.0 from 8853 votes)
1942 | Comedy | Drama | War |
IMDB Tagline:
IMDB Comment: Sublime
This 1942 comedy manages to eke out barrels of laughs from a contentious time in history, World War II. Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) leads a ragtag band of actors in Poland who come to the aid of an American soldier (Robert Stack) who needs help carrying out his work in the Resistance efforts. But it turns out that Tura's wife (Carole Lombard) is having an affair with the military man, which severely undercuts Tura's sympathies for the soldier.
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 | The Lady Eve - (8.1 from 7025 votes)
1941 | Comedy | Crime | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: Eve Sure Knows Her Apples !
IMDB Comment: Sturges Perfection
Seductive gold-digger Barbara Stanwyck and her conniving father (Charles Coburn) set out to fleece wealthy but nave ophiologist Henry Fonda, the socially inept heir to a brewery fortune. But the tables turn when Stanwyck falls for her prey and Fonda gets wise to their scheme. Stanwyck then goes all-out to recapture Fonda's heart in this raucous battle of the sexes from renowned writer-director Preston Sturges.
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 | Foreign Correspondent - (7.7 from 6363 votes)
1940 | Mystery | Romance | Thriller | War |
IMDB Tagline: MYSTERY IN WHISPERS that cracks like THUNDER! (original print ad - many caps)
IMDB Comment: Hitch was firing on all cylinders
Hitchcock's classic thriller stars Joel McCrea as Johnny Jones, a nave New York reporter sent on assignment to Europe on the eve of World War II. Amidst the volatile atmosphere of the impending war, Jones stumbles on a deadly conspiracy devised by Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall), whose spy ring masquerades as a peace organization. Fisher's daughter Carol (Laraine Day) lends a hand as Jones races to expose the story -- and tries to stay alive.
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 | His Girl Friday - (8.1 from 20177 votes)
1940 | Comedy | Drama | Romance |
IMDB Tagline: She learned about men from him!
IMDB Comment: The Front Page remade
Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) is about to get hitched to dull insurance agent Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) -- that's if her ex-husband, ruthless newspaper publisher Walter Burns (Cary Grant), doesn't succeed in winning her back in this battle-of-the-sexes screwball comedy. Meanwhile, reporters salivating for the scoop on a local voting conspiracy is just a minor distraction as Burns pulls out all the stops for the woman he loves.
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