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Home Entertainment

Camps Bay Terrace provides comprehensive home entertainment facilities including satellite television, stereo radio and music channels, and CD/DVD players. Each apartment has a small selection of music CDs for your enjoyment, and we have a library of classic DVDs from which you may borrow titles at no cost. Most have multilingual soundtrack or subtitle options so may be enjoyed in your home language. These and other CDs and DVDs may be played in the DVD player. DVDs are also available from Pyramid Video (Tel 438 7602) in The Drive, Camps Bay. A synopsis of each DVD in the library follows the table which lists the number of Academy Award nominations and wins that each received:

Title Nom Win Title Nom Win
A Clockwork Orange 4- Rebel Without a Cause 3-
A Man for All Seasons 86 Romeo and Juliet 42
A Room With A View 83 Rebecca 112
A Streetcar Named Desire 124 Saturday Night Fever 1-
Amadeus 118 Schindler's List 127
American Beauty 85 Sideways 51
An Officer and a Gentleman 52 Snow White 21
Apocalypse Now 82 Some Like it Hot 61
Bagdad Cafe 1- St Elmo's Fire --
Barbarella -- Star Wars Episode I 3-
Ben Behaving Badly -- Star Wars Episode II 1-
Blithe Spirit 1- Star Wars Episode III --
Blue Planet -- Star Wars Episode IV 117
Bonnie and Clyde 92 Star Wars Episode V --
Breakfast at Tiffany's -- Star Wars Episode VI --
Cabaret 10 8 Suddenly, Last Summer 3-
Casablanca 83 Sunset Boulevard 113
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 6- Taxi Driver 4-
Chicago 13 6 Terms of Endearment 115
Chinatown 111 The African Queen 41
Citizen Kane 91 The Alamo 71
Das Boot 6- The Birth of a Nation --
Deliverance 3- The Bridge on the River Kwai 87
East of Eden 41 The Caine Mutiny 7-
E.T. - the Extra Terrestrial 94 The Deer Hunter 95
Emmanuelle -- The English Patient 129
Emmanuelle 2-- The French Connection 85
Eugenie -- The French Connection II --
Fargo 72 The Godfather 113
Finding Nemo 41 The Godfather Part II 116
From Here to Eternity 138 The Godfather Part III 7-
Full Metal Jacket 1- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly --
Gandhi 118 The Graduate 71
Giant 10 1 The Grapes of Wrath 72
Gone with the Wind 1510 The Great Gatsby 22
Great Wildlife Moments -- The Lion King 42
High Society 1- The Magnificent Seven 1-
In The Heat Of The Night 75 The Mission 71
Lawrence of Arabia 97 The Odd Couple 2-
Life of Birds -- The Pink Panther 2-
Life of Mammals -- The Producers 21
Marquis de Sade's Justine -- The Remains of the Day 8-
Midnight Cowboy 73 The Rocky Horror Picture Show --
Mississippi Burning 71 The Silence of the Lambs 75
Monty Python's Flying Circus -- The Sting 10 7
Monty Python's Holy Grail -- The Thomas Crown Affair 21
My Fair Lady 128 The Unbearable Lightness of Being 2-
Mystic River 62 The Usual Suspects 22
On The Waterfront 128 The Wizard of Oz 62
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 95 West Side Story 1110
Playmate Erotic Adventures -- Zorba the Greek 73

A Clockwork Orange
STARRING: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Adrienne Corri
DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1971
OSCARS: Nominated for 4 Oscars in 1967
Stanley Kubrick's dystopian masterpiece is set in the near future where urban thugs run wild and new methods of crime deterrence are being explored. Career gang member Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is nabbed by the police and offered the chance to a commuted sentence if he undergoes a kind of surgical therapy, one where his brain does not allow him to execute his violent urges.

A Man for All Seasons
STARRING: Orson Welles, Robert Shaw, Leo McKern, Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller
DIRECTOR: Fred Zinnemann
STUDIO: Columbia Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 14, 1966
OSCARS: Nominated for 8 and won 6 Oscars in 1966
The film based on Robert Bolt's successful play about the standoff between King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) and Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield). Henry wants More's official approval of divorce, but More's strict ethical and religious code will not let him waffle. More's rectitude is a source of exasperation to Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles). Zinnemann's approach is all simplicity, and indeed the somewhat prosaic staging doesn't create a great deal of cinematic excitement. But the language is worth savoring, and the ethical politics are debated with all the calm and majesty of an absorbing chess game.

A Room With A View
STARRING: Daniel Day-Lewis, Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands
DIRECTOR: James Ivory
STUDIO: Cinecom International
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: March 7, 1986
OSCARS: Nominated for 8 and won 3 Oscars in 1987
A Room with a View is the film that defined Merchant-Ivory as the masters of the romantic period piece. A brilliant adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, the film tells the story of the coming of age of Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham-Carter). Longing to burst free from the repression of British upper class manners and mores, she must wrestle with her inner romantic longings to choose between the passionate George (Julian Sands) and the priggish but socially suitable Cecil (Daniel Day-Lewis). With a brilliant supporting cast, A Room with a View is one of the most romantic of romantic comedies ever filmed.

A Streetcar Named Desire
STARRING: Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden
DIRECTOR: Elia Kazan
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: September 18, 1951
OSCARS: Nominated for 12 and won 4 Oscars in 1952
Sweaty, brutish, mumbling, yet with the balanced grace of a prizefighter, Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando) storms through the role. Stanley and his wife, Stella (Kim Hunter), are the earthy couple in New Orleans's French Quarter whose lives are upended by the arrival of Stella's sister, Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh). Blanche, a disturbed, lyrical, faded Southern belle, is immediately drawn into a battle of wills with Stanley, beautifully captured in the differing styles of the two actors. Although it had already been considerably cleaned up from the daringly adult stage play, director Elia Kazan was forced to trim a few of the franker scenes he had shot. In 1993, Streetcar was re-released in a "director's cut" that restored these moments, deepening a film that had already secured its place as an essential American work.

Amadeus
STARRING: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Cynthia Nixon
DIRECTOR: Milos Forman
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1984
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 8 Oscars in 1985
Gripping human drama. Sumptuous period epic. Glorious celebration of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This marvelous winner of eight Oscars portrays the rivalry between the genius Mozart (Tom Hulce) and the jealous court composer (Best Actor Oscar Winner F.Murray Abraham) who may have ruined Mozart's career and shortened his life.

American Beauty
STARRING: Annette Bening, Kevin Spacey, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, John Cho, Scott Bakula
DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes
STUDIO: DreamWorks SKG
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1999
OSCARS: Nominated for 8 and won 5 Oscars in 2000
This tells the story of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a suburban father who snaps when he becomes disgusted with his stale, repetitive existence. Burnham lets us know in voice-over from the film's opening that this is the day he dies, a technique that adds an inevitable tension to the proceedings and keeps the story moving forward at all times. On a whim, Lester quits his job and begins a regression into young adulthood, lifting weights, smoking pot, doing nothing, and discovering the overflowing sexuality of his 16-year-old daughter's best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). His wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), has her own midlife crisis of sorts. A real estate agent, she experiences a youthful awakening when super-agent Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher) seduces her repeatedly. Meanwhile, Jane (Thora Birch), the Burnhams' daughter, is pursued by Ricky (Wes Bentley), the mysterious boy next door who carries a video camera around with him at all times. When Ricky's militaristic father, Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper), discovers something potentially horrifying on one of his tapes, and when Carolyn's rage for Lester's actions boils over, the time bomb finally explodes.

An Officer and a Gentleman
STARRING: Richard Gere, Debra Winger, David Keith, Robert Loggia, Louis Gossett Jr., David Caruso, Lisa Blount
DIRECTOR: Taylor Hackford
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1982
OSCARS: Nominated for 5 and won 2 Oscars in 1983
Richard Gere plays an enrollee at a Naval officers candidate school, and Debra Winger is the woman who wants him. That's pretty much it, story-wise, in this romantic drama, which is more effective in a moment-to-moment, scene-by-scene way, where the two stars and Oscar-winner Louis Gossett Jr.- as Gere's tough-as-nails drill instructor - are fun to watch. Sexy, syrupy, with occasional pitches of high drama (Gere having a near-breakdown during training is pretty strong), An Officer and a Gentleman proves to be a no-brainer date movie.

Apocalypse Now
STARRING: Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, Sam Bottoms
DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Action / Drama / War
RELEASE DATE: August 15, 1979
OSCARS: Nominated for 8 and won 2 Oscars in 1980
Loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel, "The Heart of Darkness", the film transplants the tale to the Vietnam War. A young American captain is given the assignment to hunt down and kill one of his own, a colonel, who has apparently gone insane. The deranged colonel murders hundreds of innocent people and constructs a strange kingdom for himself deep in the jungle, where he is deified by his followers.

Bagdad Cafe
STARRING: Marianne Sä gebrecht, CCH Pounder, Jack Palance, Christine Kaufmann, Monica Calhoun
DIRECTOR: Percy Adlon
STUDIO: Fox Searchlight Pictures
GENRE: Adventure / Comedy / Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1991
Jasmin (Marianne Sä gebrecht), a German tourist, has just walked off from her husband at the side of the road in the middle of the Mojave Desert; Brenda (CCH Pounder) has just kicked her husband out of the roadside cafe-motel they operate. When Jasmin arrives at the cafe, the two begin developing a prickly but ultimately rewarding friendship. Bagdad Cafe earns both its quirkiness and its sentiment by keeping one foot firmly rooted in reality, featuring the great Jack Palance playing an easy-going painter. The opportunity to be an ordinary person, rather than his usual wicked fiends, brings out a delightful mischief in Palance. All in all, an eccentric and wonderful film.

Barbarella
STARRING: Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O'Shea, Marcel Marceau, David Hemmings
DIRECTOR: Roger Vadim
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Science Fiction
RELEASE DATE: 1968
The year is AD 40000. Peacefully floating around in zero-gravity Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is suddenly interrupted by a call from the President of Earth. A young scientist, Duran-Duran, is threatening the ancient universal peace and Barbarella is the chosen one to find him and save the world. During her mission, Barbarella never finds herself in a situation where it isn't possible to lose at least part of her already minimal dressing.

Ben Behaving Badly
STARRING: Ben Dover
DIRECTOR: Steve Perry
GENRE: Erotic
Ben turns his attentions and his lens towards another collection of women. A silly collection of mildly erotic episodes around suburban Britain.

Blithe Spirit
STARRING: Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond, Margaret Rutherford, Hugh Wakefield
DIRECTOR: David Lean
STUDIO: United Artists
GENRE: Comedy
RELEASE DATE: 1945
OSCARS: Nominated for 1 Oscar in 1946
A happily married author writing a novel on mediums, invites one to supper one evening. After holding a seance the husband's first wife appears and begins to cause chaos. Noel Coward's favourite play, Blithe Spirit, was certainly a departure for David Lean, best known at the time for adapting Dickens. While it's the director's only comedy, the result is a delightful gem. Rex Harrison is an acerbic author haunted by the ghost of first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond), who tries to seduce him all over again. This throws his second wife (Constance Cummings) into a panic, second-guessing her lack of passion. It's a celestial sex romp that hasn't lost its bite. Margaret Rutherford, as always, steals the show as the sardonic medium.

Blue Planet
STARRING: David Attenborough
GENRE: Documentary
RELEASE DATE: 2002
The oceans constitute more than two-thirds of the earth's surface and yet we know less about them than the surface of the moon. The BBC has produced a landmark series examining, in depth, the natural history of our oceans with the eight-part series. Includes Making Waves, the documentary of the making of the series.

Bonnie and Clyde
STARRING: Warren Beatty; Faye Dunaway; Michael J. Pollard; Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons
DIRECTOR: Arthur Penn
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama / Crime
RELEASE DATE: 1967
OSCARS: Nominated for 9 and won 2 Oscars in 1968
The film recounts lives and loves of infamous, real-life 1930s bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (Dunaway and Beatty), mixing romance, adventure, glamour, comedy and violence in a way never seen before. Setting a milestone for screen violence, it should not be labeled as a bloodbath. The film is more of a poetic ode to the Great Depression, as they barrel across the South and Midwest robbing banks with Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck's frantic wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and their faithful accomplice C.W. Moss (the inimitable Michael J. Pollard).

Breakfast at Tiffany's
STARRING: Audrey Hepburn, Martin Balsam, George Peppard, Buddy Ebsen, Patricia Neal
DIRECTOR: Blake Edwards
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Comedy / Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1961
No film better utilizes Audrey Hepburn's flighty charm and svelte beauty than this romantic adaptation of Truman Capote's novella. Hepburn's urban sophisticate Holly Golightly, an enchanting neurotic living off the gifts of gentlemen, is a bewitching figure in designer dresses and costume jewelry. George Peppard is her upstairs neighbor, a struggling writer and "kept" man financed by a steely older woman (Patricia Neal). His growing friendship with the lonely Holly soon turns to love and threatens the delicate balance of both of their compromised lives. Composer Henry Mancini earned Oscars for the hit song "Moon River" and his tastefully romantic score. The film has weathered the decades well. Edwards's elegant yet light touch, Axelrod's generous screenplay, and Hepburn's mix of knowing experience and naiveté combine to create one of the great screen romances and a refined slice of high society bohemian chic.

Cabaret
STARRING: Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Joel Grey, Fritz Wepper
DIRECTOR: Bob Fosse
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Musical Drama
RELEASE DATE: Release year was 1972
OSCARS: Nominated for 10 and won 8 Oscars in 1973
Cabaret turns the pre-war Berlin of 1931 into a sexually charged haven of decadence. Minnelli commands the screen as nightclub entertainer Sally Bowles, who radiantly goes on with the show as the Nazis rise to power, holding her many male admirers (including Michael York and Helmut Griem) at a distance that keeps her from having to bother with genuinely deep emotions. Joel Grey is the master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub who will guarantee a great show night after night as a way of staving off the inevitable effects of war and dictatorship. Director-choreographer Fosse achieves a finely tuned combination of devastating drama and ebullient entertainment.

Casablanca
STARRING: Humphrey Bogart; Ingrid Bergman; Claude Rains; Paul Henreid; Dooley Wilson
DIRECTOR: Michael Curtiz
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1942
OSCARS: Nominated for 8 and won 3 Oscars in 1943
Romantic drama of wartime sacrifice set in Nazi-occupied French Morocco. Bogart, as jaded and cynical American idealist saloonkeeper/nightclub owner Rick Blaine, sacrifices the love of a lifetime to join the world's fight against the Nazis. When the picture debuted, it marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship with generations of moviegoers. With a crackling script and the classic song, "As Time Goes By." "Here's looking at you, kid."

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
STARRING: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Jack Carson, Judith Anderson, Madeleine Sherwood
DIRECTOR: Richard Brooks
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1958
OSCARS: Nominated for 6 Oscars in 1959
Brick Paul Newman), an alcoholic ex-football player, drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife, Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor). His reunion with his father, Big Daddy (Burl Ives), who is dying of cancer, jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son. A party is planned for the 65th birthday of family patriarch 'Big Daddy', but not everyone is in a festive mood. Brick's older brother Gooper and his wife hope to gain control over Big Daddy's estate, and the family's accumulated lies, frustrations, and secrets begin to come out.

Chicago
STARRING: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, John C. Reilly, Christine Baranski, Dominic West, Mya, Queen Latifah, Taye Diggs, Lucy Liu
DIRECTOR: Rob Marshall
STUDIO: Miramax Films
GENRE: Musical
RELEASE DATE: December 27, 2002
OSCARS: Nominated for 13 and won 6 Oscars in 2003
Velma Kelley (Zeta-Jones) burns in the spotlight as a nightclub sensation. When she shoots her philandering husband, she lands on Chicago's fames murderess row, retains Chicago's slickest lawyer, Billy Flynn, and is the center of the town's most notorious murder case, only increasing her celebrity. Roxie Hart (Zellweger), seduced the city's promise of style and adventure, dreams of singing and dancing her way to stardom. When Roxie's abusive lover tries to walk out on her, she too ends up in prison. Billy recognizes a made-for-tabloids story, and turns her crime of passion into celebrity headlines, and in this town, where murder is a form of entertainment, she becomes a bona fide star - much to Velma's chagrin. As Roxie fashions herself as America's sweetheart, Velma has more than a few surprises in store, and the two women stop at nothing to outdo each other in their obsessive pursuit of fame and celebrity.

Chinatown
STARRING: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Burt Young
DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1974
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 1 Oscar in 1975
Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency--and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J.J. Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mold, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted color cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose.

Citizen Kane
STARRING: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Dorothy Comingore, Paul Stewart, Ray Collins, George Coulouris
DIRECTOR: Orson Welles
STUDIO: RKO Radio Pictures
GENRE: Drama / Mystery
RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1941
OSCARS: Nominated for 9 and won 1 Oscar in 1942
Citizen Kane is Orson Welles' greatest achievement--and a landmark of cinema history. The story charts the rise and fall of a newspaper publisher whose wealth and power ultimately isolates him in his castle like refuge. The film's protagonist, Charles Foster Kane, was based on a composite of Howard Hughes and William Randolph Hearst--so much so that Hearst tried to have the film suppressed. Every aspect of the production marked an advance in film language: the deep focus and deeply shadowed cinematography (from Gregg Toland); the discontinuous narrative; the innovative use of sound and score; and the ensemble acting forged in the fires of Welles's Mercury Theatre. Every moment of the film, every shot, has been choreographed to perfection. The film is essential viewing, quite possibly the greatest film ever made and, along with The Birth of a Nation, certainly the most influential.

Das Boot
STARRING: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Erwin Leder
DIRECTOR: Wolfgang Petersen
STUDIO: Cowboy Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1982
OSCARS: Nominated for 6 Oscars in 1983
This is the restored, 209-minute director's cut of Wolfgang Petersen's harrowing and claustrophobic U-boat thriller, which was theatrically re-released in 1997. Originally made as a six-hour miniseries, this version devotes more time to getting to know the crew before they and their stoic captain (Jürgen Prochnow) get aboard their U-boat and find themselves stranded at the bottom of the sea. Das Boot puts you inside that submerged vessel and explores the physical and emotional tensions of the situation with a vivid, terrifying realism that few movies can match. As Petersen tightens the screws and the submerged ship blows bolts, the pressure builds to such unbearable levels that you may be tempted to escape for a nice walk on solid land in the great outdoors--only you wouldn't dream of looking away from the screen.

Deliverance
STARRING: Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds,Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox
DIRECTOR: John Boorman
STUDIO: Cowboy Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1972
OSCARS: Nominated for 3 Oscars in 1973
The Cahulawassee River is soon to be destroyed, along with the beautiful country that surrounds it. Eager to see it before it's gone, adventurer and outdoor fanatic Lewis (Burt Reynolds) organizes a trip for him and his friends Ed (Jon Voight), Drew (Ronny Cox) and Bobby (Ned Beatty) to river-raft their way from top to bottom in search of great adventure. Little do they know, they're in for much more than they originally bargained for when two mountain men take Ed and Bobby hostage. In a brave attempt to save his friends, Lewis kills one of the mountain men. Now they've got a dead person on their hands and there's no going back... especially deep in the American back-country where nobody's on your side.

East of Eden
STARRING: Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey, Burl Ives, Richard Davalos, Jo Van Fleet, Lois Smith
DIRECTOR: Elia Kazan
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: April 10, 1955
OSCARS: Nominated for 4 and won 1 Oscar in 1956
Based on John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden is the first of three major films that make up James Dean's movie legacy. He plays Cal, a wayward Salinas Valley youth who vies for the affection of his hardened father (Raymond Massey) with his favored brother Aron (Richard Davalos).

E.T. - the Extra Terrestrial
STARRING: Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace Stone, Peter Coyote, Drew Barrymore
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
STUDIO: Universal Pictures
GENRE: Science Fiction
RELEASE DATE: 1982
OSCARS: Nominated for 9 and won 4 Oscars in 1956
Steven Spielberg's hit about a stranded alien and his loving relationship with a fatherless boy (Henry Thomas) struck a chord with audiences everywhere, and it furthered Spielberg's reputation as a director of equally strong commercial sensibilities and classical leanings. Henry Thomas gives a strong, emotional performance as E.T.'s young friend, Robert MacNaughton and Drew Barrymore make a solid impression as his siblings, and Dee Wallace is lively as the kids' mother. The special effects almost look a bit quaint now with all the computer advancements that have occurred since, but they also have more heart behind them than a lot of what we see today.

Emmanuelle
STARRING: Alain Cuny, Sylvia Kristel, Marika Green, Daniel Sarky, Jeanne Colletin, Christine Boisson
DIRECTOR: Just Jaeckin
STUDIO: Universal
GENRE: Drama / Erotic
RELEASE DATE: 1974
Emmanuelle is a beautiful young model and lives in Bangkok together with her husband Jean, who's several years older. She likes him because he's taught her much, and he likes her because she's learning so well - and wants to often. Both are very tolerant in matters of extramarital affairs, so he doesn't mind the young Marie-Ange coming over ever so often, although she obviously wants more than talk from his wife. But Emmanuelle is more fascinated by the older Bee, and joins her on a trip into the jungle.

Emmanuelle 2
STARRING: Sylvia Kristel, Umberto Orsini, Frédéric Lagache, Catherine Rivet
DIRECTOR: Francis Giacobetti, Francis Leroi
GENRE: Erotic
RELEASE DATE: 1975
Emmanuelle returns to her husband in Hong Kong and proceeds to have several extramarital affairs -- with his knowledge, of course. Her husband's lover and American guest are both very puzzled by their openness. It is an interesting relic of its era. That's not to say it's not explicit enough (it is an erotic film), just that it has that decidedly pre-AIDS attitude about casual sexual encounters with multiple partners.

Eugenie
STARRING: Marie Liljedahl, Maria Rohm, Christopher Lee, Jack Taylor, Paul Muller, Uta Dahlberg
DIRECTOR: Jess Franco
GENRE: Erotic
RELEASE DATE: 1969
Written in 1795, the Marquis De Sade's “Philosophy in the Boudoir” continues to court controversy to this very day, leaving a mark in the sand that no filmmaker could cross with regard to a completely faithful adaptation. Eugenie opens in suitably sordid mode when the titular character (Liljedahl) takes a telephone call from Marianne Saint-Ange (Rohm) who is part of a devious scheme to lure Marie to an island retreat owned by Mirvel (Taylor), her stepbrother. It's here on a beautiful island that Franco's film really catches fire, as drug-induced sexual abandon leaves Marie in a in a halfway-house, between reality and the black veils of sleep. When sinister narrator Dolmance (Lee) arrives with a colourful band of followers straight out of Jean Rollin's The Demoniacs, events accelerate Marie's downwards spiral, leading to a bloody crime of passion.

Fargo
STARRING: John Carroll Lynch, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, William H. Macy, Harve Presnell
DIRECTOR: Joel Coen
STUDIO: MGM/UA Video
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1996
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 2 Oscars in 1997
Poor Jerry Lundegaard. He's deep in debt. His wealthy father-in-law has no respect for him. He cheats customers at the car dealership where he works. And now he's hired a bumbling duo to kidnap his wife--a plan that goes horribly awry, leading to homicide. Enter Marge Gunderson (McDormand), one of the most fabulous movie cops in film history, who has an innate cop sense--she is very, very good at her job and determined to solve the case in her offhanded manner. Fargo is an offbeat, highly entertaining film from the Coen brothers -- nearly colorless; instead, director of photography Roger Deakins washes the screen in the blinding white of the snow, occasionally breaking for the drab grays and browns of police uniforms and winter jackets. Carter Burwell's score further enhances the slow, steady pace of this oddly funny and compelling film. The Coens have once again populated their film with a slew of bizarre characters, with outstanding performances delivered by all, particularly the edgy William H. Macy, the quietly luminous McDormand, the nearly psychotic Steve Buscemi, and the oh-so-cold Peter Stormare.

Finding Nemo
STARRING: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Geoffrey Rush, Allison Janney, Brad Garrett, Eric Bana, Erik Per Sullivan
DIRECTOR: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
STUDIO: Walt Disney Pictures
GENRE: Family / Animation
RELEASE DATE: May 30, 2003
OSCARS: Nominated for 4 and won 1 Oscar in 2004
In the colorful and warm tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef, a Clownfish named Marlin lives safe and secluded in a quiet cul-de-sac with his only son, NEMO. Fearful of the ocean and its unpredictable risks, he struggles to protect his son. Nemo, like all young fish, is eager to explore the mysterious reef. When Nemo is unexpectedly taken far from home and thrust into a dentist's office fish tank, Marlin finds himself the unlikely hero on an epic journey to rescue his son. In his quest, Marlin is joined by a good Samaritan named Dory, a Regal Blue Tang fish with the worst short-term memory and biggest heart in the entire ocean. As the two fish continue on their journey, encountering numerous dangers, Dory's optimism continually forces Marlin to find the courage to take risks and overcome his fears. In doing so, Marlin gains the ability to trust and believe, like Dory, that things will work out in the end. Confronting seabirds, sewer systems, and even man himself, father and son's fateful separation ends in triumph. And the once-fearful Marlin becomes a true hero in the eyes of his son, and the entire ocean.

From Here to Eternity
STARRING: Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed
DIRECTOR: Fred Zinnemann
STUDIO: Columbia Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: August 5, 1953
OSCARS: Nominated for 13 and won 8 Oscars in 1954
The bestseller by James Jones, a frank and hard-hitting look at military life, is set in an army base in Hawaii in 1941. Montgomery Clift plays a bugler who refuses to fight for the company boxing team; he has reasons for giving up the sport. His refusal results in harsh treatment from the company commander, whose bored wife (Deborah Kerr) is having an affair with the tough-but-fair sergeant (Burt Lancaster). Ernest Borgnine is an all-time movie villain as the stockade sergeant who makes Sinatra miserable. Zinnemann's work is efficient but also evocative, capturing the time and place beautifully, the tropical breezes as well as the lazy prewar indulgence.

Full Metal Jacket
STARRING: Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ed O'Ross
DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: War
RELEASE DATE: 1987
OSCARS: Nominated for 1 Oscar in 1988
Essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam, Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best. It is a cynical, Bush-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence. Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line. In Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point.

Gandhi
STARRING: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, Martin Sheen
DIRECTOR: Richard Attenborough
STUDIO:
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1982
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 8 Oscars in 1983
Sir Richard Attenborough's film is an engrossing, reverential look at the life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who introduced the doctrine of nonviolent resistance to the colonized people of India and who ultimately gained the nation its independence. Kingsley is magnificent as Gandhi as he changes over the course of the three-hour film from an insignificant lawyer to an international leader and symbol. Strong on history (the historic division between India and Pakistan, still a huge problem today, can be seen in its formative stages here) as well as character and ideas, this is a fine film.

Giant
STARRING: Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Rock Hudson, Mercedes McCambridge
DIRECTOR: George Stevens
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: October 10, 1956
OSCARS: Nominated for 10 and won 1 Oscar in 1957
Giant is a movie of huge scale and grandeur in which three generations of land-rich Texans love, swagger, connive and clash in a saga of family strife, racial bigotry and conflict between cattle barons and newly rich oil tycoons. Bick Benedict visits a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse where he meets and falls in love with the owner's daughter Leslie. They marry and return to his Texas ranch where the story of their family and its rivalry with cowboy and (later oil tycoon) Jett Rink unfolds across two generations.

Gone with the Wind
STARRING: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland, Mary Anderson, Cliff Edwards, Leslie Howard
DIRECTOR: Victor Fleming
STUDIO: MGM Studios
GENRE: Drama / War / Romance
RELEASE DATE: December 15, 1939
OSCARS: Nominated for 15 and won 10 Oscars in 1940
Based on one the best selling books of all time, Gone with the Wind stands among the greatest epic dramas ever filmed. Vivien Leigh is Scarlett to Clark Gable's Rhett in cinema's greatest epic of passion and adventure. With its immortal cast, magnificent cinematography and sweeping score, this cherished classic continues to thrill audiences. Scarlett is a woman who can deal with a nation at war, Atlanta burning, the Union Army carrying off everything from her beloved Tara, the carpetbaggers who arrive after the war. Scarlett is beautiful. She has vitality. But Ashley, the man she has wanted for so long, is going to marry his placid cousin, Melanie. Mammy warns Scarlett to behave herself at the party at Twelve Oaks. There is a new man there that day, the day the Civil War begins. Rhett Butler. Scarlett does not know he is in the room when she pleads with Ashley to choose her instead of Melanie.

Great Wildlife Moments
STARRING: David Attenborough
GENRE: Documentary
RELEASE DATE: 2003
Over the years, BBC wildlife documentaries have featured the most incredible footage, illustrating just how ingenious, beautiful, frightening - and even how funny the natural world can be. Now, the most amazing and dramatic moments have been collected on one programme. A combination of talent, patience, split-second timing - and not forgetting - good luck, has allowed some of the world's most famous natural history film-makers to capture these unique and extraordinary moments on camera. The tension mounts as crocodiles prepare to ambush zebras at a river crossing; a ruthless python kills and eats a gazelle; unbelievable underwater filming captures the elegance of elephants swimming and David Attenborough gets close to mountain gorillas. Along with bears, monkeys, meerkats, lions, whales and some of the more bizarre members of the animal world, these wildlife stars reveal the sheer awe-inspiring magic of the natural world.

High Society
STARRING: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm, Louis Armstrong
DIRECTOR: Charles Walters
GENRE: Musical
RELEASE DATE: 1956
OSCARS: Nominated for 1 Oscar in 1957
Childhood friends (Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby) got married and separated pretty soon. Both are from wealthy families. Now Grace is going to get married again to a shrewd businessman. Bing still loves her. Grace has a nosy little sister who interferes and tries to correct Grace's life. Grace's father is a playboy. The 'Spy' magazine blackmail's Grace's family by threatening to reveal the father's exploits if not allowed to cover the wedding. The movie portrays the lifestyles of the rich with a good dose of humour and jazz (Louis Armstrong's band). It is a musical remake of the screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story.

In The Heat Of The Night
STARRING: Rod Steiger, Sidney Poitier, Lee Grant, Larry Gates, Warren Oates
DIRECTOR: Norman Jewison
STUDIO: United Artists
GENRE: Drama / Mystery / Crime
RELEASE DATE: August 23, 1967
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 5 Oscars in 1968
Both riveting murder mystery and classic fish-out-of-water yarn, this film represents Hollywood at its wiliest. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger prove the decade's most formidable antagonists. Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs, an arrogant homicide detective waylaid in Sparta, Mississippi; Steiger, in his bravura Oscar-winning turn, is Bill Gillespie, the town's hardheaded, bigoted sheriff who first arrests Tibbs for murder and then begs for his expertise. As the clues and suspects mount, Gillespie and his deputies develop begrudging respect for the black officer. The first-rate supporting cast includes Lee Grant as the victim's angry widow, Warren Oates as a voyeuristic deputy, William Schallert as the pragmatic mayor, and, in his screen debut, Scott Wilson (In Cold Blood) as an unlucky fugitive. The brilliant widescreen cinematography is by Haskell Wexler, and the scat-music score is by Quincy Jones. Ray Charles wails the blues theme song.

Lawrence of Arabia
STARRING: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn
DIRECTOR: David Lean
STUDIO: Columbia Pictures
GENRE: Adventure / War / Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 16, 1962
OSCARS: Nominated for 9 and won 7 Oscars in 1963
In David Lean's masterful "desert classic" Peter O'Toole gives a star-making performance as T.E. Lawrence, the eccentric British officer who united the desert tribes of Arabia against the Turks during World War I. Lean orchestrates sweeping battle sequences and breathtaking action, but the film is really about the adventures and trials that transform Lawrence into a legendary man of the desert. Lean traces this transformation on a vast canvas of awesome physicality; no other movie has captured the expanse of the desert with such scope and grandeur. Equally important is the psychology of Lawrence, who remains an enigma even as we grasp his identification with the desert. Perhaps the greatest triumph of this landmark film is that Lean has conveyed the romance, danger, and allure of the desert with such physical and emotional power. It's a film about a man who leads one life but is irresistibly drawn to another, where his greatness and mystery are allowed to flourish in equal measure.

Life of Birds
STARRING: David Attenborough
GENRE: Documentary
RELEASE DATE: 2003
This is a landmark in wildlife filmmaking; an odyssey to the furthest corners of the world, that details the physics of bird flight, feeding habits, nest building, the rearing of young and the unique adaptations that allow birds to live in a diverse rage of environments. Over three years in the making, Attenborough traveled 256,000 miles during filming - 10 times round the Earth. The latest wildlife filming techniques have been employed, from ultra-slow motion, night vision (‘starlight') cameras to tiny cameras that film inside nests. The results are truly spectacular and provide footage of some of the world's rarest birds and examples of remarkable avian behaviour; many that have never been filmed before. In the pitch of night a lone kiwi, one of the shyest of all birds, probes for sand hoppers along a rugged New Zealand beach. Less than two feet away, Attenborough lays observing its progress. A micro-camera, positioned inside the branch of a tree, observes a New Caledonian crow using a twig to extract a grub. Migrating ducks and geese on the wing are filmed seemingly from within the flock - the cameras just inches from their subjects.

Life of Mammals
STARRING: David Attenborough
GENRE: Documentary
RELEASE DATE: 2003
The mammals are the most diverse group of animals ever to live on Earth, from the smallest – the two-inch pygmy shrew, to the largest – the blue whale; from the slowest – the sloth, to the swiftest – the cheetah; from the least attractive – the naked mole rat, to the most irresistible – a human baby. We are particularly fascinated by this group of animals, perhaps because we are mammals ourselves. It is the story of 4,000 species that have outlived the dinosaurs and conquered the farthest places on earth. With bodies kept warm by thick coats of fur and their developing young protected and nourished within their bodies, they have managed to colonise every part of the globe, dry or wet, hot or cold. The Life of Mammals marks David Attenborough's fiftieth year of broadcasting for the BBC and his unfailing enthusiasm and warmth for his subjects is still plainly obvious and his narration still totally engaging.

Marquis de Sade's Justine
STARRING: Klaus Kinski, Romina Power, Maria Rohm, Jack Palance, Akim Tamiroff, Howard Vernon, Horst Frank, Sylva Koscina, Mercedes McCambridge, Rosalba Neri, Rosemary Dexter, Harold Leipnitz
DIRECTOR: Jess Franco
GENRE: Erotic
RELEASE DATE: 1968
Following the death of their mother, sisters Justine (Power, daughter of Tyrone) and Juliette (Rohm) suffer an additional blow when their father flees 18th century France in financial disgrace. Forced to leave the shelter of convent school, the girls end up in Madame de Buisson's brothel; Juliette decides to stay and embark on a career of lust, deception and murder, while Justine hits the road, encountering a succession of mostly reprehensible characters who use and abuse her for their own gratification and advancement. Klaus Kinski in demented form as the caged de Sade; Maria Rohm in the role of wicked sister Juliette; Sylva Koscina in a gripping game of 'Poison Thy Spouse'; Mercedes McCambridge delivers a truly evil performance as the gravel-voiced Dubois, and Rosalba Neri; one of a quartet of women who serve a sadistic group led by Howard Vernon. Franco also finds room for Jack Palance, and Horst Frank who tries to implicate Justine in the murder of his wife.

Midnight Cowboy
STARRING: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro
DIRECTOR: John Schlesinger
STUDIO: United Artists
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: May 25, 1969
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 3 Oscars in 1970
The first, and only, X-rated film to win a best picture Academy Award, John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy seems a lot less daring today, but remains a fascinating time capsule of late-1960s sexual decadence in mainstream American cinema. In a career-making performance, Jon Voight plays Joe Buck, a naive Texas dishwasher who goes to the big city (New York) to make his fortune as a sexual hustler. Although enthusiastic about selling himself to rich ladies for stud services, he quickly finds it hard to make a living and eventually crashes in a seedy dump with a crippled petty thief named Ratzo Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman, doing one of his more effective "stupid acting tricks”, with a limp and a high-pitch rasp of a voice). Schlesinger's quick-cut, semi-psychedelic style has dated severely, as has his ruthlessly cynical approach to almost everybody but the lead characters. But at its heart the movie is a sad tale of friendship between a couple of losers lost in the big city, and with an ending no studio would approve today.

Mississippi Burning
STARRING: Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand, Brad Dourif, R. Lee Ermey, Stephen Tobolowsky, Michael Rooker, Frankie Faison
DIRECTOR: Alan Parker
STUDIO: MGM Studios
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1989
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 1 Oscar in 1990
Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe star in this well-intentioned and largely successful civil rights-era thriller. Mississippi Burning, using the real-life 1964 disappearance of three civil rights workers as its inspiration, tells the story of two FBI men (Hackman and Dafoe, entertainingly called "Hoover Boys" by the locals) who come in to try to solve the crime. Hackman is a former small-town Mississippi sheriff himself, while Dafoe is a by-the-numbers young hotshot. Yes, there is some tension between the two. The movie has an interesting fatalism, as all the FBI's best efforts incite more and more violence, which becomes disturbing--the film's message, perhaps inadvertently, seems to be that vigilantism is the only real way to get things done.

Monty Python's Flying Circus
STARRING: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Carol Cleveland
DIRECTOR: John Howard Davies, Ian MacNaughton
GENRE: Comedy
RELEASE DATE: 1969
The irreverent Monty Python comedy troupe present a series of skits which are often surreal, baudy, uncompromising, tasteless, but inevitably hilarious. The "Dead Parrot" was adapted largely from a sketch about a car salesman who flatly refused to admit that there was anything wrong with the car that was literally falling apart on stage. The head of comedy at the BBC said that the title had to include the word "Circus", because the people at the BBC had referred to the six cast members wandering around the BBC offices as a circus, so they added "Flying" to make it sound less like a real circus and more like something out of the first world war. And in front of that, added "Monty Python" because it sounded like a really bad theatrical agent, and also that the large, constricting snake was appropriate imagery.

Monty Python's Holy Grail
STARRING: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
DIRECTOR: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
GENRE: Comedy
RELEASE DATE: 1975
King Arthur and his knights embark on a low-budget search for the Grail, encountering many very silly obstacles. The movie starts out with Arthur, King of the Britons, looking for knights to sit with him at Camelot. He finds many knights including Sir Galahad the pure, Sir Lancelot the brave, the quiet Sir Bedevere, and Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Lancelot. They find Camelot, but after literally a quick song and dance they decide that they do not want to go there. God then tells them to find the Holy Grail. While they search for the Grail, scenes of the knight's tales appear and why they have the name they have. Throughout their search they meet interesting people and knights along the way. Most of the characters die; some through a killer rabbit, others from not answering a question right from the bridge of Death, or die some other ridiculous way. King Arthur and Sir Bedevere are left and find the Castle Arrrghhh where the Holy Grail is. They are met by some French soldiers who taunted them earlier in the film, so they were not able to get into the castle.

My Fair Lady
STARRING: Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn
DIRECTOR: George Cukor
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Musical
RELEASE DATE: 1964
OSCARS: Nominated for 12 and won 8 Oscars in 1965
Hollywood's legendary "woman's director," George Cukor (The Women, The Philadelphia Story), transformed Audrey Hepburn into street-urchin-turned-proper-lady Eliza Doolittle in this film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical. Based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady stars Rex Harrison as linguist Henry Higgins who draws Eliza into a social experiment that works almost too well. It's really star wattage that keeps this film exciting, that and such great songs as "On the Street Where You Live" and "I Could Have Danced All Night." Actor Jeremy Brett, who gained a huge following later in life portraying Sherlock Holmes, is quite electric as Eliza's determined suitor.

Mystic River
STARRING: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, Eli Wallach, Jonathan Togo
DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood
STUDIO: Warner Bros
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 2003
OSCARS: Nominated for 6 and won 2 Oscars in 2004
When they were kids growing up together in a rough section of Boston, Jimmy Markum (Penn), Dave Boyle (Robbins) and Sean Devine (Bacon) spent their days playing stickball on the street, the way most boys did in their blue-collar neighborhood of East Buckingham. Nothing much ever happened in their neighborhood. That is, until Dave was forced to take the ride that would change all of their lives forever. Twenty-five years later, the three find themselves thrust back together by another life altering event – the murder of Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter. Now a cop, Sean is assigned to the case and he and his partner (Fishburne) are charged with unraveling the seemingly senseless crime. They must also stay one step ahead of Jimmy, a man driven by an all consuming rage to find his daughter's killer. Connected to the crime by a series of circumstances, Dave is forced to confront the demons of his own past. Demons that threaten to destroy his marriage and any hope he may have for a future. As the investigation tightens around these three friends, an ominous story unfolds that revolves around friendship, family and innocence lost too soon.

On The Waterfront
STARRING: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Eva Marie Saint, Don Blackman, Leif Erickson
DIRECTOR: Elia Kazan
STUDIO: Columbia Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: July 28, 1954
OSCARS: Nominated for 12 and won 8 Oscars in 1955
For all its great dramatic and cinematic qualities, and its fiery social criticism, Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront is also one of the most gripping melodramas of political corruption and individual heroism ever made in the United States, a five-star gut-grabber. Shot on location around the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the mid-1950s, it tells the fact-based story of a longshoreman (Brando's Terry Malloy) who is blackballed and savagely beaten for informing against the mobsters who have taken over his union and sold it out to the bosses. (Karl Malden has a more conventional stalwart-hero role, as an idealistic priest who nurtures Terry's pangs of conscience.) Lee J. Cobb, who created the role of Willy Loman in Death of Salesman under Kazan's direction on Broadway, makes a formidable foe as a greedy union leader.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
STARRING: Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Louise Fletcher
DIRECTOR: Milos Forman
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: January 1, 1975
OSCARS: Nominated for 9 and won 5 Oscars in 1976
Upon arrival at a mental institution, a brash rebel rallies the patients together to take on the oppressive Nurse Ratched (Fletcher), a woman more a dictator than a nurse. McMurphy (Nicholson) has been dating a fifteen (going on thirty-five) year old and is sentenced for a short term for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Rather than spend his time in jail, he convinces the guards that he's crazy enough to need psychiatric care and is sent to a hospital. He fits in frighteningly well, and his different point of view actually begins to cause some of the patients to progress. Nurse Ratched becomes his personal cross to bear as his resistance to the hospital routine gets on her nerves.

Playmate Erotic Adventures
STARRING: Deanna Brooks, Kristi Cline, Tishara Cousino, Jami Ferrell, Vanessa Gleason, Elke Jeinsen, Layla Roberts, Jennifer Rovero, Rebecca Scott, Alexandra Karlsen, Victoria Silvstedt
DIRECTOR: Scott Allen
GENRE: Erotic
RELEASE DATE: 1999
This is another first class production featuring Playmates. Jennifer Rovero is the present from Egypt in the Roman Holiday segment. Alexandra Karlsen and Victoria Silvstedt make brief appearances in the Wild Wild Web segment. Jami Ferrell makes another appearance here as she is very popular with the Playboy video team. There really isn't much in the way of soft core: Jennifer gets it on with a guy and then with Kristi Cline in the Roman Holiday. There is some nice girl on girl between Elke Jeinsen, Rebecca Scott and Vanessa Gleason in the Spellbound segment.

Rebel Without a Cause
STARRING: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Ray
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama / Romance
RELEASE DATE: October 27, 1955
OSCARS: Nominated for 3 Oscars in 1956
In one of the most influential performances in movie history, James Dean plays the new kid in town whose loneliness, frustration and anger mirrored those of postwar teens. Jim Stark is the new kid in town. He has been in trouble elsewhere; that's why his family has had to move before. Here he hopes to find the love he doesn't get from his middle-class family. Though he finds some of this in his relation with Judy, and a form of it in both Plato's adulation and Ray's real concern for him, Jim must still prove himself to his peers in switchblade knife fights and "chicken" games in which cars race toward a seaside cliff.

Romeo and Juliet
STARRING: Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, John McEnery, Milo O'Shea, Robert Stephens, Michael York
DIRECTOR: Franco Zeffirelli
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
RELEASE DATE: 1968
OSCARS: Nominated for 4 and won 2 Oscars in 1968
Probably the greatest film version of Shakespeare's famous story works due to smart direction by Oscar-nominee Franco Zeffirelli and outstanding production values more than anything else. The timeless story is of course about the titled doom lovers (Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey) who fall for each other in spite of the fact that an intense feud exists between their crazed families. The two actors in the title roles became hot commodities for a short time after this film's release, but neither has had much of a career since. Michael York is the most notable name here as the wild Tybalt. Not a bad film, but hopelessly dated and to be honest Shakespeare's works rarely warrant excellence on the silver screen.

Rebecca
STARRING: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Gladys Cooper
DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock
STUDIO: United Artists
GENRE: Drama / Romance / Thriller
RELEASE DATE: March 27, 1940
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 2 Oscars in 1941
Based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier, a shy lady's companion is staying in Monte Carlo with her stuffy employer when she meets the wealthy Maxim de Winter. Max is still troubled by the death of his wife, Rebecca in a boating accident the year before. She and Max fall in love, get married and return to Manderlay, his large country estate in Cornwall. The second Mrs. de Winter discovers that Rebecca still has a strange hold on everyone at Manderlay, particularly on Mrs. Denvers, the housekeeper, who begins driving the young wife to madness.

Saturday Night Fever
STARRING: John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Barry Miller, Joseph Cali, Sam Coppola, Robert Costanzo
DIRECTOR: John Badham
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama / Musical
RELEASE DATE: December 16, 1977
OSCARS: Nominated for 1 Oscar in 1978
Nineteen-year-old Brooklyn native Tony Manero (Travolta) lives for Saturday nights at the local disco, where he's king of the club, thanks to his stylish moves on the dance floor. But at home, Tony fights constantly with his father and has to compete with his family's starry-eyed view of his older brother, a priest. Nor can he find satisfaction at his dead-end job at a paint store. However, things begin to change when he spies Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) in the disco and starts training with her for the club's dance competition. Stephanie dreams of the world beyond Brooklyn, and her plans to move to the big city just over the bridge soon change Tony's life forever. This portrait of young Brooklyn natives struggling to escape their sheltered lives for freedom and adventure in the big city of Manhattan defined a generation of disco dancers and 1970s youths rebelling against the more traditional expectations of their parents.

Schindler's List
STARRING: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Embeth Davidtz
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
STUDIO: Universal Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 15, 1993
OSCARS: Nominated for 12 and won 7 Oscars in 1994
Adapted from the novel by Thomas Keneally, Steven Spielberg's masterful film tells the incredible true story of the courageous Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson). Initially a member of the Nazi party, the Catholic Schindler risks his career and life, and ultimately goes bankrupt, to employ 1100 Jews in his factory during the Holocaust. Schindler's Jewish accountant (Ben Kingsley) serves as his conscience, as Schindler conducts business with an obstinate and cruel Nazi commander (Ralph Fiennes), who viciously kills Jewish prisoners from the balcony of his villa overlooking a prison camp. Filmed almost entirely in black-and-white on-location in Poland, Schindler's List does not downplay the faults of its magnanimous and unlikely hero, but relates a story of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of horrific devastation and tragedy.

Sideways
STARRING: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh, Jessica Hecht
DIRECTOR: Alexander Payne
STUDIO: Fox Searchlight Pictures
GENRE: Adventure / Comedy / Drama
RELEASE DATE: October 22, 2004
OSCARS: Nominated for 5 and won 1 Oscar in 2005
Sideways tells the story of Miles (Paul Giamatti), a failed novelist, and his soon-to-be married friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church), a washed-up actor. To salute the remains of their youth, the two men take one last road trip in the week before Jack's wedding. A serious wine enthusiast, Miles is determined to educate his friend on the region's beloved Pinot Noir wines before the week is out. Jack indulges his best friend's passion for the grape but is mainly interested in living his last week of bachelorhood to the hilt. Trouble ensues with wine and women (played by Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh) and the duo comes to some profound realizations as they come to terms with maturity.

Snow White
STARRING: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne, James MacDonald
DIRECTOR: Ben Sharpsteen
STUDIO: Walt Disney Pictures
GENRE: Animation / Fantasy
RELEASE DATE: December 21, 1937
OSCARS: Nominated for 2 and won 1 Oscar in 1939
One of the brightest nuggets from Disney's golden age, this 1937 film is almost dizzying in its meticulous construction of an enchanted world, with scores of major and minor characters (including fauna and fowl), each with a distinct identity. When you watch Snow White's intricate, graceful movements of fingers, arms, and head all in one shot, it is not the technical brilliance of Disney's artists that leaps out at you, but the very spirit of her engaging, girl-woman character. When the wicked queen's poisoned apple turns from killer green to rose red, the effect of knowing something so beautiful can be so terrible is absolutely elemental, so pure it forces one to surrender to the horror of it. Based on the Grimm fairy tale, Snow White is probably the best family film ever to deal, in mythic terms, with the psychological foundation for growing up. It's a crowning achievement and should not be missed.

Some Like It Hot
STARRING: Jack Lemmon; Tony Curtis; Marilyn Monroe, Joe E. Brown, George Raft
DIRECTOR: Billy Wilder
STUDIO: Ashton/Mirisch
GENRE: Comedy
RELEASE DATE: 1959
OSCARS: Nominated for 6 and won 1 Oscar in 1960
Hilarious comedy about 1920s musicians (Lemmon and Curtis) who witness the 1928 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, then join all-female band and evade killers. Wilder's comic take provided sex symbol Monroe with two of her most unusual rivals, Curtis and Lemmon in drag. Memorable throughout, especially for the last line, "Well, nobody's perfect." Adapted screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, for which they won Academy Awards.

St Elmo's Fire
STARRING: Emilio Estevez , Rob Lowe , Judd Nelson , Andrew McCarthy , Demi Moore , Ally Sheedy , Mare Winningham , Whip Hubley
DIRECTOR: Joel Schumacher
STUDIO: Sony Pictures
GENRE: Drama / Romance / Thriller
RELEASE DATE: June 19, 1985
Seven friends, fresh out of Georgetown University, cope with the fears and realities of adulthood while drinking at their favorite hangout, St. Elmo's. Alex (Judd Nelson) and Leslie (Ally Sheedy) are career-minded and heading towards marriage. Virginal Wendy (Mare Winningham) only has eyes for wild, would-be rocker Billy (Rob Lowe)--whose wife and child don't prevent him from trying to relive his college days. Kevin (Andrew McCarthy) ponders the meaning of life and secretly desires Leslie, while his roommate Kirbo (Estevez) pursues an elusive older woman (Andie McDowell). Jules (Demi Moore) rounds out the group with her massive debts and cocaine problem. Joel Schumacher's twenty-something ensemble piece stands, for better or worse, as a revealing peek into the popular cinema--and values--of the 1980s.

Star Wars Episode I
STARRING: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ray Park, Anthony Daniels, Ian McDiarmid, Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz, Keira Knightley, Sofia Coppola, Brian Blessed, Samuel L. Jackson, Pernilla August, Terence Stamp
DIRECTOR: George Lucas
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Sci-Fi
RELEASE DATE: May 19, 1999
OSCARS: Nominated for 3 Oscars in 2000
Return to a galaxy far, far away in the first chapter of the mythic Star Wars saga. Set 30 years before the original Star Wars film, Episode I introduces young Anakin Skywalker, a boy with special powers, unaware that the journey he is beginning will transform him into the evil Darth Vader. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the wise old Jedi from the original series, is a determined young apprentice and Palpatine, well known as the evil Emporer, is an ambitious Sneator in the Galactic Republic. It is a time when the Jedi Knights are the guardians of peace in a turbulent galaxy where a young Queen fights to save her people. In the shadows lurks an evil force waiting for the right moment to strike.

Star Wars Episode II
STARRING: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ahmed Best, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz, Christopher Lee, Jimmy Smits, Kenny Baker, Jay Laga'aia, Rose Byrne, Pernilla August, Temuera Morrison, Ian McDiarmid
DIRECTOR: George Lucas
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Sci-Fi
RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2002
OSCARS: Nominated for 1 Oscar in 2003
Ten years after the events of The Phantom Menace, not only has the galaxy undergone significant change, but so have our familiar heroes Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor), Padmé Amidala (Portman) and Anakin Skywalker (Christensen) as they are thrown together again for the first time since the Trade Federation invasion of Naboo. Anakin has grown into the accomplished Jedi apprentice of Obi-Wan, who himself has transitioned from student to teacher. The two Jedi are assigned to protect Padmé whose life is threatened by a faction of political separatists. As relationships form and powerful forces collide, these heroes face choices that will impact not only their own fates, but the destiny of the Republic.

Star Wars Episode III
STARRING: Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson, Ian McDiarmid, Frank Oz, Kenny Baker, Ahmed Best, Anthony Daniels, James Earl Jones, Jay Laga'aia, Peter Mayhew, Jimmy Smits, Tux Akindoyeni, Dave Bowers, Mimi Daraphet, Paul Davies, Sandi Finlay, Nalini Krishan, Kenji Oates, Mary Oyaya, Matt Rowan, Orli Shoshan, Sandy Thompson, Marty Wetherill, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Bai Ling, Temuera Morrison, Matthew Wood (Grievous)
DIRECTOR: George Lucas
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Sci-Fi / Action
RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2005
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... The sinister Sith unveil a thousand-year-old plot to rule the galaxy in the midst of the Clone Wars. The Republic crumbles and from its ashes rises the evil Galactic Empire. Soon after, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker is seduced by the dark side of the Force and becomes the Emperor's new apprentice and the galaxy's most feared villain, Darth Vader. Vader assists in decimating the Jedi, sending Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda into hiding. It's realized the only hope for the galaxy is Anakin's own offspring -- the twin children born in secrecy who will grow up to become Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa.

Star Wars Episode IV
STARRING: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew
DIRECTOR: George Lucas
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Sci-Fi
RELEASE DATE: May 25, 1977
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 7 Oscars in 1978
Eighteen years later, Luke Skywalker, a young farmboy on Tatooine, is thrust into the struggle of the Rebel Alliance when he meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, who has lived for years in seclusion on the desert planet. Obi-Wan begins Luke's Jedi training as Luke joins him on a daring mission to rescue the beautiful Rebel leader Princess Leia from the clutches of the evil Empire. Although Obi-Wan sacrifices himself in a lightsabre duel with Darth Vader, his former apprentice, Luke proves that the Force is with him by destroying the Empire's dreaded Death Star.

Star Wars Episode V
STARRING: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, James Earl Jones, Frank Oz, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker
DIRECTOR: Irvin Kershner
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Sci-Fi
RELEASE DATE: May 21, 1980
Three years later Imperial forces continue to pursue the Rebels. After the Rebellion's defeat on the ice planet Hoth, Luke journeys to the planet Dagobah to train with Jedi Master Yoda, who has lived in hiding since the fall of the Republic. In an attempt to convert Luke to the dark side, Darth Vader lures young Skywalker into a trap in the Cloud City of Bespin. In the midst of a fierce lightsaber duel with the Sith Lord, Luke faces the startling revelation that the evil Vader is in fact his father, Anakin Skywalker.

Star Wars Episode VI
STARRING: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz, Ian McDiarmid
DIRECTOR: Richard Marquand
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Sci-Fi
RELEASE DATE: May 25, 1983
In the epic conclusion of the saga, the Empire prepares to crush the Rebellion with a more powerful Death Star while the Rebel fleet mounts a massive attack on the space station. Luke Skywalker confronts his father Darth Vader in a final climactic duel before the evil Emperor. In the last second, Vader makes a momentous choice: he destroys the Emperor and saves his son. The Empire is finally defeated, the Sith are destroyed, and Anakin Skywalker is thus redeemed. At long last, freedom is restored to the galaxy.

Suddenly, Last Summer
STARRING: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge
DIRECTOR: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
STUDIO: Columbia Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 22, 1959
OSCARS: Nominated for 3 Oscars in 1960
Adapted from the Tennessee Williams play, Catherine Holly (Taylor) is committed to a mental institution after witnessing her cousin's death. Her aunt Violet Venable (Hepburn) tries to influence the neurosurgeon to keep Catherine drugged. But what is her real motive?... In New Orleans in 1937, the only son of the wealthy widow Violet dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth and plans to fund a hospital building for a state asylum if Dr. Cukrowicz will perform the lobotomy.

Sunset Boulevard
STARRING: Gloria Swanson; William Holden; Erich von Stroheim, Cecil B. DeMille
DIRECTOR: Billy Wilder
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1950
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 3 Oscars in 1951
The caustic, tragic noir about a screenwriter (Holden) and the deluded silent star (Swanson) who ensnares him. Swanson is ready for her close-up in this pungent slice of Hollywood life depicting a reclusive, former silent screen actress who kills her screenwriting, gigolo boyfriend. The film won three Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay. Memorable line: "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."

Taxi Driver
STARRING: Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, Jodie Foster
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
STUDIO: Columbia Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1976
OSCARS: Nominated for 4 Oscars in 1977
New York City cab driver Travis Bickle (de Niro) constantly, almost obsessively, reflects on the ugly corruption of life around him, and becomes increasingly disturbed over his own loneliness and alienation. In nearly every phase of his life, Bickle remains a complete outsider, failing to make emotional contact with anyone. Unable to sleep night after night, Travis haunts the local pornography emporiums to find diversion, and begins desperately thinking about an escape from his depressing existence.

Terms of Endearment
STARRING: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, Danny DeVito, John Lithgow
DIRECTOR: James L. Brooks
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1983
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 5 Oscars in 1984
Larry McMurtry's novel becomes a somewhat lumpy film as directed by James L. Brooks (As Good As It Gets). Nevertheless, it is entirely winning, with Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger playing a combative mother and daughter who see each other through various ups and downs in love and loss, and most especially through a terminal illness endured by Winger's character. Jack Nicholson deservedly won an Oscar for his supporting role as a free-spirited astronaut who backs away from a romance with MacLaine and then returns in the clutch. As he always does, Brooks keeps things from getting too soapy with his intense concentration on the soulful evolution of his characters.

The African Queen
STARRING: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Walter Gotell
DIRECTOR: John Huston
STUDIO: United Artists
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 23, 1951
OSCARS: Nominated for 4 and won 1 Oscar in 1952
The John Huston classic, set in Africa during World War I, starred Humphrey Bogart as a hard-drinking riverboat captain in Africa, who provides passage for a Christian missionary spinster (Katharine Hepburn). Taking an instant, mutual dislike to one another, the two endure rough waters, the presence of German soldiers, and their own bickering to finally fall into one another's arms. This is classic Huston material--part adventure, part quest--but this time with a pair of characters who'd all but given up on happiness. Bogart (a longtime collaborator with Huston) and Hepburn have never been better, and support from frequent Huston crony Robert Morley adds some extra dimension and color.

The Alamo
STARRING: John Wayne, Laurence Harvey, Richard Widmark, Frankie Avalon, Patrick Wayne
DIRECTOR: John Wayne
STUDIO: MGM/United Artists
GENRE: Action / Adventure / War
RELEASE DATE: October 24, 1960
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 1 Oscar in 1961
John Wayne drew on what he learned from John Ford, Howard Hawks, and practically everyone who directed him during his long career when he made his own directorial debut on this labor of love. The Alamo is a sprawling, unabashedly patriotic epic of the sacrifice made by 187 men defending the Alamo from Santa Ana's bigger and better equipped army. Wayne stars as Col. Davy Crockett, the straight-talking, fun-loving frontiersman turned senator, with Laurence Harvey as the stiff, by-the-book Col. William Travis and Ricahrd Widmark as the legendary Jim Bowie who bristles under Travis's military protocol. The mix of regular army soldiers, Texican irregulars, scouts, and civilians makes for a volatile melting pot, but they all come together in a time of crisis in this metaphor for Wayne's heroic vision of America. Wayne spared no expense in this, one the last of the old fashion Westerns, re-creating the Alamo in exacting detail and corralling a cast of Western icons and old friends in addition to teen heartthrob Frankie Avalon and Wayne's son Pat.

The Birth of a Nation
STARRING: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper
DIRECTOR: D.W. Griffith
STUDIO: Image Entertainment
GENRE: Drama / War
RELEASE DATE: February 8, 1915
A pivotal moment in film history - after The Birth of a Nation, nothing was the same - not the way audiences watched movies, not the way filmmakers created them. D.W. Griffith's saga of the Civil War expanded the boundaries of storytelling on the screen, conveying a richer, more complicated (and certainly longer) tale than anyone had seen in a movie before. The delicate relationships, the sad passage of time, the spectacular battle scenes all look as fresh and innovative today as they did in 1915. So do Griffith's brilliant actors, most of them--including leading lady Lillian Gish--drawn from his regular stock company. What has become increasingly problematic about The Birth of a Nation is Griffith's condescending attitude toward black slaves, and the ringing excitement surrounding the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith, whose political ideas were naive at best, seemed genuinely surprised by the criticism of his masterwork, and for his next project he turned to the humanist preaching of the massive Intolerance. Despite protests, Birth sold more tickets than any other movie, a record that stood for decades, and President Woodrow Wilson famously compared it to "history written in lightning." That judgment has lasted.

The Bridge on the River Kwai
STARRING: Alec Guinness, William Holden
DIRECTOR: David Lean
STUDIO: Columbia Pictures
GENRE: Drama / War
RELEASE DATE: December 18, 1957
OSCARS: Nominated for 8 and won 7 Oscars in 1958
Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre. The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honour, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum. Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Lean guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honour, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact.

The Caine Mutiny
STARRING:Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, José Ferrer, Fred MacMurray, Robert Francis
DIRECTOR: Edward Dmytryk
STUDIO: Columbia
GENRE: Drama / War
RELEASE DATE: June 24, 1954
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 Oscars in 1955
This is a classic film of modern day mutiny aboard a Naval vessel based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk. The nervous and inept behavior of Captain Queeg (Bogart) during maneuvers aboard the U.S.S. Caine a destroyer/mine sweeper attracts the attention of the ship's crew members and it's executive officer, Maryk (Johnson). When Queeg's neurotic behavior reaches a breaking point during a fierce typhoon, Maryk takes command of the ship. Queeg then retaliates by having Maryk court-martialed. In a tense courtroom sequence, Lt. Greenwald (Ferrer), assigned to Maryk's defense, systematically breaks Queeg down on the stand. Maryk wins the case but the victory is short-lived as Lt. Greenwald reveals that the men have all been the unwitting victims of a deceptive shipmate named Lt. Keefer (MacMurray), who actually instigated the mutiny for his own purposes.

The Deer Hunter
STARRING: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, Rutanya Alda, John Cazale
DIRECTOR: Michael Cimino
STUDIO: Universal Pictures
GENRE: Drama / War
RELEASE DATE: December 8, 1978
OSCARS: Nominated for 9 and won 5 Oscars in 1979
The Deer Hunter follows a group of Pennsylvania steelworkers from their blue-collar lives, hunting in the woods of the Alleghenies, to the hells of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken star in this unforgettable saga of friendship and courage, experiencing the brutality of war and the depths of emotional strain on the human spirit.

The English Patient
STARRING: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe, Colin Firth, Jürgen Prochnow
DIRECTOR: Anthony Minghella
STUDIO: Miramax Films
GENRE: Drama / War
RELEASE DATE: November 15, 1996
OSCARS: Nominated for 12 and won 9 Oscars in 1997
World War II rages when a mysterious stranger (Fiennes) is rescued from a fiery plane crash. He is cared for by American allies unaware of the dangerous secrets of his past. Yet, as the mystery of his identity is slowly revealed, an incredible tale of passion, intrigue and adventure unfolds. Beginning in the 1930's, "The English Patient" tells the story of Count Almasy who is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almasy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics that is later revealed in a series of flashbacks while Almasy is on his death bed.

The French Connection
STARRING: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco
DIRECTOR: William Friedkin
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1971
OSCARS: Nominated for 8 and won 5 Oscars in 1972
The French Connection transformed the crime thriller with its gritty, authentic story about New York City police detectives on the trail of a large shipment of heroin. Based on an actual police case and the illustrious career of New York cop Eddie Egan, the film stars Gene Hackman as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, whose unorthodox methods of crime fighting are anything but diplomatic. With his partner (Roy Scheider), Popeye investigates the international shipment of heroin masterminded by the suave Frenchman (Fernando Rey) who eludes Popeye throughout an escalating series of pursuits. The obsessive tension of Doyle's investigation reaches peak intensity during the film's breathtaking car chase, in which Doyle races under New York's elevated train tracks in a borrowed sedan--a sequence that earned an Oscar for editing and was instantly hailed as one of the greatest chase scenes ever filmed.

The French Connection II
STARRING: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Bernard Fresson, Jean-Pierre Castaldi
DIRECTOR: John Frankenheimer
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1975
New York narcotics detective Popeye Doyle follows the trail of the French connection smuggling ring to France where he teams up with the gendarmes to hunt down the ringleader. Gene Hackman is brilliant in this cat and mouse chase in the French town of Marseilles. Especially his acting in the cold turkey scenes are just amazing. It's a sad fact that they don't do these types of movie anymore. This is a masterpiece in sparingly used sound effects, music and cinematography.

The Godfather
STARRING: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, Sofia Coppola, John Marley, Alex Rocco, Al Lettieri
DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: March 24, 1972
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 3 Oscars in 1973
Based on Mario Puzo's bestselling novel about a Mafia dynasty, Coppola's Godfather extracted and enhanced the most universal themes of immigrant experience in America: the plotting-out of hopes and dreams for one's successors, the raising of children to carry on the good work, etc. In the midst of generational strife during the Vietnam years, the film somehow struck a chord with a nation fascinated by the metamorphosis of a rebellious son (Al Pacino) into the keeper of his father's dream. Marlon Brando played against Puzo's own conception of patriarch Vito Corleone, and time has certainly proven the actor correct. The rest of the cast, particularly James Caan, John Cazale, and Robert Duvall as the rest of Vito's male brood--all coping with how to take the mantle of responsibility from their father--is seamless and wonderful.

The Godfather Part II
STARRING: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, Diane Keaton, Dominic Chianese
DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 20, 1974
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 6 Oscars in 1975
Francis Ford Coppola took some of the deep background from the life of Mafia chief Vito Corleone--the patriarch of Mario Puzo's bestselling novel The Godfather--and built around it a stunning sequel to his Oscar-winning, 1972 hit film. Robert De Niro plays Vito as a young Sicilian immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York City's Little Italy. Coppola weaves in and out of the story of Vito's transformation into a powerful crime figure, contrasting that evolution against efforts by son Michael Corleone to spread the family's business into pre-Castro Cuba. As memorable as the first film is, The Godfather II is an amazingly intricate, symmetrical tragedy that touches upon several chapters of 20th-century history and makes a strong case that our destinies are written long before we're born. This was De Niro's first introduction to a lot of filmgoers, and he makes an enormous impression.

The Godfather Part III
STARRING: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Andy Garcia, Joe Mantegna, Sofia Coppola, Eli Wallach, George Hamilton
DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 25, 1990
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 Oscars in 1991
Sixteen years after Francis Ford Coppola won his second Oscar for The Godfather II (his first was for the 1972 Godfather), the director and star Al Pacino attempted to revive the concept one more time. Despite an elaborate plot that involves Michael Corleone seeking redemption through the Vatican while simultaneously preparing his nephew (Andy Garcia) to take over the Corleone family, the film fails to take shape as a truly meaningful experience in the way the preceding movies do. Still, Pacino is very moving as an elder Michael, filled with regret and trying hard to make amends with his wife (Diane Keaton) and grown children (one of whom is played, and not all that well, by the director's daughter, Sofia Coppola).

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
STARRING: Clint Eastwood, Mario Brega, Aldo Giuffrè, Lee Van Cleef, Luigi Pistilli, Rada Rassimov, Enzo Petito, Eli Wallach
DIRECTOR: Sergio Leone
STUDIO: MGM Studios
GENRE: Action / Western / Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 19, 1967
Blondie (Clint Eastwood) and Tuco (Eli Wallach) are gunmen who admire each other professionally but dislike each other personally. Encountering a group of dying soldiers, Tuco learns the location of the graveyard where a Confederate treasure is buried, while Blondie learns the identity of the exact grave. Joined by mercenary drifter Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), they cross the desert, each of the desperadoes knowing half the secret and each focusing his squinty eyes on the $200,000 bounty.

The Graduate
STARRING: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, William Daniels
DIRECTOR: Mike Nichols
STUDIO: MGM/UA Video
GENRE: Comedy
RELEASE DATE: 1967
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 1 Oscar in 1968
Few films have defined a generation as The Graduate did. The alienation, the nonconformity, the intergenerational romance, the blissful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack--they all served to lob a cultural grenade smack into the middle of 1967 America, ultimately making the film the third most profitable up to that time. Seen from a later perspective, its radical chicness has dimmed a bit, yet it's still a joy to see Dustin Hoffman's bemused Benjamin and Anne Bancroft's deliciously decadent, sardonic Mrs. Robinson. The script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham is still offbeat and dryly funny, and Mike Nichols, who won an Oscar for his direction, has just the right, light touch.

The Grapes of Wrath
STARRING: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine
DIRECTOR: John Ford
STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: March 15, 1940
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 2 Oscars in 1941
Adapted by Nunnally Johnson from John Steinbeck's classic novel, the film tells a simple story about Oklahoma farmers leaving the depression-era dustbowl for the promised land of California, but it's the story's emotional resonance and theme of human perseverance that makes the movie so richly and timelessly rewarding. It's all about the humble Joad family's cross-country trek to escape the economic devastation of their ruined farmland, beginning when Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns from a four-year prison term to discover that his family home is empty. He's reunited with his family just as they're setting out for the westbound journey, and thus begins an odyssey of saddening losses and strengthening hopes. As Ma Joad, Oscar-winner Jane Darwell is the embodiment of one of America's greatest social tragedies and the "Okie" spirit of pressing forward against all odds. The Grapes of Wrath is much more than a classy, old-fashioned history lesson. With dialogue and scenes that rank among the most moving and memorable ever filmed, it's a classic among classics--simply put, one of the finest films ever made.

The Great Gatsby
STARRING: Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, Karen Black, Scott Wilson, Sam Waterston
DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: Release year was 1974
OSCARS: Nominated for 2 and won 2 Oscars in 1975
This adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, scripted by Francis Ford Coppola, puts costume design and art direction above the intricacies of character. It's certainly a handsome try, and perhaps no movie could capture The Great Gatsby in its entirety. Robert Redford is an interesting casting choice as Gatsby, the millionaire isolated in his mansion, still dreaming of the woman he lost. And Sam Waterston is perfect as the narrator, Nick, who brings the dream girl Daisy Buchanan back to Gatsby. No, the problem seems to be that director Jack Clayton fell in love with the flapper dresses and the party scenes and the Jazz Age tunes, ending up with a Classics Illustrated version of a great book rather than a fresh, organic take on the text. While Redford grows more quietly intriguing in the film, Mia Farrow's pallid performance as Daisy leaves you wondering why Gatsby, or anyone else, should care so much about his grand passion. The effective supporting cast includes Bruce Dern as Daisy's husband, and Scott Wilson and Karen Black as the low-rent couple whose destinies cross the sun-drenched protagonists.

The Lion King
STARRING: Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Moira Kelly, Rowan Atkinson, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, Jeremy Irons
DIRECTOR: Roger Allers
STUDIO: Walt Disney Pictures
GENRE: Animation / Adventure
RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1994
OSCARS: Nominated for 4 and won 2 Oscars in 1995
Simba is the feisty lion cub who "just can't wait to be king" as his envious Uncle Scar has plans for his own ascent to the throne -- he forces Simba's exile from the kingdom. Alone and adrift, Simba soon joins a hilarious meerkat named Timon and his warmhearted warthog pal, Pumbaa. Adopting their carefree lifestyle of "Hakuna Matata," Simba ignores his real responsibilities until he realizes his destiny and returns to the Pride Lands to claim his place in the "Circle of Life." This outstanding animated feature from Disney sports songs by Tim Rice and music by Elton John, a compelling story and first-class animation.

The Magnificent Seven
STARRING: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Vladimir Sokoloff
DIRECTOR: John Sturges
STUDIO: United Artists
GENRE: Western / Adventure / Drama
RELEASE DATE: October 23, 1960
OSCARS: Nominated for 1 Oscar in 1961
Led by a menacing, gold-toothed desperado (Eli Wallach), an army of bandits terrorize a small Mexican farming village. Desperately needing protection, the farmers offer their last bit of money to a group of idle gunfighters. The men accept the job – not for cash, but for the chance to return to the action. Hang on to your hat as the seven riders blaze through a war against overwhelming odds – out-blasting, outwitting and out-toughing anyone who stands in their path.

The Mission
STARRING: Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson
DIRECTOR: Roland Joffé
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: October 31, 1986
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 1 Oscar in 1987
Rodrigo Mendoza (De Niro) was a violent soldier-for-hire in 1750s South America. Now he is a man of peace serving the rain forest Indians he once enslaved. But armies of Spain and Portugal threaten the lifestyle and safety of the native peoples. Now Rodrigo may have to pick up his sword and musket once again. From the producer of Chariots of Fire and the director of The Killing Fields comes a powerful epic co-starring Jeremy Irons and graced with dazzling Academy Award-winning cinematography, set to a memorable music score.

The Odd Couple
STARRING: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler, Herb Edelman
DIRECTOR: Gene Saks
STUDIO: Paramount
GENRE: Comedy
RELEASE DATE: 1967
OSCARS: Nominated for 2 Oscars in 1968
Jack Lemmon plays Felix, a hypochondriac whose wife lost him because she couldn't stand his cleaning and cooking attacks any longer. So he tries to kill himself but every attempt fails. Walter Matthau plays Oscar, his friend, an untidy, unreliable sports-reporter who lives in divorce from his ex-wife in a bachelor apartment. He offers his distressed friend Felix a new home in his apartment. And soon the trouble begins because two such contrary characters can't live together for a long time. Felix turns Oscar's disorderly flat into a clean exhibition flat. He cleans and cooks the whole time. After a short while, Oscar feels persecution mania ... Filmed in a theatrical way and excellent acted. The film is full of amusing and at the same time touching scenes. An intelligent, entertaining comedy with much heart.

The Pink Panther
STARRING: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Brenda De Banzie, Colin Gordon, John Le Mesurier, James Lanphier, Fran Jeffries
DIRECTOR: Blake Edwards
STUDIO: MGM/UA Video
GENRE: Comedy
RELEASE DATE: 1963
OSCARS: Nominated for 2 Oscars in 1964
The bumbling detective Inspector Clouseau has been on DVD before, but never like this. The films included in the collection are The Pink Panther, A Shot In The Dark, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Revenge Of The Pink Panther and The Return of the Pink Panther. Each film has a distinctive charm that is original and fresh with a newly remastered audio track in 5.1 sound that proves just how timeless these features are. The crazy thing about these films is that each one is simply an extension of the prior release with no real new jokes but the jokes become so familiar that you can't help but laugh. Also on The Pink Panther disc you get a feature-length commentary by the Pink Panther creator/writer/director Blake Edwards as he guides you more on a history of the Panther giving you insight into relationships and more that help make the Pink Panther even more memorable. It includes photos and interviews with writer/director Blake Edwards, Walter Mirisch, writer Ralph E. Winters and more.

The Producers
STARRING: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, Estelle Winwood, Renée Taylor, Lee Meredith
DIRECTOR: Mel Brooks
STUDIO: MGM Studios
GENRE: Comedy / Musical
RELEASE DATE: March 18, 1968
OSCARS: Nominated for 2 and won 1 Oscar in 1969
Mel Brooks's directorial debut remains both a career high point and a classic show business farce. Mostel is Max Bialystock, a gone-to-seed Broadway producer who spends his days wheedling checks from his "investors," elderly women for whom Bialystock is only too willing to provide company. When wide-eyed auditor Leo Bloom (Wilder) comes to check the books, he unwittingly inspires the wild-eyed Max to hatch a sure-fire plan: sell 25,000 percent of his next show, produce a deliberate flop, then abscond with the proceeds. Unfortunately for the producers their candidate for failure is Springtime for Hitler, a Brooksian conceit that envisions what Goebbels might have accomplished with a little help from Busby Berkeley. Truly startling during its original 1968 release, The Producers does show signs of age in some peripheral scenes that make merry at the expense of gays and women. But the show's nifty cast (notably including the late Dick Shawn as LSD, the space cadet that snags the musical's title role, and Kenneth Mars as the helmeted playwright) clicks throughout, and the sight of Mostel fleecing his marks is irresistibly funny. Add Wilder's literally hysterical Bloom, and it's easy to understand the film's exalted status among late-'60s comedies.

The Remains of the Day
STARRING: John Haycraft, Christopher Reeve, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Caroline Hunt, James Fox
DIRECTOR: James Ivory
RELEASE DATE: 1993
OSCARS: Nominated for 8 Oscars in 1994
A butler who sacrificed body and soul to service in the years before World Way II realizes too late how misguided his loyalty has been. A rule bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
STARRING: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Meat Loaf
DIRECTOR: Jim Sheridan
STUDIO: Fox Home Entertainment
GENRE: Comedy / Musical
RELEASE DATE: 1975
Borrowing largely from cinema's horror conventions, the film begins as an innocent young couple is stranded at the home of a mad scientist who is building the perfect man. The castle is filled with a most bizarre group of characters who worship their master, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played magnificently by the fabulously sexy Tim Curry, in leather jacket, pearls, fishnet stockings, and heavy makeup. Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) are forced to examine their own sexuality as the voluptuous doctor releases the hidden desires in each of them. Based on the stage musical by Richard O'Brien (who also appears in the film as Riff Raff), the film comes alive with unforgettable song-and-dance numbers that have come to represent the sexual liberation of the 1970s. The outstanding costuming and makeup, the terrific acting by a group of relative unknowns and memorable songs help make it one of the most bizarrely entertaining and satisfying musicals ever made.

The Silence of the Lambs
STARRING: Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Ted Levine, Scott Glenn, Frankie Faison, Chris Isaak, Brooke Smith, Diane Baker, Charles Napier
DIRECTOR: Jonathan Demme
STUDIO: MGM Studios
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1991
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 5 Oscars in 1992
Based on Thomas Harris's novel, this terrifying film by Jonathan Demme really only contains a couple of genuinely shocking moments (one involving an autopsy, the other a prison break). The rest of the film is a splatter-free visual and psychological descent into the hell of madness, redeemed astonishingly by an unlikely connection between a monster and a haunted young woman. Anthony Hopkins is extraordinary as the cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, virtually entombed in a subterranean prison for the criminally insane. At the behest of the FBI, agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) approaches Lecter, requesting his insights into the identity and methods of a serial killer named Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). In exchange, Lecter demands the right to penetrate Starling's most painful memories, creating a bizarre but palpable intimacy that liberates them both under separate but equally horrific circumstances.

The Sting
STARRING: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning, Eileen Brennan
DIRECTOR: George Roy Hill
STUDIO: Universal Pictures
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: December 1, 1973
OSCARS: Nominated for 10 and won 7 Oscars in 1974
Set in 1936, the movie's about a pair of Chicago con artists (Newman and Redford) who find themselves in a high-stakes game against the master of all cheating mobsters (Robert Shaw) when they set out to avenge the murder of a mutual friend and partner. Using a bogus bookie joint as a front for their con of all cons, the two feel the heat from the Chicago Mob on one side and encroaching police on the other. But in a plot that contains more twists than a treacherous mountain road, the ultimate scam is pulled off with consummate style and panache. Thanks to the flavorful music score by Marvin Hamlisch, this was also the movie that sparked a nationwide revival of Scott Joplin's ragtime jazz, which is featured prominently on the soundtrack. One of the most entertaining movies of the early 1970s, The Sting is a welcome throwback to Hollywood's golden age of the '30s that hasn't lost any of its popular charm.

The Thomas Crown Affair
STARRING: Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke, Jack Weston, Biff McGuire
DIRECTOR: Norman Jewison
STUDIO: United Artists
GENRE: Crime / Drama / Thriller
RELEASE DATE: June 19, 1968
OSCARS: Nominated for 2 and won 1 Oscar in 1969
Boston tycoon Thomas Crown (McQueen) is a lone wolf in chic clothing. Four men pull off a daring daytime robbery at a bank, dump the money in a trash can and go their separate ways. Crown, a successful, wealthy businessman pulls up in his Rolls and collects it. Vickie Anderson (Dunaway), an independent insurance investigator is called in to recover the huge haul. She begins to examine the people who knew enough about the bank to have pulled the robbery and discovers Crown. She begins a tight watch on his every move and begins seeing him socially. How does the planner of the perfect crime react to pressure? Playing a seductive game of cat and mouse, Vicky tries to get her man by teasing him with the one thing he can't own – her.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
STARRING: Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin, Derek de Lint
DIRECTOR: Philip Kaufman
STUDIO: MGM / UA Studios
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1988
OSCARS: Nominated for 2 Oscars in 1989
Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, the happily irresponsible Czech lover of Milan Kundera's novel, which is set in Prague just before and during the Soviet invasion in 1968. Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche are the two vastly different women who occupy his attention and to some extent represent different sides of his values and personality. In any case, the character's decision to flee Russian tanks with one of them--and then return--has profound consequences on his life. Directed by Philip Kaufman, this rich, erotic, fascinating character study with allegorical overtones is a touchstone for many filmgoers. Several key sequences--such as Olin wearing a bowler hat and writhing most attractively--linger in the memory, while Kaufman's assured sense of the story inspires superb performances all around.

The Usual Suspects
STARRING: Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Baldwin, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Benicio del Toro, Giancarlo Esposito, Dan Hedaya
DIRECTOR: Bryan Singer
STUDIO: MGM Studios
GENRE: Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1995
OSCARS: Nominated for 2 and won 2 Oscars in 1996
Director Bryan Singer's labyrinthine crime drama centers on five career criminals (played by Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, and Stephen Baldwin) who meet after being rounded up for a standard police line-up. Upon their release, the men band together to pull off an intricate heist involving $3 million worth of emeralds. Their success brings them to the attention of the enigmatic Keyser Soze, an unseen, nefarious, and mythic underworld crime figure who coerces them into pulling off an important and highly dangerous job. Filled with excellent performances from veteran actors, The Usual Suspects placed Singer squarely on the cinematic map.

The Wizard of Oz
STARRING: Judy Garland; Ray Bolger; Margaret Hamilton; Bert Lahr; Jack Haley; Frank Morgan
DIRECTOR: Victor Fleming
STUDIO: MGM Studios
GENRE: Drama / Musical
RELEASE DATE: 1939
OSCARS: Nominated for 6 and won 2 Oscars in 1940
Magical adaptation of L. Frank Baum's children's fantasy of an enchanted land made Garland a major star. Garland's Dorothy Gale is transported from her black-and-white Kansas home to the colorful land of Oz via tornado. From here she journeys down the Yellow Brick Road and is helped by a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, and a Cowardly Lion on their way to see the Wizard. The Harold Arlen/E. Yip Harburg score is highlighted by "Somewhere over the Rainbow" - a song that became a popular standard. Inventive use of color and special effects are still impressive today. A children's movie for all ages.

West Side Story
STARRING: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Rita Moreno
DIRECTOR: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins
STUDIO: MGM Studios
GENRE: Drama / Musical
RELEASE DATE: 1961
OSCARS: Nominated for 11 and won 10 Oscars in 1962
This 1961 musical by choreographer Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play that updates Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile delinquency, the film stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star-crossed lovers from different neighborhoods--and ethnicities. The film's real selling points, however, are the highly charged and inventive song-and-dance numbers, the passionate ballads, the moody sets, colorful support from Rita Moreno, and the sheer accomplishment of Hollywood talent and technology producing a film so stirring. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim wrote the score.

Zorba the Greek
STARRING: Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, Lila Kedrova, Irene Papas, Sotiris Moustakas
DIRECTOR: Michael Cacoyannis
STUDIO: International Classics Inc.
GENRE: Comedy / Drama
RELEASE DATE: 1964
OSCARS: Nominated for 7 and won 3 Oscars in 1965
Basil (Alan Bates), a reticent British writer, comes to the Mediterranean island of Crete to revive a mine his father owned. On the way, he meets a Greek roustabout named Zorba (Anthony Quinn) and hires him to help, little suspecting that Zorba's exuberance will lead him to some dark and troubling places--frankly, if the last 30 minutes of Zorba the Greek are what it means to embrace life, some viewers will want to shut the door in life's face. But there's no denying the movie's ambitious scope and implacable force, even as it paints an alien and disturbing portrait of life in a Greek village. On top of that, gorgeous cinematography and one of the greatest film scores ever give this movie almost demonic energy.