テア・シャーロック

スパイク・リー

シャロン・マグアイア

ロブ・マーシャル

ロバート・パドロー

ニコラス・ハイトナー

ブリン・ヒル

デヴィッド・エアー

ギャレス・エドワーズ

ウィリアム・ワイラー

スティーヴン・フリアーズ

マシュー・ダイアモンド

ティム・バートン

スコット・デリクソン

ロバート・ゼメキス

デイビッド・イェーツ

ジョン・マスカー, ロン・クレメンツ

デヴィッド・フランケル

ノエミ・ルヴォウスキー

ジョン・カーニー

デヴィッド・ヴェンド

ジル・バケ=ブランネール

ケン・クワピス

アンドリュー・レンジ

クリント・イーストウッド

ウディ・アレン

ジャスティン・カーゼル

マルガレーテ・フォン・トロッタ

ノア・バームバック

クリス・ルノー

フィリップ・ドゥ・ショーヴロン

クリス・コロンバス

クリス・サンダース, ディーン・デュボア

新品です

ネメシュ・ラースロー

マイケル・ベイ

ダン・ギルロイ

トム・マッカーシー

ダニー・ボイル

スティーブン・スピルバーグ

ジョン・クローリー

ジョナサン・ゴールドスタイン

アンドレイ・ズビャギンツェフ

ラミン・バーラニ

ミシェル・フランコ

ジョー・ジョンストン

アンソニー&ジョー・ルッソ 拡大表示 MovieNEXワールド 『キャプテン・アメリカ／ウィンター・ソルジャー』デジタルコピー（クラウド対応） MovieNEXワールド 『キャプテン・アメリカ／ウィンター・ソルジャー』キャラクター・アート＜スマホ待受け＞

＜ MovieNEXとは？＞

MovieNEXは、以下の4つがセットになった新しいコンセプトの商品です。

◎ブルーレイ

◎DVD　◎デジタルコピー（クラウド対応）

◎MovieNEXワールド（作品に関する様々な体験が楽しめる進化型コンテンツ）

デジタルコピーはクラウド対応で、iOSでもAndroidでも対応。

さらに、MovieNEXワールドは購入者限定のスペシャルサイトが楽しめる、随時更新されていく進化型コンテンツです。

＜『キャプテン・アメリカ／ウィンター・ソルジャー』MovieNEXワールド ラインナップ＞

デジタルコピー(クラウド対応)はもちろん、ここでしか見られない特別映像、ダウンロード・コンテンツやグッズ・プレゼントなど、映画をより深く楽しめるコンテンツがいっぱい！

特別映像：格闘シーンの裏側 ／特別映像：VFXの世界 ／「ディスク・ウォーズ：アベンジャーズ」特別映像を見よう！ ／MARVELグッズ・プレゼント ／抽選で当たる！劇場プログラム ／特別掲載：「キャプテン・アメリカ」コミックより ほか ※内容は変更になる場合があります。
＜ボーナス・コンテンツ＞ [ブルーレイ] 製作の舞台裏 -アクション・シーンの秘密 -撮影現場のアンソニー・マッキー -スティーブのメモ ／未公開シーン -ヒルとシットウェルの会話 -追跡 -ニックとナターシャ -彼女の過去（ロングバージョン） ／NGシーン ／音声解説：アンソニー＆ジョー・ルッソ(監督）　クリストファー・マルクス（脚本）　スティーヴン・マクフィーリー（脚本）[DVD] 製作の舞台裏 -スティーブのメモ ／未公開シーン -追跡 ／特別収録『エージェント・オブ・シールド』シーズン1　第1話　※商品情報は変更になる場合があります。

K・S・ラヴィクマール

ジャック・オディアール

ジャレル・レスペール

クリス・コロンバス

バイロン・ハワード, リッチ・ムーア

アレン・コールター

トッド・ヘインズ

アレハンドロ・G・イニャリトゥ

アンソニー AND ジョー・ルッソ

ジョージ・ミラー

アイバン・ライトマン

トム・フーパー

ロバート・スティーブンソン

フランク・ダラボン

J.J.エイブラムス

トミー・リー・ウォレス

ティム・クリング

ティム・クリング, デニス・ハマー, アラン・アーカッシュ, グレッグ・ビーマン

ヨハンナ・ハルド

フランソワ・ジラール

セオドア・メルフィ

スティーブン・スピルバーグ

エリザ・フクサス

ショーン・レヴィ

スコット・M・ギンブル, ゲイル・アン・ハード, ロバート・カークマン

スコット・M・ギンブル, ゲイル・アン・ハード, ロバート・カークマン

アダム・マッケイ

ポール・キング

ザック・スナイダー

ガイ・ジェンキン, アンディ・ハミルトン

宮崎吾朗

ジョナサン・レヴィン

トラヴィス・ファイン

アミルホセイン・アスガリ

リチャード・グラッツァー, ウォッシュ・ウェストモアランド

フランソワ・ルロール, ピーター・チェルソム

ジョナサン・デミ 出演: ジョディ・フォスター, アンソニー・ホプキンス, スコット・グレン, テッド・レヴィン 監督: ジョナサン・デミ 形式: Color, Dolby, DTS Stereo, Dubbed, Widescreen 言語: 英語, 日本語 字幕: 日本語, 英語 リージョンコード: リージョンA (詳細についてはこちらをご覧ください DVD/Blu-rayの仕様。) 画面サイズ: 1.78:1 ディスク枚数: 1 販売元: 20世紀フォックス・ホーム・エンターテイメント・ジャパン 発売日 2014/02/05 時間: 119 分

オリヴィエ・メガトン

ウッイ・メーサーローシュ・カーロイ

マーク・オズボーン

J.J.エイブラムス

ガブリエレ・ムッチーノ

エリザベス・バンクス

コリン・トレボロウ

ジョナサン・リーベスマン

ロバート・ゼメキス

ニック・カサヴェテス

アレハンドロ・G・イニャリトゥ

ジャン=マルク・ヴァレ

セス・マクファーレン

ルイ・レテリエ

ルイ・レテリエ

カミーユ・ドゥラマーレ

リドリー・スコット

ケニー・オルテガ

ジョー・ライト

宮崎駿

宮崎 駿

宮崎駿

米林宏昌 借りぐらしのアリエッティ [Blu-ray]

米林宏昌

サム・ライミ

ダーレン・アロノフスキー

リー・トランド・クリーガー

ガイ・リッチー

スティーヴ・マーティノ

リチャード・カーティス

ジョン・タトゥーロ

アメリカのちょっとおかしな一家の名門家族、シンプソン家は、番組のファーストシーズンを収めたDVDでお下劣の栄誉をきわめている。後のエピソードの如才ない作りに慣れているファンたちは、下品な出来の初期エピソードに大喜びすることだろう。キャラクターたちはまだ特徴がはっきりしておらず（ホーマーは後のシーズンほどにはバカではない）アニメーションはまだ発展途上にある。そういった点がまさに「シンプソン家のクリスマス」で始まる全13回のエピソードに魅力を与えている。「シンプソン家のクリスマス」は、1989年12月のクリスマス・スペシャルで放送されたエピソードで、すっからかんのシンプソン一家が、犬の“サンタズ・リトルヘルパー”を引き取るという内容だ。シーズンを通して、おなじみの顔が次々に現れ、スミザーズやバーンズ氏やフランダース一家やパティやセルマたちの初登場シーンが見られる。シーズンのハイライトとして、バートが交換留学生としてフランスへ行かされる「バートのフランス日記」（「部屋を散らかすのと同じ調子でフランスをめちゃめちゃにしないでくれよ」）、バートが秀才のための学校へ行くハメになる「バートは天才？」、バートとサイドショー・ボブの終生変わらぬいがみあいの始まりが描かれる「クラスティは強盗犯？」などが収録されている。（Jenny Brown, Amazon.com）

デイビッド・シルバーマン

ブライアン・パーシヴァル

パーシー・アドロン

ヨハンナ・スピリ, ヴェルナー・ヤーコブス

リチャード・ラグラヴェネーズ

ジェフ・バエナ

メル・スミス

ニック・パーク

ニック・パーク

リチャード・ゴルゾウスキー

リチャード・ゴルゾウスキー

リチャード・スターザック

ルーシー・モード・モンゴメリー, ケビン・サリバン

ゲイル・アン・ハード

ゲイル・アン・ハード

ギレルモ・デル・トロ

セシリー・フォン・ジーゲザー

セシリー・フォン・ジーゲザー

セシリー・フォン・ジーゲザー

セシリー・フォン・ジーゲザー

ダグ・ライマン

ニック・パーク, スティーヴ・ボックス

リッチ・ムーア

マイケル・スーシー

メアリー･ハロン

ロバート・ロドリゲス

ロバート・ロドリゲス

ロバート･ロドリゲス

アン・リー

クリストファー・ノーラン

フランク・コラチ

シルベスター・スタローン

サイモン・ウェスト

パトリック・ヒューズ

ニック・カサヴェテス

マーク・ハーマン

フランシス・ローレンス

クリストファー・ノーラン

ジョナサン・レヴィン

ナンシー・マイヤーズ

クリストファー・ノーラン

クリストファー・ノーラン

ジェイソン・ライトマン

バリー・レヴィンソン

ジェシー・ネルソン

ピート・ドクター

エルジェ, スティーヴン・スピルバーグ

ロネ・シェルフィグ

ブライアン・クラグマン, リー・スターンサル

スティーヴン・ダルドリー

カーステン・シェリダン

ジャン=ピエール・ジュネ

ジョシュ・ブーン

ケビン・レイノルズ

トム・ティクヴァ

リー・ダニエルズ

トリストラム・シャピーロ

マーク・ロマネク

クリス・コロンバス

フランシス・フォード・コッポラ 人の4倍の速度で成長してしまうという特異体質に生まれた少年ジャック（ロビン・ウィリアムス）。10歳になった彼は、それまで家から出ずに生活していたが、一念発起して小学校へ通いだす。40歳にしかみえない彼とクラスメイトとの関係、担任の先生への淡い初恋、そして両親の苦悩など、笑いと涙で綴ったフランシス・F・コッポラ監督のユニークなヒューマン映画。R・ウィリアムスの子ども演技はいつもながらに達者だが、それ以上にビル・コスビー、ジェニファー・ロペスなど周囲をとりまくキャスト陣がさりげなくも好演。特に母親役のダイアン・レインは見事に大人の女優へと演技開眼している。なお、本作はコッポラ監督が事故死した息子へのオマージュをこめて製作したものである。(的田也寸志）

テリー・ギリアム

マーク・ウェブ

R･J･カトラー

オル・パーカー

マット・リーヴス

ヘンリー・セリック

ジョン・ポルソン

ジョルジュ・シュルイツァー

トッド・フィリップス

トッド・フィリップス

アン・フレッチャー

ゲイリー・ウィニック

デイミアン・チャゼル

ジョシュ・ブーン

シドニー・ルメット 17歳のダニー（リヴァー・フェニックス）はピアニストを志望し、ピアノの先生の娘ローナ（マーサ・プリンプトン）を恋するようになるが、一線を越えることができない。なぜなら彼の両親（ジャド・ハーシュ＆クリスティン・ラーティ）は、ベトナム戦争当時に反戦活動家としてナパーム工場を爆破した罪で今なお国警察に追われる身だったのだ…。
   今は亡き青春スター、R・フェニックスの個性と、『狼たちの午後』『セルピコ』など社会派名匠として知られるシドニー・ルメット監督の個性が巧みに融合された作品。政治思想的なものを背景に、青春の柔らかく初々しい輝きが切なく奏でられて行く佳作。R・フェニックスは本作でアカデミー賞助演男優賞にノミネート。その後の活躍がもっとも期待される若手実力派スターでもあった。（的田也寸志）

アダム・シャンクマン

デイビッド・フィンチャー

ダン・スキャンロン

ブラッド・バード

ピエール・コフィン

ピート・ドクター

ウェス･アンダーソン

クリント・イーストウッ

ブラッド・ペイトン

マシュー・ヴォーン

モルテン･ティルドゥム

オリヴァー・パーカー

ジョス・ウェドン

ジョン・カーニー

ウィル・グラック

デニー・ゴードン

ジェイソン・ムーア

ジョン・ファヴロー

スパイク・ジョーンズ 

ウディ・アレン

マイケル・ホフマン

エリノア・リプマン, ヘレン・ハント

J・A・バヨナ

マーティン・ブレスト

ダグ・リーマン

リドリー・スコット

ジェラール・ピレス

ジェラール・クラヴジック

ジェラール・クラヴジック

ジェラール・クラヴジック

ガウリ・シンデー

クリストフ・ガンズ

マイケル・ベイ

グレゴリー・ホブリット

ショーン・レヴィ

ロン・ハワード

ポール・グリーングラス

ターセム・シン

ロブ・マーシャル

ティム・バートン

クリスチャン・ディッター

ジェームズ・マーシュ

ロバート・ゼメキス

リチャード・リンクレイター

ケイト・バーカー=フロイランド

ケネス・ブラナー

ドン・ホール, クリス・ウィリアムズ

ゲイリー・マーシャル

アルフレッド・ヒッチコック

アレハンドロ・アメナーバル ジャック・クレイトン監督の『回転』、ロバート・ワイズ監督の『たたり』。こういった伝統ある幽霊映画のジャンルに先祖がえりするアレハンドロ・アメナーバル監督の『アザーズ』は歓迎すべき作品であり、派手な特殊効果よりも、ムードや音楽、暗示を好んで用いている。舞台は1945年の英国。海岸から遠く離れた霧の立ちこめる島で、グレース（ニコール・キッドマン）が叫び声を上げるところから始まる。彼女は口に出せない恐怖のせいで目が覚めたのだが、おそらくその恐怖は幼い我が子アン（アラキナ・マン）、ニコラス（ジェームズ・ベントレー）をあまりにも過保護に心配しているせいで生じたのだ。子どもたちは日光アレルギーがあるため、3人はかび臭い大邸宅でいつもカーテンとよろい戸を閉めて暮らしている。グレースの夫は戦死しているらしい。この不吉な設定と、何か恐ろしいことが起こりそうな予感は、うまくマッチしている。そしてその予感は、使用人を雇おうと思っているもののまだ募集してもいないグレースのもとへ、見知らぬ3人が使用人としてやってくるあたりからエスカレートしていく。家政婦のミセス・ミルズ（フィオヌラ・フラナガン）に率いられた謎めいたトリオは、長いこと忘れられていたアルバムの中で、昔の住人が死後もポーズを取っているように、グレース親子同様この屋敷の歴史と深く結びついていたのだ。
キッドマンが、ここでも定評のある演技を見せ、主人公の緊張感を最初から最後まで表現しているため、作品の根底にある超自然的なムードが増幅されている。アメナーバル監督は意図的にスローペースにしているが、それがかえって鋭い不安を表すのに適しており、あの世にまつわる物語が予想外の展開を見せていく。アメナーバル監督は本作と同様の効果的などんでん返しを、以前監督したスペイン映画『オープン・ユア・アイズ』（キャメロン・クロウ監督が『バニラ・スカイ』にリメイクした）でも披露しているが、賛否両論のあった『オープン・ユア・アイズ』とちがって『アザーズ』は見事な出来ばえで、観客は否応なく鳥肌が立ち、背筋が凍ってしまう。（Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com）

M.ナイト・シャマラン

ジョー・ダンテ

リチャード・ラグラヴェネーズ

ジョー・ダンテ

サム・メンデス

アレハンドロ・アグレスティ

ジュゼッペ・トルナトーレ

アルフォンソ・キュアロン

トム・フーパー

宮崎吾朗

クリント・イーストウッド

セス・マクファーレン

ルパート・ワイアット

スティーブン・スピルバーグ

ジョン・タートルトーブ イメージコンサルタントとして成功を収めつつ日々を忙殺されているラス（ブルース・ウィリス）の前に、ある日突然8歳の頃の自分だと名乗る少年（スペンサー・ブレスリン）が現れる。少年との交流の中から、ラスはやがて自分が子供のころの夢を何一つ叶えてないことに気づいてゆく。
   少年の日の自分と向かい合うことで、忘れていた本当の自分を取り戻すという、大人のためのファンタジー。『マーキュリー・ライジング』 『シックス・センス』と、少年と共演する機会の多いブルース・ウィリスだが、今回も子役にくわれっぱなしな自分を楽しむかのような好演。また、ダイ・ハードな彼の幼いころの姿が、小太り少年であるというギャップも、キャスティングの妙だろう。監督は『フェノミナン』などハートフルな作品に定評あるジョン・タートルターブ。（的田也寸志）

マット・リーヴス

ベン・スティラー

ロブ・マーシャル

ジョー・ジョンストン

デヴィッド・マクナリー

ビレ・アウグスト

ビル・デューク

ロバート・ストロンバーグ 拡大表示 MovieNEXワールド 『マレフィセント』デジタルコピー（クラウド対応） MovieNEXワールド　『マレフィセント』キャラクター・アート＜スマホ待受け＞

エミール・アルドリーノ

ジェフ・ワドロウ

ロバート・ゼメキス

スティーブン・ダルドリー

バズ・ラーマン

ケヴィン・リマ

ウォルフガング・ペーターゼン

ピーター・ホートン

マーク・スティーヴン・ジョンソン

リチャード・ドナー

ラジャ・ゴズネル

ランダル・ウォレス

宮崎駿

ジェームズ・マンゴールド

マーク・ネヴェルダイン, ブライアン・テイラー

エリック・トレダノ, オリヴィエ・ナカシュ

クリント・イーストウッド

バリー・ソネンフェルド ※こちらの商品はアウトレット（中古）品になります。
・シャープ社製のDVD再生機器（ブルーレイ再生専用機、ブルーレイ録画機含む）は、
ほとんどの機種で本商品の視聴ができません。
・2007年以前に製造された一部のDVD再生機器におってはDVD-Rの再生に対応しておらず、
本商品が視聴できない可能性がございます。
・パソコンでの視聴に関しては動作を保証いたしかねます。
※こちらの商品は、発送までに1週間前後お時間をいただく場合がございます。 予めご了承ください。

バリー・ゾネンフェルド

ジュゼッペ･トルナトーレ

キンバリー・ピアーズ

ロブ・ライナー

ジャン=ピエール・ジュネ

パット・オコナー 仕事第一主義のネルソン（キアヌ・リーヴス）は、ある日突如自分の前に現れた謎の女性サラ（シャーリーズ・セロン）から「11月の1か月間だけ一緒に暮らしましょう」という期間限定恋愛を提案された。その後のなりゆきで同棲する羽目になってしまったネルソンだったが、やがてかたくなな心もほぐれ、いつしかサラを本気で愛するようになるのだが…。
 『サークル・オブ・フレンズ』などの名手パット・オコナー監督が手掛けた、絵に描いたような美男美女がサンフランシスコを舞台に繰り広げる、せつなくも美しい運命的ファンタスティック・ラブストーリー。「私には不幸な男を救う特殊能力があるの」と吹く不思議なヒロインを、S・セロンが好演している。主題歌はエンヤが担当。（的田也寸志）

ニール・ジョーダ

ジョエル・サーナウ, ロバート・コクラン

イサベル・コイシュ

ディーン・パリソット

マシュー・ヴォーン

宮崎 駿

近藤喜文

リチャード・コーレル, ジョエル・ズウィック

リチャード・コーレル, ジョエル・ズウィック

宮崎駿

ギャビン・ウィーゼン

ジョアン・ハリス, ラッセ・ハルストレム

クリス・ミラー

ゲーリー・マーシャル

ゲーリー・マーシャル

リチャード・リンクレイター

デビッド・O・ラッセル

ビーバン・キドロン

シャロン・マグワイア

シェーン・ブラック

ジョン・ファヴロー

ピーター・シーガル

クリス・コロンバス

ヘンリー・セリック

ロナルド・ニーム

ブライアン・レバント

ロバート・ゼメキス

アンジェイ・バートコウィアク

ロバート・ゼメキス

スパイク・ブラント, トニー・セルヴォーン

ピート・トラヴィス

ブノワ・ジャコー

デヴィッド・フィンチャー

シドニー・ボラック

セルジオ・レオーネ ニューメキシコ国境の町サン・ミゲル。ふたつの無法者勢力が争い続けるこの町に、ふらりと現れた風来坊ガンマンは、互いの勢力をうまくだましながら、それぞれを破滅へと追いやっていく…。
   黒澤明監督の傑作時代劇『用心棒』を翻案し、1960年代イタリア製西部劇＝マカロニ・ウェスタンの一大ブームを築き上げたセルジオ・レオーネ監督の出世作。それまでになかった流血と荒唐無稽なアクション描写は、やがては本場アメリカ製西部劇にも大きな影響を与えることにもなった。それと同時に、主演クリント・イーストウッドをスターダムにのしあげた記念碑的作品としてもたたえられる。くわえ葉巻でポンチョをまとう髭面イーストウッドのニヒルなかっこよさ。エンニオ・モリコーネ作曲によるハイエナのようなメロディの数々が、そんな彼を一段と魅力的に映えさせている。（的田也寸志）

セルジオ・レオーネ

セルジオ・レオーネ

オリバー・ストーン

オリバー・ストーン

ロン・ハワード

フィリップ・カウフマン

チャン・シンイェン

ガイ・ハミルトン

ジョン・グレン

ルイス・ギルバート

ジョン・グレン

テレンス・ヤング

マーティン・キャンベル

マーティン・キャンベル

ロバート・クローズ

リチャード・リンクレイター

リチャード・リンクレイター

J・C・チャンダー

ザック・スナイダー

ニック・カサヴェテス

フレッド・ジンネマン

テイラー・ハックフォード

ロバート・ロレンツ

ロマン・ポランスキー

スティーブン・スピルバーグ

スティーブン・スピルバーグ

ジョス・ウェドン

マーク・L・レスター

キャメロン・クロウ

テリー・ジョージ

バズ・ラーマン

フランコ・ゼフィレッリ

ゲイリー・ウィニック

ロバート・マリガン

ガイ・リッチー

スティーヴン・ダルドリー

ジョン・ベイリー, リチャード・エア

ビル・コンドン 動物学の助教授キンゼイは、タマバチの研究に熱心な学者だったが、初めての恋人でやがて妻になるクララとの初体験で失敗。このことと、生徒から性の相談を受けたことがきっかけになり「結婚講座」を開く。しかし、キンゼイの知識では答えられないことも多く、彼は性に関するインタビューを開始。人々のセックスを研究し始め、そして発表した「キンゼイ・レポート」は一世を風靡するが…。
   厳格な父との息が詰まるような少年時代、そして研究に没頭するとまわりが見えなくなる堅物な個性。生真面目なアルフレッド・キンゼイという人間のフィルターを通してみると、セックスのエロティックな部分は薄れ、人間が生きていく上で当たり前にあるものとしてとらえられる。そして学者として未知の世界を知りたいという欲が、やがて人々の理解を超えてしまっても、彼を知り尽くした妻の献身的な支えに「愛」を感じずにはいられない。セックスという扱いにくいテーマを中心にすえながらも、堅物学者の人間性をしっかり描くことで、見応えのある硬派な人間ドラマになっている。またキンゼイ夫妻を演じたリーアム・ニーソン、ローラ・リニーは役の魂が乗り移ったような名演を見せている。（斎藤　香）

キャリー・ジョージ・フクナガ

ウディ・アレン

ケニー・オルテガ

アラン・パーカー

ジム・ジャームッシュ

ジム・ジャームッシュ

ピーター・ウェーバー 1665年、オランダのデルフト。画家フェルメールの家の使用人グリートは、フェルメールのアトリエの掃除を任され、彼の絵に出会い、強い衝撃を受ける。彼女のすぐれた色彩感覚に気づいたフェルメールは彼女に、絵の具の調合を手伝わせる。表向きは画家と使用人という関係だったが、ふたりは芸術のパートナーのような関係を築いていく。
   フェルメールの絵に魅せられ、やがてフェルメール本人に熱い思いを抱くようになる使用人の少女と、彼女の色彩感覚とその存在に触発される画家フェルメールの芸術を介した愛の世界は、見つめ合う、手が触れる、それだけでも官能的。本作で長編映画デビューしたピーター・ウェバー監督の繊細な人間描写、フェルメールの絵の特徴をとらえた芸術的なビジュアルなど、その演出はデビュー作とは思えないほど完成度が高い。またフェルメールへの愛に心震わせるグリートを演じるスカーレット・ヨハンソンの汚れない美しさは目を見張るほどだ。（斎藤　香）

オスカー・ワイルド, オリバー・パーカー

ジェームズ・マンゴールド

スコット・クーパー

マックG

ロバート・ルケティック

ロバート・ワイズ, ジェローム・ロビンス

マーク・ウォーターズ

トム・フーパー

ジョー・ライト

ディアマド・ローレンス

デビッド・マーキン ロサンゼルスで定職もつかずにきままな共同生活を送る幼なじみのロミー（ミラ・ソルヴィーノ）とミッシェル（リサ・クードロウ）。ある日ふたりは偶然再会した高校の同級生ヘザー（ジャニーン・ガラファロ）から同窓会の開催を知らされる。実はかつていじめられていたふたりは、クラスメイトたちを見返そうとキャリアウーマンを装って故郷へ帰るのだが…。
   あっけらかんとした軽やかさが身上のふたりの女性が、帰省を通して本当の自分を再発見するまでをコミカルなタッチでつづる青春映画。どこかズれている彼女たちの言動の数々がおかしい。主演ふたりの個性もうまく活かされている。監督はデイヴィッド・マーキン。劇場公開時の日本タイトルは『ロミーとミシェルの場合』。（的田也寸志）

アリシア・シルヴァーストーン, エイミー・ヘッカリング

トーマス・カーター

リチャード・ケリー 7歳のドニーの家に飛行機のエンジンが落下、彼のまえに現れた銀色のウサギが、「あと28日で世界が終末を迎える」と予言する。そんな不可解なオープニングで始まる本作は、脚本に惚れこんだドリュー・バリモアが製作し、自らも教師役で出演している異色のサスペンス。
   ウサギ（と言っても着ぐるみをかぶった謎の人物）の出現以来、ドニーの周囲ではさらに怪しげな事件が続くが、登場人物の何気ない一言や、背景の小道具などに結末への伏線が隠されており、画面から目が離すことは禁物だ。そして、タイムトラベルの概念にとりつかれたドニーに訪れるのは、あまりにも衝撃的なラスト！ 1980年代のポップなカルチャー、音楽が効果的に使われ、『ムーンライト・マイル』の主演などでハリウッドの若き演技派の道を突き進む、ドニー役ジェイク・ギレンホールの、ミステリアスな存在感も魅力。（斉藤博昭）

ジョン・ヒューズ

クリント・イーストウッド

クリント・イーストウッド

クリント・イーストウッド

スタンリー・キューブリック

リチャード・ラグラベネーズ

ティム・バートン

リドリー・スコット

ゲイリー・ロス

宮崎駿

宮崎 駿

宮崎駿

宮崎駿

宮崎 駿

ウディ・アレン

マイケル・チミノ

マイク・ニコルズ

メル・ギブソン

スティーブン・スピルバーグ

ジョン・スティーヴンソン, マーク・オズボーン

クリス・コロンバス

ジョン・アーヴィング, マーク・スティーヴン・ジョンソン 生まれつき体が小さく、いつ死ぬかわからない奇病を抱えて生きるサイモン（イアン・マイケル・スミス）と、彼の用心棒的存在でもある親友のジョー（ジョゼフ・マゼロ）。やがて、ある事件をきっかけにジョーは自分の実の父親を探し、サイモンはこの世に生を受けた自分の使命とは何かを考えるようになっていく。
   ジョン・アーヴィングの『オーエンのために祈りを』を土台に、脚本家出身のマーク・スティーヴン・ジョンソン監督が手掛けたヒューマン・ドラマ。いわゆる難病ものだが明るくウィットを利かせた作りになっているのがよく、また信仰に根差した神々の問題にも辛口で触れているあたりが妙味だ。ふたりの少年の好演も忘れ難い余韻を残してくれている。（的田也寸志）

キム・テギュン

ジョージ・ロイ・ヒル

マーティン・スコセッシ

ヘンリー・ジェームズ, イアン・ソフトリー

ジェーン・カンピオン

エィミ・タン, ウェイン・ワン スー・ユアン(キュウ・チン)、リーダー格のリンド(ツァイ・チン)、アンメイ(リサ・ルー)、インイン(フランス・ニューエン)の4人の女性は、マージャン卓を囲んで時を過ごす“ジョイ・ラック・クラブ”を30年間続けてきた。喜びや悲しみを分かち合ってきた4人だが、スー・ユアンが亡くなり、娘であるジューン（ミンナ・ウェン)が母の代わりに参加することに。
   エイミー・タンの同名ベストセラー小説を、女性監督ウェイン・ワンが映画化。中国から移民としてアメリカへ渡り、苦難の人生を生き抜いてきた4人の母親と、アメリカで生まれ育った娘たちの人生を壮大なスケールで描く群像劇。苦難に満ちた母親の若き日と現代を行き来しながら、強く生きようとする女性たちの生き様と、母と娘の心のすれ違いやきずなを流麗な映像と巧妙な語り口で描き、いつのまにか物語の世界に誘い込まれる。（茂木直美）

ジョン・フォード

ジョン・スタインベック, エリア・カザン

ウェイン・ワン 人気作家ポール・オースターが、自身の短編を脚色。監督は香港出身のウェイン・ワン。NYの下町ブルックリンを舞台にした群像ドラマだ。本作の魅力は、ブルックリンの街に限りなくなじんでいる俳優たちだろう。10年以上もの間、毎日、同じ場所にカメラを向けるタバコ屋の店主にハーヴェイ・カイテル。店の常連客で、店主の写真のなかに亡き妻の姿を見つける作家、ウィリアム・ハート。そこにもうひとり、作家を交通事故から助け、父親を探す黒人少年。映画が進むにつれ、3人それぞれの家族関係が浮き彫りにされていく。
   ドラマチックな展開が用意されているわけではなく淡々と進む物語だが、その分、要所でドキリとさせる一瞬が訪れる。たとえば、凍死した父を発見する息子が、すでにそこで眠る父の年齢を越えていたというエピソード。また、強気を貫いてきた娘が、両親に背を向けられたときに浮かべる悲痛な表情。そんな心に引っ掛かる映像の数々が、じわじわと感動を高め、締めくくりは、すべての人を優しく包み込むような「いい話」。上質な文学作品の香りが漂う、逸品だ。（斉藤博昭）

ジャック・クレイトン

デビッド・フィンチャー

ジョン・アービング, ジョージ・ロイ・ヒル 第二次世界大戦中、男に支配されることを嫌う看護婦のジェニーは、名も知れぬ瀕死の兵士の腰にまたがって、私生児ガープを生んだ。やがて時が経ち、母と息子はニューヨークへ出る。ガープは小説家として活躍し、ジェニーはウーマンリブ運動の指導者にまつりあげられていく。
   ジョン・アーヴィングの原作を、名匠ジョージ・ロイ・ヒル監督が巧みに映画化したヒューマンドラマである。戦後を生き抜く母と子の姿を通して、皮肉をちりばめながら、さまざまな社会的世相を描いていく。シニカルな内容の連続ながら、あくまでさわやかな描写に徹しきることで、人間賛歌を醸しだした。母役のグレン・クローズ、そしてガープ役のロビン・ウィリアムスの出世作ともなった秀作である。（的田也寸志）

スティーブン・スピルバーグ

ビクター・フレミング

ミック・ジャクソン

ミロス・フォアマン

ジョン・アーヴィング, ラッセ・ハルストレム

ローレンス・カスダン

ジリアン・アームストロング

テッド・デミ

ジャスティン・チャドウィック

マーク・フォースター

ロベルト・シュヴェンケ

スティーブン・スピルバーグ

トニー・スコット

リチャード・ドナー

スティーヴン・フリアーズ

ニール・ジョーダン 『マイケル・コリンズ　特別版』は、アイルランド出身のニール・ジョーダン監督が大ヒット作『クライング・ゲーム』に続き監督・脚本を手がけた作品で、IRAの指導者であり、20世紀で最も重要な政治的リーダーの1人に数えられるマイケル・コリンズ（リーアム・ニーソン）の半生を綴った伝記である。フィルムはコリンズがゲリラのリーダーから祖国の英雄へ、そして政治家へと成長していく姿を追っている。ジョーダンのコリンズに対する捉え方は、彼の圧倒的な名声に嫉妬した首相のイーモン・デ・ヴァレラ（アラン・リックマン）によって利用されたとするものである。デ・ヴァレラは和平協定の交渉役をコリンズに任せたが、その協定は彼の熱烈な信奉者たちにとっては決して受け入れられる内容ではなかった。コリンズが最初の交渉で歩み寄りの姿勢を見せて帰国すると、デ・ヴァレラは協定改正への支持を拒否することで、人気失墜を狙う。内戦はその後も数十年間続く。『マイケル・コリンズ　特別版』は、時にまとまりに欠けたりテンポの良い展開が失われる面があるものの、歴史ドラマとしてはまさに"圧巻"と呼ぶにふさわしい作品に仕上がっている。また、映像作品という観点でも近年で最も美しい映画の1本に挙げることができ、映像カメラマンのクリス・メンジズは色彩的な画面構成を駆使して、雰囲気や感情の表現を際立たせている。他の出演者はエイダン・クイン、ジュリア・ロバーツ、スティーブン・レイなど。DVD版には、BBC制作による50分のメイキング映像を収めたドキュメンタリーが含まれている。（Jim Emerson）

アントワ・フークア

ウディ・アレン

ジョン・フォード 南北戦争終結から3年後、放浪の末に兄の家を訪れたイーサン（ジョン・ウェイン）は、やがて兄一家がコマンチ族に殺害され、幼い末娘デビーがつれ去られてしまったことを知り、復讐と姪を奪還するための、捜索の旅に出る。
   大巨匠ジョン・フォード監督が、名コンビのジョン・ウェイン主演で贈る不朽の名作西部劇。名キャメラマン、ウィンストン・C・ホックによる鮮やかな撮影の美しさの中、ネィティヴ・アメリカンを異様なまでに憎悪する主人公の叙情なき執念の旅は、観る者の胸に哀しみの叙情を刻みこませる。ジョン・ウェインがただのスターではなく、実は演技派としても一級であったことを広く世に知らしめた作品ともいえよう。西部劇＝フロンティア・スピリットこそアメリカの心であった時代が、永遠不滅の至宝として今に遺した文化遺産といっても過言ではない。（的田也寸志）

マイク・ニコルズ

ソフィア・コッポラ オーストリアの皇女アントワーヌは、14歳のときフランス王太子ルイのもとに嫁ぐことになった。しかし、ヴェルサイユ宮殿で会った15歳の彼はまだ少年だった。そんなティーン同士が結婚をしたが、義父ルイ15世の浮気、彼女に感心をしめさない王太子ルイへの苛立ちから、彼女は享楽的な生活を送るように。そんなとき、アントワーヌはスウェーデン陸軍のフェルゼン伯爵と出会い、恋に落ちてしまう。
   世界的に有名なフランスの王妃マリー・アントワネットの半生を『ロスト・イン・トランスネーション』のソフィア・コッポラが映画化。歴史絵巻、大河ドラマになりがちなテーマだが、ソフィア監督は大胆にもアントワネットの青春映画に。ヴェルサイユ宮殿でのゴージャスなロケ、美しくキュートな衣装の数々はまぶしいばかりだが、そこに流れるのは軽快なロックナンバー。王妃の青春をザ・キュアやニュー・オーダーなどのロックで包み込むという斬新な発想には舌を巻くばかりだ。タイトルロールを演じたキルスティン・ダンストは軽やかだけど、どこか危ういヒロインを好演し、フレッシュな魅力に満ちている。ほかアーシア・アルジェント、ジェイソン・シュワルツマン、ジュディ・デイヴィスなど脇に個性派をズラリと揃えて、ソフィア・コッポラらしい現代的かつファンタジーのような“マリー・アントワネット”を作り上げた。（斎藤 香）

ウディ・アレン

ウディ・アレン

ピーター・ウィアー 舞台はニューヨーク。園芸家のブロンディ（アンディ・マクダウェル）は温室つきアパートの居住者になるために、フランス人ジョージ（ジェラール・ドパルデュー）はアメリカでの労働許可証「グリーンカード」を手に入れるために偽装結婚をするが、やがて入国管理局が本当にふたりが結婚しているか調べるために、ふたりのもとへ訪れた。
   紙切れだけの関係だったはずのふたりが、いつしか本当に愛し合うようになる過程を繊細に追ったラブストーリー。『刑事ジョン・ブック　目撃者』などで知られるオーストラリア出身のピーター・ウェアー監督ならではの、異邦人の視点でアメリカを捉えた意欲作にもなりえている。フランスの名優ドパルデューは、これが初のアメリカ映画出演でもあった。（的田也寸志）

劇場でそう見えたほど、ひどい失敗作ではない『ヘラクレス』は、スプリッツァーのようにライト感覚で楽しめるアニメ映画と言える。絶えずやたらと出てくる楽屋落ちのジョークや文化的な言及も、ビデオでなら劇場で観るときほどにはうるさくない。愛すべきギリシャ伝説に威厳も畏敬も注ぎ込めなかったことも、さほどの失策には見えない。そのほかに長所と言えるのは、『リトル・ショップ・オブ・ホラーズ』以来、最も快活なアラン・メンケンの音楽だ。ゼウスの血を受け継いだ若きヘラクレスは驚くばかりの怪力のせいで追放され（悪いが、これではまだ説得力が足りない）、英雄となるためにフィルという名の半人半獣の男と共に訓練をする。その過程でヘラクレスは、ごく普通の人間で、彼に激しく恋をするメグと出会う。彼らは2人とも、オリュンポスを乗っ取るためにヘラクレスを倒そうとするこっけいなハデスと衝突する。水蛇ヒュドラは短い場面のためにCGで作った苦心作だが、『ライオン・キング』のヌーの群れにはまるでかなわない試みに終わっている。（Keith Simanton, Amazon.com）

ピーター・ウェアー

キャメロン・クロウ

マイケル・マン

シドニー・ポラック

トム・クランシー, ジョン・マクティアナン

トニー・スコット

ジョン・G・アビルドセン

ボビー・ファレリー, ピーター・ファレリー

ガス・ヴァン・サント

サイモン・カーティス

ロジャー・ドナルドソン 1962年、カストロ政権になり、社会主義国権になったキューバに危機感を抱いた米国は、国交を断絶。キューバはソ連と手を組み、米国を直撃するミサイルを配備する計画を企てる。これを知ったJ・F・ケネディ大統領は、ある決断を迫られ…。

   ケネディと側近がホワイトハウスで緊張感あふれるミーティングを繰り広げるという、全編ほとんど話し合いというディスカッション映画。にもかかわらず、下手なアクション映画よりもスリリングなのは、ホワイトハウスの内部に焦点を絞り、この窮地を政府はどう切り抜けたのか…という内部事情をリアルに描いているからだ。K・コスナーが大統領特別補佐官のオドネルを渋い演技で魅了。監督は『追いつめられて』のR・ロナルドソン。（斎藤 香）

ロバート・ゼメキス

ロジャー・ドナルドソン

セルジオ・レオーネ

ピーター・ウィアー

ジョン・アヴネット

スパイク・リー

アントニー・フュークワー

ウォルター・ヒル

ロブ・ライナー

ロバート・レッドフォード 1956年、アメリカ全土を熱狂させていたテレビの人気クイズ番組「21」で、ハーバート（ジョン・タトゥーロ）は8週連続勝ち抜いたが、視聴率は低下。スポンサー（マーティン・スコセッシ）は、もっと見栄えのよい人間をチャンピオンに据えよとプロデューサーに厳命し、かくして二枚目大学教授チャールズ（レイフ・ファインズ）に解答を事前に教えた上で番組に出演させ、連戦連勝させるのだが……。
   50年代アメリカのテレビ界を揺るがせた実際の事件を映画化したロバート・レッドフォード監督作品。その出来栄えは俳優のみならず、監督としての彼の力量を改めて知らしめるに足るほどで、題材のスキャンダル性と、有名無名を問わない実力重視のキャスティングとが相乗効果となって、リアルな緊迫感を巧みにもたらしているが、語り口にもまったく無駄がなく、2時間を越す長尺にも関わらず退屈させる暇を与えない。まさに映画のプロフェッショナルたちが、その頭脳とセンスで作り上げた絶品の秀作である。（的田也寸志）

マーティン・スコセッシ

グリンダ・チャーダ ジェスは英国に住むインド一家の次女。サッカーが大好きでベッカムの大ファンである彼女は、女子サッカーチームの選手であるジュールズにチームに誘われ、所属することに。しかし、厳しい両親はそれを許さなかった。
   インドの慣習を守り抜こうとする両親と現代っ子のヒロインとのギャップ、チームメイトとの友情、コーチとの恋など、ヒロインがサッカーを通して経験していくさまざまな出来事がユーモラスにつづられていく。部屋の壁にはったベッカムのポスターに悩み事を語りかけるヒロインのかわいさ、娘を思うゆえに厳しくなってしまう父親の温かさ、十代の女の子同士のキャピキャピした日々など、すべてがキュートで気持ちいい。若手女優たちのノビノビした演技もこの青春映画の爽やかさに一役買っている。（斎藤 香）

スティーヴン・ヘレク

ロジャー・ミッチェル 世界一有名な美人女優のアナが、イギリスにロケしている最中、街で出会った旅行書専門本屋のウィリアムと恋に落ちる。育った環境も、現在の仕事も、まったく違う2人の恋はどう展開するのか？ ビバリーヒルズに住むスーパースターが恋に落ちた相手は、西ロンドンのノッティングヒルに住む本屋さん。名作『ローマの休日』を下敷きに、本当の恋を求め合う2人の姿をコミカルにつづる。世界的な女優アナには、この人しかいないジュリア・ロバーツが扮し、素朴で傷つきやすいウィリアムにはヒュー・グラントが扮している。恋愛映画として、全米史上最高のオープニング興行成績を記録した。（アルジオン北村）

ロバート・レッドフォード

フランシス・ホジソン・バーネット, アニエスカ・ホランド 原作はフランシス・ホジソン・バーネットによる児童文学の名作。1949年に一度映画化され、1993年のこの作品はリメイクになる。製作総指揮にフランシス・フォード・コッポラ、監督にポーランドの鬼才、アニエスカ・ホーランドを迎え、『シザーハンズ』のキャロライン・トンプソンが脚本を担当。物語は、1900年代のインドで幕を開ける。両親を失い突然孤児となった少女、メアリー・レノックス（ケイト・メイバリー）は、イギリスに住む伯父、ロード・クレイヴン（ジョン・リンチ）の元へ引き取られる。富豪の伯父は、妻を亡くした悲しみをいやすために、ひんぱんに旅行に出ていた。家に1人で残されているうちに、メアリーは2人の少年と友達になる。使用人の少年と、いとこである伯父の息子だ。いとこの少年は、もう何年も寝たきりの生活をしており、病人同然だった。3人の子どもたちは、手入れもされずに放っておかれたままになっている花園を敷地内に発見する。そして、この発見から、子どもたちは、愛や生きることの意味を知る成長を始めるのである。映像はとても美しく、利発な子どもたちの姿を丁寧に描いている。『秘密の花園』は、ワクワクする心を持ち、明るく考えて前に進む勇気を与えてくれる。ファミリー向けの映画というジャンルを超え、見る人すべてに新鮮な感動を与えてくれるだろう。（Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com）

ジュリアン・ジャロルド

ロバート・ワイズ

マーク・ロスマン ヒラリー・ダフの大ファンで13歳未満なら『シンデレラ・ストーリー』を楽しめるだろうが、そうでない観客は用心しながら観ていく必要がある。これはインスタント・メッセージの時代のシンデレラ物語だからだ。サム（ヒラリー・ダフ）はインスタント・メッセージを通じて、テニソンの詩を引用する詩的な男の子と恋に落ちるが、のちに彼が実は自分と同じサン・フェルナンド・バレーの高校に通っている花形フットボール選手で、女の子なら誰もがあこがれるオースティン（チャド・マイケル・マーレイ）だと知る。
   ジェニファー・クーリッジが定評あるコメディ女優の才能を発揮しきれない役、しわ取り注射をしている意地悪なまま母役で出演している。喜劇的な効果を出そうとして頭の悪い義理の姉たちを登場させているが、あまり効果は上がっておらず、3人の女優は他の大半のキャストと同様、このシナリオから何とかしておもしろいところを引き出そうと苦戦している。そのせいで観客は、金髪でやさしい性格のヒラリー・ダフの魅力から目が離せなくなる。ダフは『リジー・マグワイア・ムービー』よりはうまく演じており、「かわいい」ことが必ずしも誉め言葉にならないコメディの分野で、より多くの観客にアピールしようとがんばっている。（Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com）

アン・リー

作曲：アンドリュー・ロイド＝ウェバー　製作：キャメロン・マッキントッシュ

フランシス・ホジソン・バーネット, アルフォンソ・クアロン 1993年の『秘密の花園』の成功を受け、ワーナー・ブラザーズ社はフランシス・ホジソン・バーネットの小説を再度映画化することにした。1995年版の『リトル・プリンセス～小公女～』は、90年代の最優秀児童映画のひとつだ。93年版と95年版のどちらも、興行収入的には飛びぬけた成績はおさめなかったが、質の高い映画に仕上がっている。時を越えて愛される映画だ。カリフォルニア州に組まれた大がかりなセット。物語は、第一次世界大戦勃発直前のニューヨークから始まる。父親が戦地に赴くことになったため、1人残されるサラ（リーセル・マシューズ）は寄宿舎のある私立学校へ入学する。この学校の校長先生は、生徒を厳しく取り締まる意地悪なミス・ミンチン（エレノア・ブロン）。サラは、あっという間に同級生の間で人気者となるが、サラには過酷な運命が待ち受けていた。この映画は、現実から逃避するものではなく、子どもの持つ想像力という大きな能力を描いている。想像力とは、子どもが学び、成長し、厳しい現実に直面できる強さを身につけるのに役立つ能力だ。美しく映像化されたこの作品は、映像面でも90年代を代表する作品と言えるだろう。想像力が支えの寄宿舎生活の現実をうまく描き出してもいる。あらゆる面で第一級の作品だ。ファミリー向け映画として、大人も子どもも見るべき映画だと自信を持っておすすめできる。（Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com）

アラン・パーカー

ダグラス・マグラス

ピーター・コズミンスキー

ジョン・バダム

ジャック・ドゥミ

クリス・ヌーナン

アンディ・テナント

ジョン・シュレシンジャー

スザンナ・ホワイト

リンゼイ・アンダーソン

ジョージ・キューカー

ジェームズ・アイヴォリー

ミロス・フォアマン

デイヴィッド・マレット

サイモン・ラングトン

ゲイル・エドワーズ

ケネス・ブラナー

ウィリアム・シェイクスピア, マイケル・アルメレイダ 2000年のニューヨーク。マルチメデイア企業の社長が急死し、未亡人となった妻ガートルードは夫の弟で会社後継者でもあるクローディアス（カイル・マクラクラン）と再婚。留学先から帰国した映画監督のハムレット（イーサン・ホーク）は父の死に疑問を抱き、それに執着するあまり、やがて恋人のオフェーリア（ジュリア・スタイルズ）の忠告をよそに奇行を繰り返すようになっていき…。
   シェークスピアの四大悲劇のひとつ『ハムレット』を現代に置き換えた野心作。台詞などは原作に忠実で、このあたりは同趣向で成功した『ロミオ＆ジュリエット』の影響が色濃いかもしれないが、美術や衣装などが徹底して現代的な形で披露されており、そのミスマッチ感覚が本作の最大の特色ともいえよう。父の復讐のために、主人公が映画を用いるという設定も、現代ならでは？（的田也寸志）

ジェニファー・ユー・ネルソン

ロブ・ライナー

ウィリアム・スタイグ, マイク・ミッチェル

ウィリアム・スタイグ, クリス・ミラー, ロマン・ヒュイ

デイビッド・イェーツ

デイビッド・イェーツ

アルフォンソ・キュアロン

マイク・ニューウェル

デイビッド・イェーツ

マイケル・アプテッド

ロブ・マーシャル

ゴア・ヴァービンスキー

ゴア・ヴァービンスキー

ピーター・ウィアー

ジョン・ヒューズ

ロブ・ライナー

エドワード・ズウィック

リチャード・リンクレイター 友人になりすまして名門小学校の代用教員になったロック・ミュージシャンのデューイ。教えることのない彼は、本業のロックの知識と精神を語り始める。やがて生徒たちも興味を示し、クラス全員でこっそりバンドバトルに出場することに…。ダメ教師が生徒たちのやる気を引き出し、生徒からも影響を受けるという、下手をしたらいくらでもあざとくなるテーマだが、ミュージシャンでもある怪優ジャック・ブラックの水を得た魚のような熱演と、個性的な子役たちの名演技で、心の底から笑える痛快作になった。
   本作のおもしろさにして特徴は、生徒それぞれに役割が与えられる点。ステージに立つメンバーだけでなく、マネージャーやセキュリティーなど裏方の大切さが無理なく教えられ、デューイと生徒に育まれるきずなにすんなり共感してしまう。それだけなら単なるヒューマンな感動作だが、随所に込められたロックのうんちくで、コアな音楽ファンもニヤリとさせる。「ファミリー」と「オタク」。一見、相容れない両者をともに大満足させる希有な一作。文句なしに楽しめる！（斉藤博昭）

ホウ・シャオシェン 1945年8月、太平洋戦争終戦によって、51年におよぶ日本の統治から解放された台湾。しかし、その喜びもつかの間、闇社会の進出や国民党の台頭など大陸との確執などにより、台湾は新たな受難の時代を迎えることになる…。
   台湾映画界の名匠ホウ・シャオシェン監督の名を世界的に広めることになった歴史叙事詩映画の秀作。ヴェネツィア国際映画祭金獅子賞、金馬奨最優秀監督・主演男優（チェン・ソンヨン）賞、キネマ旬報ベスト・テン第1位など国の内外で数々の受賞に輝いている。ドラマは歴史の波に否応なく巻き込まれていくリン一家の面々を通しながら、時に非常に、時に情感豊かにつづられていく。その中で、耳が聞こえず口も聞けない四男ウンセイ（トニー・レオン）と看護婦ヒロミ（シン・シューウェン）の悲恋が印象的。（的田也寸志）

ガス・ヴァン・サント

リチャード・カーティス 19人の男女が織りなす恋愛模様を、ユーモアとウィットに飛んだ会話と心温まる＆切なくなるエピソードでクギづけにする英国のラブストーリー。秘書に一目惚れした新首相の仕事に身が入らない日々、義理の息子の熱烈片思いをサポートする父親、親友の新妻に恋した画家の切ない心、言葉の通じないポルトガル娘に恋したミステリー作家など、年令も職種も違う男女の恋物語は、誰かに共感できるというより、どの人の恋愛にも共感できる、胸が痛くなるエピソードばかり。
   監督は『ノッティングヒルの恋人』の脚本家リチャード・カーティスゆえ、ロマンティックコメディはお手の物。とはいえ、19人の登場人物とその恋愛を裁いた手腕は見事！ 首相を演じたヒュー・グラントの軽妙な芝居、夫の浮気に気づいて目を潤ませるエマ・トンプソンの巧さほか、キーラ・ナイトレイ、ローラ・リニー、ローワン・アトキンスン、ビリー・ボブ・ソーントンなどスター総出演。恋心直撃！のデートムービーとして最適の1本だ。（斎藤　香）

Yoji Yamada TORA-SAN, a 48-film series, is by far the longest-running film series in Japanese history and the second-longest overall in the world. Typical story lines have Tora-san, a suitcase carrying, leisure-suit wearing, traveling salesman visiting different parts of Japan, where he meets a beautiful young woman, is smitten, and tells her if she ever needs help, she should come visit him in his hometown. After returning home to his family, which disapproves of his wandering lifestyle, the damsel in distress shows up, and Tora-san falls in love. Alas, his attempts to help her, and win her heart, invariably cause her to fall for someone else. Included in the set are the first four films of the series, “It's Tough being a Man”, “Tora-san's Cherished Mother”, “Tora-san, His Tender Love”, and “Tora-san's Grand Scheme”.

Yasujro Ozu In the late twenties and early thirties, Yasujiro Ozu was working steadily for Shochiku studios, honing his craft on dozens of silent films in various genres, from romantic melodramas to college comedies to gangster pictures and, of course, movies about families. In these three droll domestic films Tokyo Chorus, I Am Born But..., Passing Fancy Ozu movingly and humorously depicts middle-class struggles and the resentments between children and parents, establishing the emotional and aesthetic delicacy with which he would transform the landscape of cinema.

スティーヴン・ソダーバーグ

ジョン・ウォーターズ

フィリダ・ロイド

ナンシー・マイヤーズ

アンドリュー・アダムソン C.S.ルイス原作の大ベストセラーを本格的に映画化したシリーズ第1作。第二次大戦下のイギリスで、ペベンシーの4兄弟姉妹が、疎開先の屋敷の洋服ダンスから、異世界の「ナルニア」へ入ってしまう。白い魔女によって100年の冬を強いられたナルニアで、彼らが英雄となるまでを、壮大なスケールと、めくるめく映像で展開していく。
   原作ファンが最も期待するのは、人間の言葉を話す動物など、多種多様なキャラクターが、どう映像化されたのかという点。CGとアニマトロニクス、特殊メイク、本物の動物など多くの技術が駆使され、驚くほどリアルに仕上がった。とくに、上半身は人間で下半身はヤギのタムナスさんと、ナルニアの王であるライオンのアスランがすばらしい。子役たちの演技も自然なので、後半、彼らが自ら手に入れる勇気を共感できるはず。最新映像を体感させながら、原作を忠実に描くことで、どこか懐かしい空想の世界を完成させたことで、とりあえずシリーズの入り口としては合格点であろう。（斉藤博昭）

ジェイ・ローチ

デイビス・グッゲンハイム

ジョセフ・L・マンキーウィッツ サイレント映画時代からの名匠セシル・B・デミル監督が、『或夜の出来事』で知られるクローデット・コルベールを主演に迎えて描く壮大な古代絵巻。紀元前48年、時のローマ執政ジュリアス・シーザー（ウォーレン・ウィリアム）は大軍を率いてエジプトに侵攻するが、エジプト女王クレオパトラ（クローデット・コルベール）の美しさに魅せられ、エジプトを後援することに。やがてシーザーは暗殺され、続いて彼の友人アントニー（ヘンリー・ウィルコクソン）がエジプト征伐をもくろむが、彼もまたクレオパトラの美の前に打ち崩れていく…。
   トーキー映画としては初の本格的クレオパトラものだが、戦前に撮られたとは思えないほどのスケールの大きさ、見事な美術など、当時のハリウッドの実力が改めてうかがえる出来栄え。クローデット・コルベールの美しさは、もはや言うまでもないだろう。アカデミー賞撮影賞受賞。（的田也寸志）

ロン・ハワード

ノーラ・エフロン

サム・メンデス

ノーラ・エフロン

ロン・ハワード

アンドリュー・アダムソン

ガブリエレ・ムッチーノ

ケネス・ブラナー

アーネ・グリムシャー 死刑廃止論者の法学部教授ポール（ショーン・コネリー）は、8年前に白人少女誘拐殺人事件の犯人として逮捕され、死刑判決を受けた黒人青年ボビー（ローレンス・フィッシュバーン）からの無実を訴える手紙を受け取り、早速事件の再調査に乗り出す。やがて真犯人を名乗るブレア（エド・ハリス）という男の存在が浮かび上がるのだが…。
   名優ショーン・コネリーが製作総指揮も兼ねて主演したサイコ・スリラー。死刑囚の無実を説くというプロットはありがちではあるが、次々と予測を裏切る展開の数々に、思わず引き込まれてしまう。L・フィッシュバーンとE・ハリスの名演はいつもながらとはいえ、やはりお見事。また、コネリーの娘役に『ロスト・イン・トランスレーション』のスカーレット・ヨハンソンが扮しており、その少女時代の姿を見られるだけでもファンにはお得かも。監督は『バウンティ・キッド』などのアーネ・グリムシャー。（的田也寸志）

デビッド・フィンチャー

ゴア・ヴァービンスキー 18世紀のカリブ海を舞台に、海賊たちの呪いを解く黄金のメダルの「最後の1枚」をめぐる、アクション・アドベンチャー。港町ポート・ロイヤルの総督の娘エリザベスが、その1枚を持っていたことから、海賊の一団にさらわれ、彼女を愛する青年と、一匹狼の海賊が救出へ向かうという物語だ。
   ポイントに見せ場を配し、娯楽作に徹した作りで最後まで飽きさせないのは、さすがにジェリー・ブラッカイマー製作。ゴア・ヴァービンスキー監督は、カット割りやカメラ・アングル、音楽の付け方などアクションの見せ方がうまく、なかでも満月の夜、海賊たちががい骨となって現れるシーンの恐怖は、リアルなVFXが効果を上げている。
   この種の映画では、俳優たちの演技は二の次になるのだが、本作はオスカー俳優のジェフリー・ラッシュ、『ロード・オブ・ザ・リング』のレゴラス役、オーランド・ブルームらが嬉々として演じている。そして、ジョニー・デップの存在感！ 台詞回しや道化的な動きで笑わせる彼が、ラストに見せる凛々しい表情は文句なしにカッコいい。彼ら欧米の俳優にとって、海賊は憧れの役だというのが、ヒシヒシと伝わってくる。（斉藤博昭）

リュック・ベッソン

Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud Persepolis is the poignant story of a young girl coming-of-age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of precocious and outspoken nine-year-old Marjane that we see a people's hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power — forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. Clever and fearless, she outsmarts the "social guardians" and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden. Yet when her uncle is senselessly executed and as bombs fall around Tehran in the Iran/Iraq war the daily fear that permeates life in Iran is palpable. As she gets older, Marjane's boldness causes her parents to worry over her continued safety. And so, at age fourteen, they make the difficult decision to send her to school in Austria. Vulnerable and alone in a strange land, she endures the typical ordeals of a teenager. In addition, Marjane has to combat being equated with the religious fundamentalism and extremism she fled her country to escape. Over time, she gains acceptance, and even experiences love, but after high school she finds herself alone and horribly homesick. Though it means putting on the veil and living in a tyrannical society, Marjane decides to return to Iran to be close to her family. After a difficult period of adjustment, she enters art school and marries, all the while continuing to speak out against the hypocrisy she witnesses. At age 24, she realizes that while she is deeply Iranian, she cannot live in Iran. She then makes the heartbreaking decision to leave her homeland for France, optimistic about her future, shaped indelibly by her past.

クエンティン・タランティーノ

Eran Kolirin This heartwarming and poignant winner of the Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard prize is the mesmerizing and witty story of strangers in a strange land. A fading Egyptian police band arrives in Israel to play at the Arab Cultural Center. When they take the wrong bus, the band members find themselves in a desolate Israeli village. With no other option than to spend the night with the local townspeople, the two distinctly different cultures realize the universal bonds of love, music and life. Set against a breathtaking desert landscape, this cross-cultural comedy proves that getting lost is sometimes the best way to find yourself.

フランコ・ゼッフィレッリ

アリ・フォルマン

マーク・ローレンス

ブレット・ラトナー

バズ・ラーマン

ロベルト・ベニーニ

J.K.ローリング, クリス・コロンバス 親戚の虐待を受けながら育てられていた孤児のハリー・ポッター（ダニエル・ラトクリフ）は、11歳の誕生日に自分が魔法使いであることを知らされ、魔法寄宿学校に入学。仲間たちと共に魔法の勉強に勤しみながら、両親の死の真相や、学校内の陰謀に立ち向かっていく。
   J.K.ローリング の世界的ベストセラー小説を『ホーム・アローン』シリーズのクリス・コロンバス監督が映画化したファンタジー・サーガの第1作。今後も年に1本、現作に即し、全7作の映画化が予定（第3作までは決定事項）されている。2時間を超える長尺ながらも、子どもから大人までほど良く飽きずに楽しめる心地よさと、英国情緒を意識した厳格な世界観とのミックスがいい。子どもたちをとりまく大人のキャストにも、リチャード・ハリスにマギー・スミスなどイギリス・ベテラン勢が多数占めている。（的田也寸志）

デヴィッド・イェーツ

マーティン・キャンベル 1821年メキシコ領のカリフォルニアで、黒マスクの英雄ゾロは、圧政に苦しむ民衆を守るために大活躍をしていた。悪徳総督のラファエルはゾロことディエゴの邸宅を襲い妻を殺し娘を奪い、ディエゴを牢獄に入れて逃亡した。20年後、牢から出たディエゴはアレハンドロという若者を見出し、第二のゾロに育てる訓練を始める。
   一代目ゾロのアンソニー・ホプキンスは風格ある存在感を漂わせ、二代目ゾロのアントニオ・バンデラスは荒馬がサラブレッドに変身するように、徐々に英雄らしく変身していく。2人のゾロの対比がおもしろい。
   また、バンデラス自身が行ったという剣さばきは必見。力強く華麗でフェンシングの妙技を堪能させてくれる。趣向をこらした決闘シーンに、馬の追跡シーンなど、次々に見せ場の連続で目が離せない。ワクワクと胸躍る冒険活劇である。(星乃つづり)

ジョン・マッデン

マイク・フィギス

マイケル・マン

スティーブン・スピルバーグ 2054年のワシントンDC。犯罪予防局の刑事ジョン・アンダーソンは、予知能力者・プリコグの透視により、次々と犯罪を未然に防いでいた。ところがある日、プリコグが透視した犯人の名がジョンだったことから、彼は予防局に追われる立場に追い込まれる…。
   トム・クルーズとスピルバーグ監督が、がっぷり組んだ娯楽大作。近未来の最新テクノロジーを堪能できる特撮、青みがかったシャープな映像など、スピルバーグらしい凝ったヴィジュアルが楽しいし、追う立場から追われる立場になってしまった主人公が、逃亡しながらも事件の真相を探るストーリーもスリリングだ。クルーズ演じるジョンを敵視する司法省の調査官をコリン・ファレルが好演、ドラマをピリリと引き締めている。（斎藤　香）

ティム・バートン 死期が迫った父が、改めて息子に語り聞かせる人生の回想。巨人とともに故郷を出て、サーカスで働きながら、あこがれの女性と結ばれる。戦争へ行き、ひとつの町を買い上げる……。何度も聞かされた父の話は、どこまでが本当なのだろうか？ 異才ティム・バートン監督が、独自のファンタジック＆ブラックなテイストに、テーマとしてはストレートな感動に照準を合わせた快心作。
   ベストセラーである原作に登場する奇妙な要素を、この映画版では多少組み替え、よりビジュアル的に楽しめる物語になっている。相手の死の状況を予言する魔女や、2つの上半身が下半身を共用する双生児の姉妹などフリークス的なキャラを登場させつつ、一面の黄スイセンのなかでの愛の告白といったメルヘンチックな場面も織りまぜ、人生の悲喜こもごもを共感たっぷりに描くことに成功。死の間際までうさんくさい老父役のアルバート・フィニーとは対照的に、若き日の父を演じるユアン・マクレガーは、前向きな主人公像を、まっすぐな瞳で好演する。監督の意識の表れであろうか、結末の感動は原作をはるかに上回る。（斉藤博昭）

Nagisa Oshima Often called the Godard of the East, Japanese director Nagisa Oshima was one of the most provocative film artists of the twentieth century, and his works challenged and shocked the cinematic world for decades. Following his rise to prominence at Shochiku, Oshima struck out to form his own production company, Sozo-sha, in the early sixties. That move ushered in the prolific period of his career that gave birth to the five films collected here. Unsurprisingly, this studio renegade was fascinated by stories of outsiders—serial killers, rabid hedonists, and stowaway misfits are just some of the social castoffs you’ll meet in these audacious, cerebral entries in the New Wave surge that made Japan a hub of truly daredevil moviemaking.

Pleasures of the Flesh
Nagisa Oshima, 1965
A corrupt businessman blackmails the lovelorn reprobate Atsushi into watching over his suitcase full of embezzled cash while he serves a jail sentence. Rather than wait for the man to retrieve his money, however, Atsushi decides to spend it all in one libidinous rush.

Violence at Noon
Nagisa Oshima, 1966
Containing more than two thousand cuts and a wealth of inventive widescreen compositions, this coolly fragmented character study is a mesmerizing investigation of criminality and social decay.

Sing a Song of Sex
Nagisa Oshima, 1967
Four sexually hungry high school students prepare for their university entrance exams in Oshima’s hypnotic, free-form depiction of generational political apathy, featuring stunning color cinematography.

Japanese Summer: Double Suicide
Nagisa Oshima, 1967
A sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal man she meets on the street, a gun-crazy wannabe gangster—these are just three of the irrational, oddball anarchists trapped in an underground hideaway in Oshima’s devilish, absurdist film.

Three Resurrected Drunkards
Nagisa Oshima, 1968
A trio of bumbling young men frolic at the beach. While they swim, their clothes are stolen and replaced with new outfits. Donning these, they are mistaken for undocumented Koreans and end up on the run from comically outraged authorities.

ユエン・ウーピン

ロバート・クローズ 「ドラゴン」ブルース・リーの名を世界に知らしめ、アジアとハリウッドが初めて手を組んだモニュメント作品であると同時に、アクション映画史上に残る傑作。香港の沖に浮かぶ要塞島で、武術の達人を集めたトーナメントが開かれる。英国政府の要請で秘密諜報員として大会に参加した中国人青年リーは、島で行われている麻薬密売の証拠をつかみ、主催者のハンと対決する。
   中国映画を世界に広めることと、ハリウッド映画に主演することを生涯の目標にしていたブルース・リーにとって、本作はまさに夢をかなえる1作となったが、完成直後に急死。残念ながら彼にとっての遺作になってしまった。本作にはブルース自ら監督したと言われる、貴重な未公開シーンを追加した完全版の本編を収録。（山内拓哉）

アンドリュー・ソルト

ケリー・アズベリー, コンラッド・バーノン, アンドリュー・アダムソン これまでのアニメの常識を覆し、強烈でシニカルなギャグやパロディを盛り込んで、思いもよらぬ感動に着地させる異色CGアニメの続編。前作に続いて、カンヌ国際映画祭のコンペティションに選ばれ、そのクオリティの高さを証明した。めでたくフィオナ姫と結ばれた怪物シュレックが、姫の両親が住む「遠い遠い国」から招待を受ける。しかし、フォオナの父はシュレックの容姿に激怒。フィオナを横取りしようとするチャーミング王子と彼の母も交え、シュレックとフィオナの運命は二転三転していく。
   雨粒や毛の細かさから、大がかりな群衆シーンまで、CGは前作からさらに進化。新登場のキャラでは、アントニオ・バンデラスが声を担当する「長ぐつをはいたネコ」が剣さばきとキュートな表情で場をさらう。過去の映画やディズニー・アニメのパロディは言うまでもなく、今回はビバリーヒルズのブランドショップや、アカデミー賞授賞式などをパロったシーンに爆笑。快調すぎるほどのテンポと、会話の妙、「内面の美しさが大切」というテーマは前作から引き継がれているが、毒気は少々薄味になっている。（斉藤博昭）

ベン・スティラー

スティーブン・ソダーバーグ

マイク・ニューウェル

This unpretentious, endearing film is a modest triumph. Based on interviews with more than 500 people about the one memory they would choose to take with them to heaven, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda has modeled a unique blend of documentary and fiction that addresses the vagaries of memory but also what it means to make films. After Life transpires in a sort of way station where the dead must select one memory to be re-created on film and taken on with them forever, relinquishing everything else. Over the span of a week, a dedicated group of caseworkers tease out self-deceptions as well as real epiphanies from 22 different lives. An old woman remembers reuniting with her husband on a crowded bridge after World War II; a man recollects the breeze felt on a tram ride the day before summer vacation; a successful man faces his own treachery. Remembering becomes a courageous act in the casual exposition of this lovely film. —Fionn Meade

ランディ・フィリップス

ウディ・アレン

ゲイリー・マーシャル

ロン・ハワード

ジョン・ファヴロー

Akira Kurosawa Years before Akira Kurosawa changed the face of cinema with such iconic works as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo, he made his start in the Japanese film industry with four popular and exceptional works, created while World War II was raging. All gripping dramas, those rare early films—Sanshiro Sugata; The Most Beautiful; Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two; and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail—are collected here, including a two-part martial arts saga, a portrait of female volunteers helping the war effort, and a kabuki-derived tale of deception. These captivating films are a glorious introduction to a peerless career.

Sanshiro Sugata (Sugata Sanshiro): Kurosawa’s effortless debut is based on a novel by Tsuneo Tomita about the rivalry between judo and jujitsu. Starring Susumu Fujita as the title character, Sanshiro Sugata is a dazzling martial-arts action tale, but it’s also a moving story of moral education and enlightenment that’s quintessential Kurosawa.

The Most Beautiful (Ichiban utsukushiku): This portrait of female volunteer workers at an optics plant during World War II, shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory, was created with a patriotic agenda. Yet thanks to the director’s groundbreaking semidocumentary approach to the material, The Most Beautiful is a revealing look at Japanese women of the era that anticipates the aesthetics of Japanese cinema’s postwar social realism.

Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two (Zoku Sugata Sanshiro): Kurosawa’s first film was such a success that the studio pressured the director into making a sequel. The result is a hugely entertaining adventure, reuniting most of the major players from the original and featuring a two-part narrative in which Sanshiro first fights a pair of Americans and then finds himself the target of a revenge mission undertaken by the brothers of the original film’s villain.

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi): The fourth film from Kurosawa is based on a sacred twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune, with the help of a group of samurai, crossed enemy territory disguised as a monk. The story was dramatized for centuries in Noh and kabuki theater, and here it becomes one of the director’s most riveting early films.

ケン・クワピス

スタンリー・キューブリック

テオ・アンゲロプロス

ビクトル・エリセ

ヴィム・ヴェンダース

フランシス・フォード・コッポラ

This month, we present five wonderful works of art by Japanese master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. Made directly after Tokyo Story, widely considered his most perfect film and one of the greatest movies ever made, these titles show Ozu at the top of the game, visually and narratively. Elegant, humorous, rich with joy and sadness, these films further demonstrate why Ozu has become synonymous with the word cinema.

Five-Disc Set Includes:

Early Spring: A married salaryman in postwar Tokyo enters into an affair with an office mate in this moving portrait of a fragile marriage.

Tokyo Twilight: In the dead of winter, past and present traumas afflict two sisters and their aging father in this, one of Ozu's most heartbreaking and powerful works.

Equinox Flower: In Ozu's splendid first color film, a stubborn businessman who disapproves of his daughter's fiance must learn to embrace modern romance.

Late Autumn: Ozu regular Setsuko Hara, once the marrying child in Late Spring, becomes the parent in this poignant tale of the bonds between mother and daughter.

The End of Summer: Ozu's second-to-last film beautifully blends comedy and tragedy to tell the story of three sisters who are stunned to discover that their aging father has taken up with his former mistress.

Samuel Fuller His films have been called raw, outrageous, sensational, and daring. In four decades of directing, Samuel Fuller created a legendarily idiosyncratic oeuvre, examining U.S. history and mythmaking in westerns, film noirs, and war epics. And characteristically, it all began with a bang: after printing the legend with the elegant B-pictures I Shot Jesse James and The Baron of Arizona, he got himself into hot water with the FBI on The Steel Helmet, the first American movie to portray the Korean War. These three independent films showed off Fuller’s genre diversity, gutter wit, and subversive force, and pointed the way to a controversial career in studio moviemaking.

I Shot Jesse James

Fuller's directorial debut is a psychological western, excavating, with pathos and humor, the tale of Robert Ford, the member of Jesse James's gang who shot the famed outlaw in the back.

The Baron of Arizona A devilishly witty Vincent Price plays a nineteenth-century con man who sets out to commit the most epic swindle in U.S. history: to claim himself as the rightful inheritor of Arizona.

The Steel Helmet With its low budget and high ambitions, Fuller's snarling Korean War film, an examination of race relations as well as a visceral plunge into battle, remains one of the director's most discussed and admired works.

ウェス・アンダーソン 天才一家と世間にもてはやされながらも心はバラバラのままに暮らしていたテネンバウムズ家の人々が、再びひとつ屋根の下に集うことになってしまった。
   アメリカ本国で高い評価を受けていたウェス・アンダーソン監督の日本初公開作。あたかもジョン・アーヴィングの世界を彷彿させるアメリカならではの寓話性の下、シンメトリックな画面構成や、天才であるがゆえに（！？）個性的なキャラクターの面々をファッションで区分けするなど、非常に明快なイメージをもって深みある人間賛歌を描き得ている快作。一家の面々にはジーン・ハックマンやアンジェリカ・ヒューストン、グウィネス・パルトロウなど芸達者がズラリ勢揃い。その卓越した演技合戦も見どころのひとつである。（的田也寸志）

Akira Kurosawa SEVEN SAMURAI - DVD Movie

' The most popular Japanese moviemaker of all time, Akira Kurosawa began his career by delving into the state of his nation immediately following World War II, with visual poetry and direct emotion. Amid Japan s economic collapse, moral waywardness, and American occupation, Kurosawa managed to find humor and redemption existing alongside despair and anxiety. In these five films, which range from the whimsically Capraesque to the icily Dostoyevskian, from political epics to courtroom potboilers, Kurosawa established both the artistic range and social acuity that would inform his entire career.

Masahiro Motoki, Ryôko Hirosue, Akimasa Kawashima, Yôjirô Takita

Aki Kaurismaki

William Shatner

Christopher Jones, Donald R. Beck Talk about slapdash. Here's a tribute to Star Trek hosted by Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner, and within the first half-hour they've run out of things to talk about related to Star Trek. Though there are clips from both classic Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, they seem like an afterthought: montage fodder that only occasionally chooses a topic (like humorous catch phrases of the characters) and looks at it thoroughly. Otherwise, there's way too much time devoted to letting Nimoy shill for the Star Trek VI movie and reminisce about the special effects in Star Trek IV (which he happened to direct). Aside from superficial treatment of the Trekkie phenomenon (better explained in the movie Trekkies), the fan base is barely mentioned—and what's the deal with LeVar Burton's tour of Space Camp? It looks like an outtake from Reading Rainbow. This doesn't even count as a greatest-hits video because the organization is so haphazard. The whole thing smacks of moneymaking exploitation. —Marshall Fine

Michael Mahler Released in 1996, this straight-to-video effort focuses almost entirely on the classic Star Trek series, as told by the principal actors of Star Trek: Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and Walter Koenig. Shatner, of course, gets center stage, telling anecdotes about the way each of the roles was cast and why each actor was uniquely suited for his or her role. A great deal is also made (and rightly so) about what a breakthrough the show represented in its multicultural casting. Shatner, who also serves as host, repeats many of the same stories he used in his book, Star Trek Memories, as do his old cast mates. Indeed, this is one of several Star Trek retrospective tapes in which Nichols or someone else tells the story about her encounter with Martin Luther King Jr., at a point when she was considering quitting the show because her part seemed so inconsequential. —Marshall Fine

Leonard Nimoy Jumping on to the end-of-the-century bandwagon a little early, Paramount Pictures released 10 of their top films in one 10-pack, the Millennium Collection, in 1998. All the films are presented in their widescreen editions; one, Breakfast at Tiffany's, is offered in this format for the first time. The set includes 5 Best Picture Oscar winners and films that took home an additional 33 Academy Awards. All the tapes are available to buy individually. The pack, with a handsome mosaic of faces from the movies, also features collector gift cards (a movie version of baseball cards) and a commemorative booklet detailing the productions of all 10 films. The collection is oddly weighted toward the last 25 years, offering only one film from the 1950s and one from the 1960s. Your taste in current cinema will define the value of the set. Besides Tiffany's, one of Audrey Hepburn's finest films, the collection contains: The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, Grease with John Travolta, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and The Godfather, the funny, whale-saving Star Trek IV—The Voyage Home, Tom Cruise's hit Top Gun, the smash hit Ghost with Demi Moore, Mel Gibson's Celt fest Braveheart, and Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks. —Doug Thomas

David Carson all orders have customer tracking #.

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Kivas Fajo is a man with "no moral difficulties. At all." Saul Rubinek plays him with the ruthlessness and charm of Dr. Mengele. (By all accounts, Mengele could be very charming.) And like Mengele, Fajo collects things that please him, such as the Rejac Crystal and Data.

"The Most Toys" is eerie and creepy and exudes a strange fascination. It's like a car wreck: one is compelled by the force of human nature to look. There's just something strangely attractive about evil. Make no mistake, Kivas Fajo is evil. Sure he prances about like a demented gnome, but he also kidnaps, steals, and kills without compunction. He uses Data's programmed value of all life against him. When degradation and threats don't work, the collector produces an illegal disrupter and aims it at his assistant Varria (Jane Daly), who is herself a prisoner in his stable. Fajo will stop at nothing to get Data to sit in the chair. When Data finally does sit in the chair, the viewer understands that everybody has his price—even Data. Especially Data. That price is another being's life.

This episode contains the most chilling line in TNG's history: "I cannot feel pleasure. I am only an android." It's extraordinary not only for great writing and acting but also for its sad backstory. Actor David Rappaport was originally cast as Fajo, but committed suicide before filming could be completed. The ironic thing is that "The Most Toys" is all about the affirmation of life. —Kayla Rigney

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Taking a page from Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa's classic film about conflicting perspectives, this Next Generation episode finds Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) caught between different points-of-view about whether he murdered a scientist (Mark Margolis) after a failed effort to seduce the latter's wife (Gina Hech). The facts: while visiting the married couple and observing the Federation researcher's work on a new source of energy, the Enterprise's first officer has an argument with the scientist, who is then killed while Riker beams out of the scene. But what really happened? The situation looks cut-and-dry to Tanugan Inspector Krag (Craig Richard Nelson), who arrests Riker but is then convinced by Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) to re-create the varying testimonies in the ship's holodeck. For Trek fans, the episode clearly echoes a show from the original series entitled "Wolf in the Fold," in which engineer Scotty is accused of a heinous sex crime while visiting a planet. The plot is intriguing, the suspense is fine, and the suggestion of a dark streak in Riker will not be lost on fans of the series. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Q eating a chocolate sundae: what a concept. Popular with Trek fans, the godlike imp Q (John de Lancie) makes his sixth appearance on The Next Generation, but this time with a difference. Stripped of his amazing powers by the Q Continuum—his immortal overseers—the condescending space-pest becomes a mere humanoid on the Enterprise, adding an extra headache for Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), already busy trying to keep a moon from crashing into a Federation planet. Assigned to crew duty, the humbled Q is escorted everywhere by Data (Brent Spiner), who introduces the skeptical alien to such fleshly pursuits as ordering chocolate treats. When Data makes an extreme sacrifice to protect Q from an old nemesis, the narcissistic fellow is uncharacteristically moved to heroic action of his own. The episode was made strictly for fun (most Q episodes end up rather profound, but this isn't one of them), and de Lancie has great sport with his alter ego's sudden ordinariness. Corbin Bernsen (LA Law) makes a surprise appearance as Q2, Q's annoyed boss. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Did you know that Ireland will reunify in the year 2025? That "fact" comes courtesy of "The High Ground," an episode of The Next Generation in which the struggles of Northern Ireland are echoed in the ongoing violence between Federation members the Rutians and disenfranchised rebels called the Ansata. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the Enterprise arrive to apply pressure on the Rutians to resolve differences with the terrorist underground, but when an Ansatan bombing results in the capture of Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), the mission changes. Guest stars Richard Cox and Kerrie Keane are very effective, respectively, as an Ansatan leader and the Rutian cop determined to bring him down. The episode also puts a rare spotlight on Picard as an action hero—he actually gets to punch out a terrorist at one point—and extends the teasing possibility of an eventual romance between the captain and the ship's comely physician. Not a classic from the series, necessarily, but a good one with interesting moral murkiness. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole A particularly pompous scientist (Ken Jenkins) is aboard the Enterprise to view a once-in-a-lifetime event: the explosion of a star. But even as he's preparing to complete what has been his life's work, the ship's computers begin to go glitch-crazy. More problematic, the computer itself records no instance of failure or malfunction. The problem, as it turns out, is that Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) has been conducting a school experiment involving microscopic robots called nanites. Two nanites have escaped into the computer—and have evolved in a way that allows them to reproduce and run amok in the computer system, threatening not only the scientific mission but the safety of the Enterprise itself.

It's an intriguing episode, one that uses its plot to debate the nature of life as it applies to sentient mechanical beings. In this case, not only are the nanites capable of reproducing but also learning and evolving; when the scientist suggests killing all the nanites to save his project, the nanites themselves gang up and retaliate. On the other hand, the whole episode keeps building to moments of tension and suspense that simply fade away, rather than reaching cathartic release. And a subplot, involving Crusher's mother Beverly (Gates McFadden) and her mother-hen impulses toward her growing son, reveals yet again how stiff an actress she is and why she wasn't missed during her absence for the second season. —Marshall Fine

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Data gets to carry an episode in this third-season offering that focuses on the rationality of the android pitted against the irrationality of humanity. The Enterprise receives an unexpected message from a race known as the Sheliak, who've been out of touch for more than a century. The Sheliak, aliens who consider themselves far superior to humans, claim a small planet under guidelines set down by their treaty with the Federation and announce that they intend to colonize this planet four days hence. The problem is that humans have already colonized the planet. Tough luck, says the Sheliak—evacuate or die. But when Data is sent to the planet to organize the evacuation, he runs into two problems: first, there are 15,000 colonists, more than can be shipped out in the four days given by the Sheliak; and second, the colonists have no desire to leave. Worse yet, their leader refuses to deal with an android.

Even as Data tries to reason with the colonists, Picard goes head-to-head with the top Sheliak, debating the finer legal points of the treaty in an effort to buy time. Brent Spiner makes the most of the kiss Data receives from a human woman who falls for him—though the android still doesn't understand what sex is all about. There's some nice chess-move-style plotting, with strong performances by the Enterprise crew and some stilted performances by the planet colonists. —Marshall Fine

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole To aid in a battle simulation program, the Enterprise enlists the skills of a master strategist from the Zakdorn race, Sirna Kolrami (Roy Brocksmith). Riker and Picard face off, with Riker helming a broken-down old derelict of a ship called the Hathaway. Riker bucks the odds, and the arrogant Zakdorn's low assessment of his abilities, using a holographic trick to distract the Enterprise, thus winning the contest. Only the contest attracts a very real Ferengi vessel that attacks the Enterprise, thus taking the game to another level, an opportunity to display their game skills in an actually dangerous situation. "Peak Performance" revolves around the air of superiority of the smug Kolrami, whose arrogance and master-level abilities in the strategy game Strategema drive the crew to distraction. The episode bursts with ideas about finding creative solutions to complex problems, that pit left-brain, or logico-mathematical, skills against right-brain, or creative, abilities—and very good ideas at that. —Jim Gay

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn) gets what seems to him an unpleasant surprise when the Klingon emissary beamed aboard the Enterprise on an urgent mission turns out to be his old girlfriend, K'Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson), who is half-Klingon, half-human. She's there to help the Enterprise intercept a Klingon warship, which has been in a cryogenic sleep for almost a century. They've been gone long enough that crew members don't know that Klingons are at peace with the Federation—sort of the equivalent of Japanese soldiers on remote Pacific Islands who never heard that World War II was over. K'Ehleyr's job is to convince these warriors that they are no longer at war. While she's waiting for them to show up, she has enough time to ruffle Worf's feathers by trying to rekindle their old feelings.

Plakson has a delightfully tart way with her lines, which work well at needling the usually implacable Worf. Interestingly, K'Ehleyr is the one pushing for the couple to get down—but then bridles at the notion that, by mating for the sheer fun of it, they are bound for life. Traditionalist Worf, by contrast, can't imagine having sex without commitment—which just goes to show the difference between humans and Klingons. Plakson—as K'Ehleyr—would show up in a later episode, with the child produced by this encounter. Unfortunately, the interpersonal moments consume so much time that, when the Klingon ship finally appears, the tension in that encounter winds up feeling perfunctory. —Marshall Fine

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole It's always enjoyable to see the family members of familiar Star Trek characters, because it gives new dimensions to people usually seen in work mode. In "Manhunt," the familial arrival is Lwaxana Troi (Majel Barrett), mother of counselor Deanna Troi. Barrett, the widow of series creator Gene Roddenberry and the only actor to appear in every Star Trek series, had made one previous appearance in The Next Generation, and this character would turn up again in later episodes. In this outing, she is beamed aboard the Enterprise, which will transport her to a Federation conference where she is a delegate. The Enterprise is also carrying a pair of delegates from the planet Antede Three—but they have chosen to spend the flight in suspended animation because it's the only way they can endure space travel.

Though they provide the plot's jeopardy at the end of the show, the real focus is on Lwaxana, who is going through what Deanna refers to as "the phase"—a period of heightened sexual hunger. The story is meant to be comic, based on the turnabout notion of this female sexual predator chasing Picard and Riker. Given that the episode aired in 1987, it seems retrograde in its depiction of men trying to put off this forthright vamp. It doesn't help that Barrett, never a great actress, reads all her lines as though they were written by Oscar Wilde, when the script doesn't even rise to the level of Neil Simon. —Marshall Fine

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Everybody's favorite Star Trek trickster god, Q (John de Lancie), returns to the Enterprise despite promises never to trouble the ship again. Q has been kicked out of the Q continuum, he's bored, and he's decided he wants to join the crew of the Enterprise and go exploring with them. When Captain Picard says no, Q gets angry and knocks the ship into a particularly dangerous part of the unexplored universe, just to see how well they can fend for themselves without his help. Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), the bartender of Ten-Forward, has been to this part of space before, and she recommends leaving as quickly as possible. Needless to say, they don't leave fast enough, and they meet up with the cyborg race called the Borg. After one battle, the Borg prove to be stronger, and Guinan says their brief taste of human technology will no doubt spur them on to seek it out again. An auspicious introduction to a brilliant villain: the Borg. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole The Enterprise visits a solar system that is being torn apart by unknown geological forces. Riker, eager to forward Wesley's training as an officer, puts him in charge of the geological survey team of Drema Four. Wesley is eager for the work, but worries about giving orders to older and more experienced crew members. Meanwhile, Data picks up a call from Drema Four's surface, and begins what he thinks is a harmless exchange with a child named Sarjenka. (Look carefully under Sarjenka's makeup and you might recognize a very young Nikki Cox.) When it becomes clear that Drema Four is doomed to the same fate as the other planets in the system, Data reveals his friendship to the crew. You guessed it—it just might be time to violate the Prime Directive. For those who always found it a cop-out, this episode contains one of the more extensive discussions of the Prime Directive, and goes a long way towards explaining why it's so important. —Ali Davis

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole First, the good news: Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) is being given the opportunity to captain his own ship, the Aries, on a dangerous mission into a remote part of space. The bad news is that the person offering him this mission is Kyle Riker (Mitchell Ryan), his father, whom he hasn't spoken with for 15 years. Ever since his mom died, Commander Riker has had bitter feelings toward his dad, believing he was all but abandoned by the man. Elsewhere on the ship, Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) has noticed that Worf (Michael Dorn) is in a particularly bad mood. With a little investigation and the help of Data and Geordi, he discovers it is the 10th anniversary of Worf's Age of Ascension, a special day that Klingons celebrate with family and pain. While Wesley figures out a way to celebrate Worf's big day, Commander Riker and his dad spar both mentally and physically, and through battle are able to say what they're feeling about each other. Trés masculine. Oh, and in a further attempt to give Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) more of a backstory, it's revealed that she used to date Kyle Riker. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole This jaunty B-movie funhouse of an episode could have sprung from The Twilight Zone. That's essentially where Commander Riker, Data, and Worf find themselves while investigating an oxygen pocket on a lifeless planet. A revolving door in the middle of nowhere whooshes the away team into a bustling Las Vegas hotel casino, where the activity seems to contradict sensor readings. There's no life here, merely an elaborate holodeck fantasy sprung from the pages of a trashy paperback crime melodrama. Think Harold Robbins by way of Jean-Paul Sartre: there's no way out of this hackneyed soap opera and the Enterprise transporters can't beam them out, so it's up to Riker and company to create their own dramatic exit. The rather elaborate explanation for it all concerns an ancient NASA astronaut and the misguided benevolence of a naive alien race, but it hardly matters. The fun lies in Data's studies of gamblers, gold diggers, and the intricacies of room service, and Riker's energetic fling as a flamboyant high roller. As Counselor Troi listens in on the hoary dialogue emanating from the gambling hall, she queries: "Did humans really talk like that?" Only in the B movies and TV soaps this episode parodies with such eye-rolling fun. —Sean Axmaker

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole There's trouble in the Neutral Zone. Following a distress signal, the Enterprise finds the USS Yamato stranded due to a systems failure, with the Romulans nearby. Even before the opening credits roll the starship explodes, killing everybody on board. Turns out the captain of the Yamato had been searching for Iconia, a planet legendary for its technological advances, and whose technology would be incredibly dangerous if it were to fall into the wrong (read: Romulan) hands. Then the computer virus that destroyed the Yamato starts to infect the Enterprise, and the Romulans show up and start threatening them. To make matters worse, Data himself becomes infected. A good yarn—and as the Internet continues to expand, stories like this one about computer viruses will become increasingly relevant. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Why should randy William Riker get all the ladies? When 16-year-old Salia (Jaime Hubbard) boards the Enterprise in order to be escorted to Daled IV, the planet she is destined to rule, Wesley Crusher gets an immediate crush on her. She seems to like him, too, much to the displeasure of her overprotective guardian Anya (Paddi Edwards). Wesley roams the ship asking for dating advice while Anya tries to lock Salia in her room. Of course, Wesley is following that unwritten Enterprise rule that encourages flings with people and aliens from outside of the ship, which guarantees they will be short-term affairs. It's a pattern established by Picard (see episode 24, "We'll Always Have Paris"), where duty and ambition always take precedence over personal relationships. Back to Wesley, though. When Wesley discovers the true nature of this alien life form, he must come to terms with the fact that looks aren't everything. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Philosophy takes center stage in this exploration of what constitutes a life form. Everybody knows that Data is an amazing machine, but is he more than that? Is he a sentient being? These questions, perfect for idle speculation, are put on trial on a brand-new starbase when Commander Bruce Maddox (Brian Brophy) decides he wants to disassemble Data in order to learn "its" secrets, so that he can build many more Datas in the future. Data, however, doesn't think his science ability is up to snuff. Maddox forces a transfer so that Data must undergo the experiments, which in turn leads to Data's resignation from Starfleet. But can he resign, or is he the property of Starfleet? Is he a person, or more like a toaster? A trial is set up in front of Judge Advocate General Philipa Louvois (Amanda McBroom); Riker is called on to argue that Data is the property of Starfleet, while Picard must defend Data as a new form of life. Excellent arguments are given for both sides. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole A Federation officer exchange program offers a highly entertaining look at culture shock with a vengeance. The Enterprise hosts Mendon, a Benzite who is all too eager to please and manages to rub both Worf and Captain Picard the wrong way. Meanwhile, Riker becomes first mate on the Klingon cruiser Pagh. A misunderstanding leads to a Klingon attack on the Enterprise and Riker must sort out his conflicting loyalties. This episode, an early look at Klingon culture, is great fun. Screenwriter Burton Armus clearly had a terrific time exploring the aggressive Klingon ways, and the show manages to make a point about cultural misunderstandings without losing its sense of humor. This is the perfect episode for those who like their gagh served cold. —Ali Davis

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Riva (Howie Seago) is one of the best mediators in the universe, and the Enterprise is assigned to transport him to Solais V, a planet that's been undergoing a bitter civil war for years. It turns out that Riva is a New Age deaf mute whose thoughts and ideas are communicated through a three-person chorus that follows him around wherever he goes, but he's good at his job anyway. On the way to the planet, however, Riva seems more interested in hitting on the empathic Deanna Troi than studying the history of the conflict. His cockiness not only jeopardizes the mission but his own chorus as well. With the help of Data and Troi, Riva is forced to find new ways to do his old job. Though the episode points to resolution, credit must be given to the writers for not tying up all of the loose ends by the finale. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole New-school Trek meets old-school comedy in this lighthearted episode. The Enterprise comes to the aid of dashing, lovable rogue Captain Okona. Okona's easy wit charms the ladies of the crew and inspires Data to learn about the peculiar human trait of humor. Okona is soon in hot water as two different factions demand his surrender, while Data is up to his ears in shtick with the help of Guinan and a holodeck comic played by Joe Piscopo. Piscopo is given alarmingly free reign in defining what is funny, but it is Brent Spiner's playful illustrations of Data's poor comic touch that come off best. Also keep an eye out for a young Teri Hatcher in the transporter room, appropriately cast as an attractive crew member. —Ali Davis

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Okay, blame it on Geordi La Forge. It's his slip of the tongue that causes all the mayhem in this episode. After Data ruins a perfectly good holographic adventure by jumping to the end of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, the frustrated chief engineer asks the computer to create an adversary worthy of defeating the android. What Geordi meant to say was an adversary worthy of Holmes, but never mind. The computer obliges and Moriarty is born. Literally. He comes equipped with superintelligence approaching consciousness and a direct line to the main computer. Somehow, Dr. Pulaski gets thrown into the mix—as a crumpet-eating hostage, of all things—and Moriarty starts messing with the Star Trek universe as we know it and turns reality on its ear.

TNG is at its best when it doesn't take itself too seriously. "Elementary, Dear Data" is an utterly charming outing into high-tech Victorian wacky land. In fact, this episode proved to be so popular that the story was continued three years later in "Ship in a Bottle." The writing is excellent and Daniel Davis is sublime as Moriarty, the hologram who's sentient and knows it. This makes many best of Trek episode lists, and is simply a must-own for all TNG fans. —Kayla Riggney

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Season 2 opens with the introduction of a bearded William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes), the promotion of Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) to chief engineer, and the replacement of Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher with Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur). With a scene that's much sexier than it has any right to be, a Tinkerbell-like spark enters the ship, finds a sleeping Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), moves under her covers, and impregnates her. The alien baby starts to grow much faster than a normal gestation period, shrinking the time frame down to a couple of days. Worf wants to terminate the pregnancy, Data wants to study the life form, and Troi decides to keep the baby no matter what anyone thinks. Once born, the boy continues its rapid growth, but is discovered to have an adverse effect on the specimens of a dangerous plasma plague they are carrying to a scientific research facility. None too subtly, the whole episode explores ideas about family. Also included is a guest spot by independent-film veteran Seymour Cassel. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole The first season comes to a close with Captain Picard being called to an emergency conference on Starbase 718. While waiting for him to return to the ship, Data and Worf investigate the wreckage of an old space capsule they find, one that was launched from Earth in the late 20th century. On board the capsule are three humans in suspended animation: a businessman, an artist, and a housewife. Each were frozen at the moment they died from fatal diseases, hoping that sometime in the future they could be thawed out and cured. Meanwhile, Picard brings the Enterprise into the neutral zone to investigate the destruction of a few remote outposts. Rumor has it, after 50 years of quiet, the Romulans have returned to annoy and fight against the Federation. The gravity of the situation is lost on the unfrozen humans, particularly the blowhard businessman who is itching to find out how his stocks are doing after more than 300 years. The comic aspects are rather broad, but the reintroduction of the Romulans is well played. The question of the destroyed outposts isn't resolved until season 2 (hint: it's one of the series' favorite villains), but the most interesting revelation is that TV on Earth only lasts until 2040. Watch this episode now, before it's too late! —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole When Picard receives a secret transmission from an old friend, Starfleet Captain Walker Keel (Jonathan Farwell), he agrees to attend a secret meeting on an uninhabited planet, even though it means breaking several Starfleet regulations and jeopardizing his career. Keel and a couple of other highly respected captains have gathered because Keel has begun to notice some bizarre orders emanating from Starfleet and suspects a growing conspiracy. Back on the Enterprise, Picard is skeptical, but Data helps confirm some of the strange orders. Picard sets up a meeting with Admiral Quinn (Ward Costello) to check it out. Admiral Quinn had previously boarded the Enterprise in episode 19 ("Coming of Age") in order to investigate the competency of Picard in the face of an unstated conspiracy, but now he seems like a different man. Though the writing is a bit forced, it's nice to see the show working on long-form, continuing story lines. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole The crew's much-needed shore leave has to be postponed when they run across anomalies in the space-time continuum. Hiccups in time are causing occasional moments of déjà vu. The distress signal from Dr. Paul Manheim (Rod Loomis), a scientist who's been working on experiments in nonlinear time, puts Picard into a bit of an emotional funk. You see, 22 years prior, Picard was supposed to meet a woman in a café in Paris—a woman whom he loved and who loved him. He stood her up for fear of being tied down by a relationship, choosing instead his Starfleet career. Needless to say, the old flame (Michelle Phillips) ended up marrying Manheim, and now it's up to Picard and the crew of the Enterprise to save them both. "We'll Always Have Paris" is an engaging examination of the personal sacrifices made by a workaholic, played against the backdrop of a smart, action-packed story. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Investigating the disappearance of the USS Drake, the Enterprise receives a message from a seemingly uninhabited world. It turns out to be nothing more than an ancient, prerecorded sales pitch (delivered with sleepy enthusiasm by long-faced character actor Vincent Schiavelli) welcoming visitors to Minos, the arms market of the universe. Beaming down to the planet, Riker, Tasha, and Data wander about a lush forest before encountering a series of flying sentinels (vaguely resembling outboard motors minus their propellers), the first easily destroyed by phaser fire, but subsequent incarnations adapting themselves to the crewmembers' attacks. Meanwhile, Picard and Dr. Crusher also go exploring, finding themselves trapped in an underground cave where the captain must tend to the doctor's broken leg. With both Picard and Riker on the planet, La Forge finds himself in command for the first time; he's not the only one questioning whether he's ready for the job. Though the situation is old hat and unfolds with a certain tattered predictability, this is one of the better outings of The Next Generation's first season. The characters are fleshed out without resorting to too much overdrawn dialogue (even the usually aggravating almost-romance between Picard and Crusher is subtly drawn); in particular it's Geordi's day to shine, and LeVar Burton brings a nice self-confidence to the heretofore submissive engineer. Overlooking the studio-bound landscapes typical of early Star Trek, the episode also features some impressive effects in the brief scenes of the Enterprise's saucer separation, a clever device that fortunately was never overused on the show. Nothing groundbreaking, though no major missteps either. —Bruce Reid

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole In "Heart of Glory," Worf's Klingon heritage is examined and tested against his loyalty to the Enterprise. After detecting a disturbance in the Neutral Zone, the Enterprise discovers the remains of one ship and a damaged cargo vessel whose life-support systems are failing. A rescue team sent in to find the survivors discovers a trio of Klingons and brings them back to the ship. These Klingon officers don't trust the peace with the Federation and are also wanted by the Klingons for crimes that they have committed. The officers question Worf's dedication to his race, wondering aloud if his instincts have been dulled by living with civilized men, and try to goad him into joining their revolution. "Heart of Glory" does an excellent job at adding depth and personal history to the Worf character by forcing him to make decisions he'd rather not make. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole As Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) heads to Starfleet Academy to take their grueling entrance exam, a brash Starfleet commander (Robert Schenkkan) boards the Enterprise in order to conduct a top-secret investigation. Just as Wesley doesn't always know what is and isn't part of the test (he's one of four finalists for a single Academy slot), the crew of the Enterprise doesn't know who or what is being investigated. All they are told is that "something is wrong with the ship." Soon they figure out that Captain Picard is under investigation, as captain's logs are nitpicked for inconsistencies and past actions are questioned. This puts everybody on edge, as they can't understand what could be wrong with a captain as competent as Picard, but the commander is under strict orders not to blab about it until the investigation is over. Both story lines are eventually resolved, of course, but it's fun to see the members of the Enterprise get all uppity in defense of Picard. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole On the lifeless desert planet of Velara III, a small group of scientists are hard at work terraforming the planet. When a routine check-in by the Enterprise leads to a testy dismissal from the head engineer, as well as bad vibes for Counselor Troi, the away team goes to investigate. Apologies are quickly made by the newly conciliatory terraformers, who explain that their manners tend to fade over the decades of isolation required to bring life to a dead world. (So what exactly happened to Star Trek II's Genesis Project?) But during the brief tour, one scientist is killed by an apparently malfunctioning laser, and suspicions are raised again. Data and Geordi investigate, and discover beyond question that an intelligent force in fact controlled the deadly beam. The three remaining scientists are brought up to the ship for questioning; also beamed aboard is a small crystal whose arrhythmic, "musical" light pulsations have intrigued Data. Despite some insistence from the ship's computer that, lacking organic structure, the crystal simply can't be life (why exactly aren't Starfleet medical programs informed of the silicon-based Horta encountered by the old Enterprise crew?), alive is exactly the right word. Alive, growing, and angry at the attempted extermination of its species by the terraformers. Not to mention able to control the Enterprise's computers, thus putting the entire crew at risk. Though the rapidly multiplying creature, eventually dubbed the microbrain, is one of the show's all-time cheapest aliens—basically some glowing penlights placed under a bell jar—the story is a fairly interesting rehash of some classic Trek themes. Plus, any episode that introduces the catchy phrase "ugly bags of mostly water," the microbrain's description of humans, is an instant classic. —Bruce Reid

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole The holodeck needs a bit of maintenance, so the Enterprise checks in to Starbase 74 to allow some Bynars (beings who can speak in binary code and who sound like fax machines) to update the programming. While Riker doesn't trust the Bynars, he forgets all of his complaints when he tries out the holodeck. Setting himself up as a trombone player in a 1958 Bourbon Street bar, he meets up with a sultry brunette. "What's a knockout like you doing in a computer-generated gin joint like this?" is his none-too-subtle pickup line. Her reactions turn out to be more complex and more "human" than the program ever exhibited before, and when Picard walks in on the couple he is equally charmed. While they're lost in the holodeck program, the Enterprise starts to self-destruct. This forces an evacuation of everybody (except Riker and Picard) and an eventual hijacking of the ship. The reasons behind the events are very smart, making this a nicely thought-out episode, despite little things like Data learning to paint and Riker's masturbatory fantasy. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole The Federation freighter Odin has been disabled by an asteroid. There are no signs of life on the ship, but three escape pods are missing, so the crew of the Enterprise take a trip to the nearest planet, Angel One, to see if they can locate any survivors. The civilization on Angel One is "similar to mid-20th-century Earth," except the gender roles are switched. Women are the hunters and natural leaders, while the men are treated as pretty ornaments and playthings. You can imagine how well that plays with Riker. But it's Riker who, in pure Shatner mode, nearly gets lucky with the leader of Angel One, Mistress Beata (Karen Montgomery). Well, it turns out the three survivors are fugitives from justice because they've been inspiring the men on the planet to campaign for equal rights, and the women just don't like that. Meanwhile, the Enterprise has been incapacitated by a mysterious virus. The obvious politics of this episode are nicely balanced by the entertainingly "girlish" costumes worn by the men on the planet. —Andy Spletzer

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole When an assignment brings the Enterprise to the star system where Data was discovered and activated 26 years earlier, the crew takes the opportunity to investigate the enigma of the android's origin. Returning to the barren planet where Data was found, the away team finds an underground laboratory containing the disconnected segments of another cyborg, identical to Data. Reassembled and brought to life, this second android grins, twitches his cheek, and introduces himself as Lore. Lore explains that he was created to replace Data when the latter disturbed the humans with whom he interacted (a lie, Data realizes—it turns out to have been exactly the opposite); and that the colonists' fate was the work of a giant "crystalline entity." He offers to guide the crew to it so that it may be destroyed, yet immediately after he's left alone Lore sends secret messages to the giant snowflake in space promising to bring it quite a feast. Yes, it took only 14 episodes for Next Generation to dredge up that hoariest of clichés, the evil twin (right down to Lore's distinguishing facial tic and fondness for penny-dreadful dialogue). Brent Spiner has what fun he can with the dual roles—he was starting to find the humor and humanity in Data by this point, and the more risibly histrionic that Lore's lines become the more Spiner engages in some tasty scenery-chewing, but not even his mercifully campy turn can salvage some of the silliest scenes ever written for the series. And the rest of the crew is as smug as they ever were the first few seasons, despite being so obtuse that they can't even see through Lore's ludicrous sham when he switches places with an unconscious Data. —Bruce Reid

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole When Captain Picard seeks some much needed recreation in the Enterprise's newly revamped holodeck, he decides to take a fantasy vacation as his favorite fictional private eye, Dixon Hill, a hard-boiled, trench-coated defender of WWII-era San Francisco. Picard's thrilling account of the computer-generated verisimilitude persuades a few shipmates to join him: Commander Data, Dr. Crusher, and some guy you've never heard of. Guess who gets shot when the holodeck malfunctions and its artificial creations turn very real and very deadly? The cast plays up to the genial humor of the witty story, and guest star Lawrence Tierney is a hoot as a Sidney Greenstreet-type villain philosophically intrigued by the notion that he doesn't truly exist. All that's missing is the playfulness that could have sent this over the top. Like many Next Generation episodes made before the show found its own voice and tone with the introduction of the Borg, "The Big Goodbye" suffers in comparison with the original Trek. One looks back fondly to Kirk and Spock's similar brush with '30s-style gangsters ("A Piece of the Action"), which had a goofy, go-for-broke sense of the situation's absurdity which this show lacks. And for all Picard's going on about the stunning reality of the simulated San Francisco, this is a disappointingly set-bound episode, cramped and confined when it most needs to break out of its story and breathe freely. —Bruce Reid

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole This curious episode re-introduced the meddling Q (John de Lancie) to the show, following the quasi-villain's key role in The Next Generation's two-part pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint." Establishing a pattern for all his visits to the Enterprise, Q simply pops up on the starship's bridge while Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) makes haste for an important mission. In this instance, Q transports key personnel (Data, Geordi, Tasha, Wesley, Worf, and Riker) to a barren planet, where they battle horrid creatures wearing the uniforms of Napoleon's army. Most importantly, Q bestows his powers onto Riker (Jonathan Frakes), who then struggles not to use them—and fails spectacularly. The script by series staff writer Maurice Hurley (under the pen name C.J. Holland) was stripped of action by Gene Roddenberry in favor of a talky, philosophical approach to questions concerning human destiny. Things look and feel even more dry on the alien planet set, which looks like a holdover from the zero-budget third season of the original series. More positively, a climactic scene in which Riker attempts to grant his Enterprise friends their most cherished dreams is quite singular in its ensemble work and drama. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole It seems pretty cute now to think about those first dozen or so episodes of The Next Generation. Laboring to establish its own identity and figure out who its characters were, the young series occasionally stumbled into various retro-cliches from hokey, sci-fi B movies. The hardbody paradise of the planet Rubicun III in "Justice" is one example: the peaceful sensualists (known as the Edo) living there are interested only in, uh, pleasure. But when Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) violates an arcane law and is sentenced to death, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is faced with a conflict over following the Prime Directive or saving the boy.

The evolution of this story is almost bizarre. Beginning with a script by John D.F. Black set on a colony called Llarof, the drama concerned Enterprise personnel caught up in the colonists' antiquated and unjust infliction of instant punishment. The Prime Directive became Picard's barrier to helping the planet's progressives change things. In any case, Gene Roddenberry and writer Worley Thorne did a radical rewrite, perhaps pulling a convenient element or two out of the classic Trek playbook by inventing the sex-obsessed Edo. Still, Stewart and his co-stars leave their imprint on the episode, and the ethical struggle to balance Federation duties with higher obligations—a struggle that helped define TNG—has its roots here. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole This somewhat patchy drama never quite comes to life until late in the episode, when Patrick Stewart gets a chance to play Captain Picard as a man literally possessed. While escorting delegations from two feuding planets to a Federation outpost, the Enterprise passes through a mysterious cloud containing intelligent life in the form of pure energy. One such entity alternately enters the bodies of Worf (Michael Dorn), Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden), the ship's computers and, finally, Picard. The script by Dorothy Fontana, based on a story by Michael Halperin, burns up a lot of time treating the basic idea as a mystery, with Data (Brent Spiner) even going so far as to adopt the mannerisms and vernacular of Sherlock Holmes. (A dubious element, though Spiner does get some great comic mileage out of it.) Again, it's Stewart's ingenuity that makes one forget the story's problems, playing Picard in a way that seems off by a few, unsettling degrees. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole The dubious introduction of the Ferengi, subjects of advance hype about a "new alien threat" on The Next Generation, was a disappointment for everyone concerned, as well as many fans. The galaxy's ultra-capitalists are chased by the Enterprise when a Ferengi vessel steals an energy converter. The chase ends when both ships are immobilized above an unknown outpost of the long-dead Tkon Empire. A joint effort to investigate fails when the Ferengi double-cross Riker's away-team. Viewers who could never much stomach the Ferengi won't find a lot here to appreciate, despite efforts by Gene Roddenberry to invent a viable and interesting new nemesis for the Federation. The story, which involves an automated Tkon guard sitting in judgment on Riker as well as the irritating aliens, is less-than-inspired as well. On a positive note, Armin Shimerman makes his first appearance as a Ferengi, this one called Letek. The diminuitive actor went on to play Quark on Deep Space Nine. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole Majel Barrett, who played nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series, returned to the screen in "Haven" as Lwaxana Troi, mother of Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) and (as someone once put it) the "Auntie Mame of the galaxy." The story concerns Deanna's reluctant agreement to participate in a marriage arranged by her late father. She dutifully meets her betrothed, a doctor named Wyatt (Rob Knepper), who turns out to be a good person baffled as to why Deanna doesn't look like the blonde he has seen in visions since childhood. An obligatory action subplot finds the Enterprise imperiled by the last survivors of a biological war. But the real entertainment here comes from the brassy Lwaxana's huge personality, her endless flirtations with a flustered Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), and her in-fighting with Wyatt's family. Barrett (Mrs. Roddenberry in real life) subsequently made annual visits to TNG as Lwaxana, but this episode almost didn't happen until writer Tracy Tormé (son of Mel) rescued and fixed an all-but-abandoned story treatment. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole This underrated, early episode of The Next Generation presents one of the most interesting ethical problems ever faced by Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart). A plague on Styris IV sends the Enterprise in search of an organic vaccine on Ligon II. Delicate diplomacy with Ligon's skeptical chief, Lutan (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson), breaks down when Lutan kidnaps Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) in keeping with his cultural traditions regarding the selection of wives. Picard is confronted with following the Prime Directive, which means accepting Ligon's subjective notion of civilized behavior and putting Tasha in real danger. The Next Generation often concerned itself with highly original moral quandaries where other species are concerned. But there is a uniquely human face to the situation in "Code of Honor," perhaps owing somewhat to the fact that Ligon's feudal society is entirely black. Ironically, it's that last point that embarrasses some of TNG's creative types, as if the episode serves up stereotypes. But in the best Star Trek tradition, the opposite is true: the show works because it resonates with real-world issues about resisting exploitation, about the occasional difficulties of respecting the integrity of other places, other people. —Tom Keogh

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole "The Naked Now" is a must-own for all TNG fans. Who cares if it's basically a retread of the original series' "Naked Time" or that it breaks out every Star Trek cliché in the book? This episode lays the groundwork for fundamental relationship story lines that take seven years to unfold. Thanks to some nasty alcoholic space bug, the crew of the Enterprise-D loses all inhibition and has a good ol' time. See Picard and Doctor Bev get hot and heavy. Watch in awe when Troi asks Riker "Don't you want to be alone with me in your mind?" Find out what "fully functional" really means whether you want to or not. Of course, all good things must come to an end. (Un)fortunately, Dr. Crusher finds a cure and Wesley saves the day. "Naked Now" is so joyously and transcendentally bad, it's good. A number one guilty pleasure among TNG fans everywhere. —Kayla Riggney

LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole The two-hour pilot of The Next Generation holds up well after all these years and many, many subsequent episodes and four feature films. Gene Roddenberry's second go-round with Star Trek on television boldly goes where no other soul had gone, overcoming Trekker skepticism at the time about new characters and a new cast. After introducing Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the rest of the crew, the script by Roddenberry and former Star Trek story editor Dorothy Fontana plunges them into a familiar Trek confrontation with a superior power, Q (John De Lancie), in a weirdly archaic setting drawn from Earth history (in this case, the bloody kangaroo courts of Robespierre's day). Declaring mankind barbarous and unworthy of existence, Q gives Picard 24 hours to prove humans are not just a "grievously savage race." The story is punctuated with various delights, particularly first meetings between the characters (watch for Riker's houndish introduction to Dr. Crusher) and a surprise cameo from a Trek icon. There are bumps: originally shot as a 90-minute special, "Encounter" had to be padded a bit (ergo the ship separation scene) to make it two hours. —Tom Keogh

Nicholas Meyer Star Trek V left us nowhere to go but up, and with the return of Star Trek II director Nicholas Meyer, Star Trek VI restored the movie series to its classic blend of space opera, intelligent plotting, and engaging interaction of stalwart heroes and menacing villains. Borrowing its subtitle (and several lines of dialogue) from Shakespeare, the movie finds Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) and his fellow Enterprise crew members on a diplomatic mission to negotiate peace with the revered Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner). When the high-ranking Klingon and several officers are ruthlessly murdered, blame is placed on Kirk, whose subsequent investigation uncovers an assassination plot masterminded by the nefarious Klingon General Chang (Christopher Plummer) in an effort to disrupt a historic peace summit. As this political plot unfolds, Star Trek VI takes on a sharp-edged tone, with Kirk and Spock confronting their opposing views of diplomacy, and testing their bonds of loyalty when a Vulcan officer is revealed to be a traitor. With a dramatic depth befitting what was to be the final movie mission of the original Star Trek crew, this film took the veteran cast out in respectably high style. With the torch being passed to the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation, only Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov would return, however briefly, in Star Trek: Generations. —Jeff Shannon

William Shatner Movie critic Roger Ebert summed it up very succinctly: "Of all of the Star Trek movies, this is the worst." Subsequent films in the popular series have done nothing to disprove this opinion; we can be grateful that they've all been significantly better since this film was released in 1989. After Leonard Nimoy scored hits with Star Trek III and IV, William Shatner used his contractual clout (and bruised ego) to assume directorial duties on this mission, in which a rebellious Vulcan (Laurence Luckinbill) kidnaps Federation officials in his overzealous quest for the supreme source of creation. That's right, you heard it correctly: Star Trek V is about a crazy Vulcan's search for God. By the time Kirk, Spock, and their Federation cohorts are taken to the Great Barrier of the galaxy, this journey to "the final future" has gone from an embarrassing prologue to an absurd conclusion, with a lot of creaky plotting in between. Of course, die-hard Trekkies will still allow this movie into their video collections; but they'll only watch it when nobody else is looking. After this humbling experience, Shatner wisely relinquished the director's chair to Star Trek II's Nicholas Meyer. —Jeff Shannon

Leonard Nimoy Widely considered the best movie in the "classic Trek" series of feature films, Star Trek IV returns to one of the favorite themes of the original TV series—time travel—to bring Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov from the 23rd century to present-day San Francisco. In their own time, the Starfleet heroes encounter an alien probe emitting a mysterious message—a message delivered in the song of the now-extinct Earth species of humpback whales. Failure to respond to the probe will result in Earth's destruction, so Kirk and company time-travel to 20th-century Earth—in their captured Klingon starship—to transport a humpback whale to the future in an effort to peacefully communicate with the alien probe. The plot sounds somewhat absurd in description, but as executed by returning director Leonard Nimoy, this turned out to be a crowd-pleasing adventure, filled with humor and lively interaction among the favorite Star Trek characters. Catherine Hicks (from TV's 7th Heaven) plays the 20th-century whale expert who is finally convinced of Kirk's and Spock's benevolent intentions. With ample comedy taken from the clash of future heroes with 20th-century urban realities, Star Trek IV was a box-office smash, satisfying mainstream audiences and hardcore Trek fans alike. —Jeff Shannon

Robert Wise Back when the first Star Trek feature was released in December 1979, the Trek franchise was still relatively modest, consisting of the original TV series, an animated cartoon series from 1973-74, and a burgeoning fan network around the world. Series creator Gene Roddenberry had conceived a second TV series, but after the success of Star Wars the project was upgraded into this lavish feature film, which reunited the original series cast aboard a beautifully redesigned starship U.S.S. Enterprise. Under the direction of Robert Wise (best known for West Side Story), the film proved to be a mixed blessing for Trek fans, who heatedly debated its merits; but it was, of course, a phenomenal hit. Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) leads his crew into the vast structures surrounding V'Ger, an all-powerful being that is cutting a destructive course through Starfleet space. With his new First Officer (Stephen Collins), the bald and beautiful Lieutenant Ilia (played by the late Persis Khambatta) and his returning veteran crew, Kirk must decipher the secret of V'Ger's true purpose and restore the safety of the galaxy. The story is rather overblown and derivative of plots from the original series, and avid Trekkies greeted the film's bland costumes with derisive laughter. But as a feast for the eyes, this is an adventure worthy of big-screen trekkin'. Douglas Trumbull's visual effects are astonishing, and Jerry Goldmith's score is regarded as one of the prolific composer's very best (with its main theme later used for Star Trek: The Next Generation). And, fortunately for Star Trek fans, the expanded 143-minute version (originally shown for the film's network TV premiere) is generally considered an improvement over the original theatrical release. —Jeff Shannon

Robert F. Shugrue, Leonard Nimoy You didn't think Mr. Spock was really dead, did you? When Spock's casket landed on the surface of the Genesis planet at the end of Star Trek II, we had already been told that Genesis had the power to bring "life from lifelessness." So it's no surprise that this energetic but somewhat hokey sequel gives Spock a new lease on life, beginning with his rebirth and rapid growth as the Genesis planet literally shakes itself apart in a series of tumultuous geological spasms. As Kirk is getting to know his estranged son (Merritt Butrick), he must also do battle with the fiendish Klingon Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), who is determined to seize the power of Genesis from the Federation. Meanwhile, the regenerated Spock returns to his home planet, and Star Trek III gains considerable interest by exploring the ceremonial (and, of course, highly logical) traditions of Vulcan society. The movie's a minor disappointment compared to Star Trek II, but it's a—well, logical—sequel that successfully restores Spock (and first-time film director Leonard Nimoy) to the phenomenal Trek franchise...as if he were ever really gone. With Kirk's willful destruction of the U.S.S. Enterprise and Robin Curtis replacing the departing Kirstie Alley as Vulcan Lt. Saavik, this was clearly a transitional film in the series, clearing the way for the highly popular Star Trek IV. —Jeff Shannon

Nicholas Meyer Although Star Trek: The Motion Picture had been a box-office hit, it was by no means a unanimous success with Star Trek fans, who responded much more favorably to the "classic Trek" scenario of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Inspired by the "Space Seed" episode of the original TV series, the film reunites newly promoted Admiral Kirk with his nemesis from the earlier episode—the genetically superior Khan (Ricardo Montalban)—who is now seeking revenge upon Kirk for having been imprisoned on a desolated planet. Their battle ensues over control of the Genesis device, a top-secret Starfleet project enabling entire planets to be transformed into life-supporting worlds, pioneered by the mother (Bibi Besch) of Kirk's estranged and now-adult son. While Mr. Spock mentors the young Vulcan Lt. Saavik (then-newcomer Kirstie Alley), Kirk must battle Khan to the bitter end, through a climactic starship chase and an unexpected crisis that will cost the life of Kirk's closest friend. This was the kind of character-based Trek that fans were waiting for, boosted by spectacular special effects, a great villain (thanks to Montalban's splendidly melodramatic performance), and a deft combination of humor, excitement, and wondrous imagination. Director Nicholas Meyer (who would play a substantial role in the success of future Trek features) handles the film as a combination of Moby Dick, Shakespearean tragedy, World War II submarine thriller, and dazzling science fiction, setting the successful tone for the Trek films that followed. —Jeff Shannon

Daryl Baskin, J.P. Farrell A program that never entirely made up its mind what it's supposed to be about, Star Trek: Voyager began life in 1995 with some truly fascinating prospects in its two-hour pilot episode, "Caretaker."

"Caretaker" opens in the 24th century, a setting contemporary with that of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Carrying over story elements from each of those series, Voyager's debut finds Starfleet Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) stepping into the middle of Federation troubles with the Maquis, an army of rebels violently resisting the interplanetary organization's treaty with brutal Cardassians. Janeway hopes to intercept a Maquis cell that unknowingly has a Starfleet spy, Tuvok (Tim Russ), in its midst. Instead, both Voyager and the Maquis ship under surveillance are accidentally catapulted out of the galaxy's Alpha Quadrant (the familiar stomping grounds of Starfleet personnel) by a benign but dying being called the Caretaker. Voyager ends up in the unexplored Delta Quadrant, some 70,000 light years away. Several of Voyager's key crew members are killed during the mishap, prompting an agreement with the skilled Maquis fugitives to cooperate on returning home.

So much seemed dramatically promising in this debut of Star Trek: Voyager, especially the unwieldy alliance of Starfleet regulars and hostile Maquis, and the likelihood that a lifetime spent in isolation, trying to get home, would lead to the development of a self-contained society on the ship. The curiously cheesy sets and fascinating, progressive management style of Janeway (half mommy, half taskmaster) were also new developments in Star Trek culture. Yet things didn't turn out to be quite so intriguing or original as the years passed—though that doesn't mean Voyager isn't a sporadically good show. It just isn't the one that "Caretaker" seemed to promise. —Tom Keogh

Tim Fywell Swiftly following the BBC's saga of a country doctor's daughter, Wives and Daughters (1999), comes their tale of a country doctor's wife. Madame Bovary is adapted from the great French novel by Gustave Flaubert and recounts the story of a young woman who longs for a more passionate life than her provincial world can ever accommodate. Unwilling to accept the confines of her marriage to the steady and conventional Charles (Hugh Bonneville), Emma Bovary (Frances O'Connor) embarks on self-deluding affairs that lead to tragedy. As selfishly amoral as Emma Bovary is, and even though her motivation is sometimes unfathomable in this version, we do feel for her plight and the story develops with cumulative power—though a ridiculous sex scene against a tree doesn't help. This is at least the 10th screen adaptation, the 1949 Hollywood take and the 1991 French version by Claude Chabrol being the most notable. The story is a predecessor of Jules et Jim (1962) and Betty Blue (1986) and inspired David Lean's great film Ryan's Daughter (1970). This version has a dark visual beauty and a powerful central performance by Frances O'Connor, but a brisker pace and sharper psychological insight might have transformed a polished entertainment into a television classic. —Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk

Jerry Leon, Paul Tothill, Anthony Page The BBC has raised the mini-series to an astonishing creative peak. A prime example is the 1994 production of Middlemarch, based on the classic novel by George Eliot, which juxtaposes morals and money, grand ambitions with petty jealousies, and pursuits of the mind with bodily needs. A handsome young doctor named Lydgate (Douglas Hodge, Vanity Fair) comes to the provincial town of Middlemarch to start a new hospital; a headstrong young woman named Dorothea (Juliet Aubrey, The Mayor of Casterbridge) yearns to contribute to the greater good of the world. These idealists enter into marriages that derail all their intentions and lead them into lives they never imagined. The network of characters in this six-episode program, ranging up and down the societal ladder, create an intricate and utterly engrossing narrative as well as a magnificent recreation of life on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. The cast, from the largest to the smallest roles, is impeccable. When a scene turns to a character you've only glimpsed before, the precision of the writing (by miniseries master Andrew Davies, Pride and Prejudice) and the vivid performances suck you into the life of this person who seemed like mere background scenery only moments before. The cumulative impact of Eliot's story will leave you gasping at its brilliant balance of romance and reality. Performers include creepy Patrick Malahide (The Singing Detective) and sexy Rufus Sewell (Dark City) among the familiar faces of dozens of inspired character actors. Don't let the literary pedigree of Middlemarch scare you off—the plot is as juicy as a soap opera, with a psychological fullness that makes every dramatic turn all the more gripping. —Bret Fetzer

Max Beesley, Samantha Morton, Benjamin Whitrow, Metin Huseyin

Max Beesley, Metin Huseyin

Max Beesley, Metin Huseyin

Max Beesley, Metin Huseyin

Max Beesley, Metin Huseyin

Greed, selfishness, and hypocrisy drive another rollicking story from Charles Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit features two Martin Chuzzlewits: An elderly and extremely wealthy one (the magnificent Paul Scofield, A Man for All Seasons), who loathes the sleazy, grasping relatives that hope to profit from his death; and his grandson (Ben Walden), a well-intentioned but self-absorbed young man who has fallen in love with his grandfather's ward, Mary Graham (Pauline Turner)—and because the elder Martin disapproves, the younger Martin has been disowned. In the gap between these two are a host of schemers, crooks, and even one or two good people—but at the center of it all is the pompous and oily Seth Pecksniff (Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), whose manipulations and lechery make him one of Dicken's most memorable villains. Whirling in his orbit are the goodhearted but ineffectual Tom Pinch (Philip Franks); the brutish Jonas Chuzzlewit (Keith Allen); Pecksniff's daughters, the "volatile hummingbird" Mercy (Julia Sawalha, Absolutely Fabulous) and the bitter, overlooked Charity (Emma Chambers, The Vicar of Dibley); and a host of other vivid Dickensian creations, all given juice and vitality by dozens of outstanding British actors, anchored by Scofield's magisterial presence. Because of his characters' outsized personalities and his plots' wild reversals of fortune, Dickens is ideally suited to dramatization, and Martin Chuzzlewit takes full advantage of his strengths. Lurid events like murder and blackmail contrast with rich psychological portraits, making Martin Chuzzlewit an opulent narrative feast. —Bret Fetzer

The body of John Harmon, a young man returning from South Africa to claim his inheritance, is pulled from the River Thames, setting in motion the plot of Charles Dickens's darkest and most complex novel. Harmon had been expected to marry Bella Wilfer, a young woman chosen by his father, but now the Harmon fortune will go to the poor but honest Mr. Boffin and his wife. The Boffins adopt Bella, and together they begin to climb the ladder of London society, under the watchful eye of Boffin's new secretary, who may not be what he seems. Meanwhile Eugene Wrayburn, an idle young lawyer, falls for Lizzie Hexam, the daughter of the man who pulled Harmon's body from the river, but he must compete for her affections with the schoolmaster Bradley Headstone. As the fortunes of the characters rise and fall, the River Thames flows eternally on, the symbolic backbone of this remarkable story.

Dickens was the master of Victorian social satire, ruthlessly exposing the cruelty and absurdity that supported the strictly hierarchical class structure of the day. This superb production does his novel justice, fleshing out the satirical bones of the plot with performances that eschew caricature in favor of psychological depth. Anna Friel's Bella is wonderfully complex, her innate goodness struggling with her love of money and desire for advancement. Paul McGann, as the lawyer Wrayburn, is also superb, wrestling with the implications of his feelings for Lizzie. And of course, this being Dickens and the BBC, there's a terrific supporting cast, including Timothy Spall as the melancholy articulator of skeletons, Mr. Venus. At six hours, Our Mutual Friend is a long production, but not a moment too long. A mystery, a love story, a critique of the pursuit of wealth and status, this is perhaps the best adaptation of Dickens ever to be committed to film. —Simon Leake

Mike Barker

Volume One segment video of many to complete the story

Roman Tikhomirov

Hal Hartley

Paul Schrader Paul Schrader, the director of American Gigolo, brought a similar kind of sexual chic to this explicit horror movie. A remake of the beautiful, haunting 1942 Cat People, this version takes off from the same idea: that a woman (Nastassja Kinski), a member of a race of feline humans, will revert to her animalistic self when she has sex. Arriving to meet her brother (Malcolm McDowell) in New Orleans, she finds herself disturbed by his sexual presence. A zoo curator (John Heard) becomes fascinated by her, but he will discover that her kittenish ways are just the tip of the claw. Schrader dresses the story up in a stylish, glossy production, keyed on Kinski's green-eyed, thick-lipped beauty; it's hard to think of another actress in 1982 who could so immediately suggest a cat walking on two legs. Luckily Kinski had a European attitude toward her body, because this film has plenty of poster-art nudity. There's also lots of gore and some wacky flashbacks to the ancient tribe of cat people, who hold rituals in an orange desert while Giorgio Moroder's music plays. Cat People doesn't really make all this come together, but it's always interesting to look at, and the dreadful mood lingers. —Robert Horton

Jim McBride

Pat O'Connor This affecting, bittersweet tale—adapted from Brian Friel's semi-autobiographical Tony Award-winning play—examines the emotional lives of the five unmarried Mundy sisters in 1936 rural Ireland. In their mutual care is 8-year-old Michael (sweetly understated Darrell Johnston), the illegitimate son of youngest sister Christina (Braveheart's Catherine McCormack). A voice-over from the adult Michael recalls that significant summer, in the month of August, during the feast of Lughnasa. The bolder townfolk dance around a fire to Lugh, an ancient god of light. Yes, this is fiercely Roman Catholic Ireland and Lugh a pagan god, but that irony is at the core of the film, the hypocrisy of tradition. The dramatic change in the richly metaphoric movie comes with the arrival of two men: eldest sibling—and only Mundy brother—Jack (Michael Gambon), a priest returning from many years in Africa, now addled, and Christine's long-absent lover and Michael's father, the charmingly flighty Gerry (Rhys Ifans). Beautiful music and excellent performances highlight the film, which also features gorgeous cinematography of the Irish countryside. Meryl Streep is stern eldest sister Kate; Kathy Burke is lively Maggie; Brid Brennan (who appeared in the stage play) is thoughtful caretaker Agnes; and Sophie Thompson is simple sweet Rose. It's a quiet film, but one filled with ironic and haunting meaning. Directed by Pat O'Connor (Circle of Friends). —N.F. Mendoza

Suri Krishnamma

マックス・ラインハルト

World War II Battle Force The German Stuka dive-bomber dropped the first bombs of the war, during Hitler's blitzkrieg invasion of Poland in 1939, and during the ensuing months it acquired a reputation as a weapon of terror. Ironically, the plane, whose slow speed was only one of its major flaws, had been thought to be obsolete before the beginning of World War II, but by the time Hitler attacked France in 1940, Stuka pilots were Nazi heroes. A German propaganda newsreel shown briefly in this video depicts the planes as mighty conquerors, though they were often deployed to terrorize civilians. In Poland the whistling, sirenlike sound of their dive-bombing runs had so terrified the Polish population that the Nazis outfitted the wings of Stukas with sirens before the invasion of France. As the Stukas attacked in a steep dive, dropping their bombs with great accuracy on French defenders and their British allies, the dive-bombers created a hellish din heard above all other sounds of battle. The Stuka instilled fear out of proportion to its numbers or even its limited role as a weapon, and during the Nazi blitzkrieg just its distinctive silhouette in the sky could cause panic among its opponents. Eventually the Stuka would meet its match when confronted with nimble and fast British fighters, but as illustrated in this informative documentary, the early course of World War II was influenced by the terror the Stuka spawned when it came screaming out of the sky. —Robert J. McNamara

World War II Battle Force

World War II Battle Force As the Nazi blitzkrieg rolled through Europe in the early months of World War II, columns of panzers, finely designed German tanks, crushed everything in their paths. This video, which makes use of archival footage as well as visits to a museum in England that houses vintage tanks, follows the role of the battle tank in Europe from 1939 to the end of the war. The early blitzkrieg, with its innovative integration of armor and air power, is explained in detail. Later milestones of tank warfare are examined, such as when the Nazi tide in Africa was turned by English tanks led by Field Marshall Montgomery at El Alamein, and the colossal battle between more than 1,500 German and Russian tanks at Kursk, which marked the beginning of the end for Hitler's plan to expand eastward. This documentary provides lucid explanations of how the evolving design of tanks, as well as the refinement of tactics, played a crucial role in World War II. Of particular interest are the profiles of noteworthy tanks, such as the massive German Tiger, the slow but sturdy British Matilda, and the brilliantly designed Russian T-34. Each tank has its particular design assets and flaws illuminated both with diagrams and rare films of the tanks in action. The difficulties faced by the crews manning the tanks are also portrayed vividly, with visits to the museum tanks providing a look under the hatches and behind the armor plate. —Robert J. McNamara

Michael Luciano, Robert Aldrich Kiss Me Deadly starts off with a bang—a young woman (Cloris Leachman) in bare feet and a trench coat runs along a highway, frantically trying to flag down help. In desperation, she finally throws herself into traffic, and the car she stops belongs to detective Mike Hammer. The pace never lets up—we're not even 15 minutes into the movie and there's already been a murder, a mysterious letter, an attempt to kill Hammer, and, of course, a warning to just stay out of it. Hammer, tired of lowlife divorce cases, smells something big and can't let it go. The film is exciting, about as dark as a noir can get, and full of skewed camera angles and mysterious whose-shoes-are-those shots. At the center, of course, is Mike Hammer, a detective so cool he can win a fight with nothing more than a box of popcorn as a weapon. Hammer knows his opera singers as well as his amateur prizefighters, and he makes the ladies swoon, but he's far from a conventional hero. In fact, he's rather emphatically not a nice guy; Hammer happily whores out his secretary-girlfriend Velma to cinch up those divorce cases and has a penchant for slamming other people's fingers in drawers. Even the bad guys know he's a sleazebag. ("What's it worth to you to turn your considerable talents back to the gutter you crawled out of?") Ralph Meeker plays Hammer's ambivalence brilliantly, swinging easily between sexy and just plain mean. Kiss Me Deadly is just terrific. Stop reading this review and watch it already. —Ali Davis

Columbia Pictures Cartoons

Joel Schumacher This film, about a downsized engineer (Michael Douglas) who goes ballistic, triggered a media avalanche of stories about middle-class white rage when it was released in 1993. In fact, it's nothing more than a manipulative, violent melodrama about one geek's meltdown. Douglas, complete with pocket protector, nerd glasses, crewcut, and short-sleeved white shirt, gets stuck in traffic one day near downtown L.A. and proceeds to just walk away from his car—and then lose it emotionally. Everyone he encounters rubs him the wrong way—and a fine lot of stereotypes they are, from threatening ghetto punks to rude convenience store owners to a creepy white supremacist—and he reacts violently in every case. As he walks across L.A. (now there's a concept), cutting a bloody swath, he's being tracked by a cop on the verge of retirement (Robert Duvall). He also spends time on the phone with his frightened ex-wife (Barbara Hershey). Though Douglas and Duvall give stellar performances, they can't disguise the fact that, as usual, this is another film from director Joel Schumacher that is about surface and sensation, rather than actual substance. —Marshall Fine

Milton Carruth, Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock considered this 1943 thriller to be his personal favorite among his own films, and although it's not as popular as some of Hitchcock's later work, it's certainly worthy of the master's admiration. Scripted by playwright Thornton Wilder and inspired by the actual case of a 1920's serial killer known as "The Merry Widow Murderer," the movie sets a tone of menace and fear by introducing a psychotic killer into the small-town comforts of Santa Rosa, California. That's where young Charlie (Teresa Wright) lives with her parents and two younger siblings, and where murder is little more than a topic of morbid conversation for their mystery-buff neighbor (Hume Cronyn). Charlie was named after her favorite uncle, who has just arrived for an extended visit, and at first Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) gets along famously with his admiring niece. But the film's chilling prologue has already revealed Uncle Charlie's true identity as the notorious Merry Widow Murderer, and the suspense grows almost unbearable when young Charlie's trust gives way to gradual dread and suspicion. Through narrow escapes and a climactic scene aboard a speeding train, this witty thriller strips away the façade of small-town tranquility to reveal evil where it's least expected. And, of course, it's all done in pure Hitchcockian style. —Jeff Shannon

Robert Altman A wicked satirical fable about corporate backstabbing—and actual murder—in the movie business, The Player benefits from director Robert Altman's long and bitter experience working within, and without, the Hollywood studio system. Rising young executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is tormented by threats from an anonymous writer. The pressure and paranoia build until Griffin loses control one night and semi-accidentally kills screenwriter David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), who may or may not be the source of the threats. From that point, Griffin's life and career begin to fall apart. In keeping with the ironic spirit of the film itself, Altman's scathingly funny attack on the moral bankruptcy of Hollywood was embraced by many of the same people it was intended to savage, and restored the director to commercial and critical favor. Michael Tolkin adapted the screenplay from his own novel, and the movie is studded with cameos by famous faces, many of whom appear as themselves. The digital video disc includes a commentary track with Altman and Tolkin, some deleted scenes, a documentary about Altman, and a key to help identify more than 50 of the picture's big-name cameos. —Jim Emerson

Alfred Hitchcock

In Hayao Miyazaki's magical Kiki's Delivery Service, a 13-year-old girl meets the world head on as she spends her first year soloing as an apprentice witch. Kiki (Kirsten Dunst) is still a little green and plenty headstrong, but also resourceful, imaginative, and determined. With her trusty wisp of a cat Jiji (a gently subdued Phil Hartman) by her side she's ready to take on the world, or at least the quaintly European seaside village she's chosen as her new home. Miyazaki's gentle rhythm and meandering narrative capture the easy pulse of real life (even if his subject is a girl flying high upon a broomstick) and charts the everyday struggles and growing pains of his plucky heroine with sensitivity and understanding. Beautifully detailed animation and the rich designs of the picture-postcard seaside town of red-tiled roofs and cobblestone streets only add to the sense of wonder. This charming animated fantasy is a wholesome, life-affirming picture that doesn't speak down to kids or up to adults. —Sean Axmaker

Terry George Terry George, the cowriter of In the Name of the Father, wrote and directed this 1996 drama based on actual events from 1981, when Irish Republican Army prisoners in Belfast's Maze Prison staged a hunger strike to protest against British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's political policies. Led by IRA prisoner Bobby Sands, the hunger strike eventually lead to the deaths of 10 prisoners, who had refused to wear prison uniforms to emphasize their identity as political (and not criminal) prisoners. But this fictionalized account is not about the hunger strikers as much as the moral dilemma faced by two of the strikers' mothers, played by Helen Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan in an emotional drama that gets right to the heart of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. While Annie (Flanagan) understands her son's political motivations and supports his readiness to die, Kathleen (Mirren) is a pacifist who cannot comprehend how any mother could sacrifice her own son to a political principle. The women become friends despite their opposing views, and desperately hope for a compromise in Irish-British negotiations while the hunger strikers continue to wither away. By keeping the Northern Irish conflict on such a purely personal level, Some Mother's Son both clarifies and complicates the difficult issues involved, making clear arguments for both mothers' actions in the context of a milestone event in Northern Ireland's history. The film doesn't pretend to hide its anti-British position, but the cause of death on both sides is deeply acknowledged. Through Helen Mirren's richly layered performance, Some Mother's Son asks if any belief is truly worth dying for, and poses the question on powerfully personal terms. —Jeff Shannon

Donald W. Ernst, Peter Kirby, Ralph Bakshi Although it was ultimately overshadowed by Peter Jackson's live-action Lord of the Rings trilogy, Ralph Bakshi's animated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic is not without charms of its own. A target of derision from intolerant fans, this ambitious production is nevertheless a respectably loyal attempt to animate the first half of Tolkien's trilogy, beginning with the hobbit Frodo's inheritance of "the One Ring" of power from Bilbo Baggins, and ending with the wizard Gandalf's triumph over the evil army of orcs. While the dialogue is literate and superbly voiced by a prestigious cast (including John Hurt as Aragorn), Leonard Rosenman's accomplished score effectively matches the ominous atmosphere that Bakshi's animation creates and sustains. Bakshi's lamentable decision to combine traditional cel animation with "rotoscoped" (i.e., meticulously traced) live-action footage is jarringly distracting and aesthetically disastrous, but when judged by its narrative content, this Lord of the Rings deserves more credit than it typically receives. —Jeff Shannon

Zero Mostel

One cue that this video isn't like ordinary instructional dance videos is the fact that the instructor, Riverdance-featured dancer Colin Dunne, appears, not in a small dance studio, but on a real stage, around which are gathered real, expectant audience members. As it turns out, this video works best as a performance, not as a how-to guide. Dunne, handsome and animated, with flourishes to spare, is a lot of fun to watch—but only experienced dancers are likely to find this video truly instructional. Dunne's method is to slowly walk through each set of steps just once, and then the music revs up and the feet, as the saying goes, start flying (Dunne is accompanied by his accomplished Celtic Feet dancers). True beginners will be bewildered, although frequent use of the remote to rewind can help. And it is pretty dazzling to watch Dunne and his dancers when they really let loose—the compelling combination of still upper body and wildly flying legs and feet is irresistible. But those who really want to learn the steps themselves might also want to check out Seamus Kerrigan's Irish Dancing Made Easy. —Anne Hurley

Henry King Like its immediate predecessor, Oklahoma!, this 1956 screen musical boasted then state-of-the-art widescreen cinematography, stereophonic sound, a starring romantic duo with onscreen chemistry, and the Rodgers & Hammerstein imprimatur. Adding to its promise was a source (the venerable Ferenc Molnar play Liliom) that had already been filmed three times. Yet unlike the original Broadway production, and despite evident craft, Carousel proved a box-office disappointment. Why? Hindsight argues that '50s moviegoers may have been unprepared for its tragic narrative, the sometimes unsympathetic protagonist, and a spiritual subtext addressing life after death.

Whatever the obstacle, Carousel may well be a revelation to first-time viewers. The score is among the composers' most affecting, from the glorious instrumental "Carousel Waltz" to a succession of exquisite love songs ("If I Loved You"), a heart-rending secular hymn ("You'll Never Walk Alone"), and the expectant father's poignant reverie, "Soliloquy." Top-lined stars Shirley Jones (as factory worker Julie Jordan) and Gordon MacRae (as Billy Bigelow, the carnival barker who woos and weds her) achieve greater dramatic urgency here than in the more successful Oklahoma!, with MacRae in particular attaining a personal best as the conflicted Billy, whose anxiety and wounded pride after losing his job are crucial to the plot. It's Billy's impatience to support his new family that drives him to an ill-fated decision that transforms the fable into a ghost story.

Adding to the luster are the coastal Maine locations where 20th Century Fox filmed principal photography. Newly remastered by THX, Carousel looks and sounds better than ever. —Sam Sutherland

Ralph E. Winters, George Sidney Cole Porter, Shakespeare, and 3-D: Not the usual recipe for an MGM musical, but hey—it works. Although it runs hot and cold, this 1953 take on Porter's delightful Broadway smash lets a chewy cast gorge on some terrific songs and show-biz in-jokes. Think of the plot as His Girl Friday in greasepaint: vain star Howard Keel wants to lure ex-wife Kathryn Grayson back to the boards with a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. The movie's weakness is too much Shakespeare, not enough backstage backbiting (and why are two of the best numbers, "So in Love" and Ann Miller's zippy "Too Darn Hot," confined to a prologue?). Then there's the tendency to throw things at the camera—3-D, what hath you wrought? The candy-store color design is great fun, and Tommy Rall and future dance titan Bob Fosse are turned loose for some sensational leaps. Now that's "Wunderbar." —Robert Horton

Ralph E. Winters, Stanley Donen Well, bless my beautiful hide! Director Stanley Donen invests this rollicking musical with a hearty exuberance. Howard Keel, with his big-as-all-outdoors baritone, stars as a bold "mountain man" living in the Oregon woods who brings home a bride (plucky songbird soprano Jane Powell) to his six slovenly brothers. Taming the rambunctious brood, Jane proceeds to make gentlemen of them so they can woo sweethearts of their own. But old habits die hard: their flirting gives way to fighting in the film's celebrated barn-raising scene, a lively acrobatic dance number exuberantly choreographed by Michael Kidd. Big brother chimes in with his own brand of advice—an old-fashioned kidnapping! Donen manages to get away with such a politically incorrect plot by investing the boys with a innocent sweetness, most notably the youngest brother played with genial earnestness by Rusty (Russ) Tamblyn (pre-West Side Story). This modest production became a huge hit and remains one of MGM's best-loved musical comedies, an energetic, high-kicking classic. —Sean Axmaker

Stanley Donen Decades before the Hollywood film industry became famous for megabudget disaster and science fiction spectaculars, the studios of Southern California (and particularly Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) were renowned for a uniquely American (and nearly extinct) kind of picture known as The Musical. Indeed, when the prestigious British film magazine Sight & Sound conducts its international critics poll in the second year of every decade, this 1952 MGM picture is the American musical that consistently ranks among the 10 best movies ever made. It's not only a great song-and-dance piece starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and a sprightly Debbie Reynolds; it's also an affectionately funny insider spoof about the film industry's uneasy transition from silent pictures to "talkies." Kelly plays debonair star Don Lockwood, whose leading lady Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) has a screechy voice hilariously ill-suited to the new technology (and her glamorous screen image). Among the musical highlights: O'Connor's knockout "Make 'Em Laugh"; the big "Broadway Melody" production number; and, best of all, that charming little title ditty in which Kelly makes movie magic on a drenched set with nothing but a few puddles, a lamppost, and an umbrella. —Jim Emerson

Jack Warden, Louis Malle

Richard Loncraine

Roger Avary

Nicolas Roeg

Kôichi Iwashita, Akira Kurosawa Akira Kurosawa's compassionate reflection on living life to the fullest explores a universal theme: evaluating the meaning of one's existence in the face of death. Takashi Shimura gives a flawless performance as a lonely civil servant who, upon learning that he will soon die of stomach cancer, realizes that he has never really lived. His initial attempts to overcome his anguish lead only to heartbreak. Then, inspired by an unselfish coworker, he turns his efforts to building a playground in a dreary slum neighborhood. Only once the park is finished can he face death with peaceful acceptance.

Vincent Ward The visual sophistication of director Vincent Ward (The Navigator, What Dreams May Come) pulls us through this often awkward chronicle of the lifelong star-crossed passion shared by a Canadian Eskimo boy (Jason Scott Lee, from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story) and the mixed-race girl (La Femme Nikita's Anne Parillaud) he meets and falls in love with as a child. (A glowering Patrick Bergin is the third corner of the triangle.) Flamboyant sequences, like an amorous clinch on top of a billowing dirigible, and the heartfelt grandeur of the Arctic landscapes, are almost enough to compensate for the clunky transitions and the melodramatic excesses of the storytelling. Almost. Ward's first film, The Navigator (not to be confused with The Flight of...), is a visionary oddity that gives a much clearer indication of the way his work was heading: into the upper atmosphere. —David Chute

Yimou Zhang Not even close to his best work, Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou—far from a favorite of Chinese authorities, and frequently harassed and stymied in his career—creates an impressive-looking period piece in this gangland story set in the 1930s. Gong Li (Raise the Red Lantern) gives a colorful performance as a nightclub diva who is the mistress of a mob boss. Told from the point of view of a boy (Wang Xiaoxiao) sent by the gangster to wait on the arrogant singer, the story follows these characters over several days as they flee Shanghai to hide out in the countryside. A supreme stylist, Zhang in his best work (Ju Dou, The Story of Qui Ju) is not dependent on conventional story structures or expensive sets. But Shanghai Triad leans heavily on both, and while it is an interesting and enjoyable film—and not without subtle allusions to the political climate and culture in modern China—it is finally an unsatisfying experience. The saving graces are the performances, most of all that of the masterful, chameleonlike Gong Li. —Tom Keogh

Lisa Fruchtman, Frank Pierson Gary Sinise is "Give 'em Hell" Harry, a simple man of the people who became one of America's greatest presidents. Through victory in the second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, through the birth of the United Nations and his decision to drop the first atomic bomb, Harry Truman lived by the premise that "the buck stops here."

The thrill of forbidden passion electrifies the air when young dentist Julia Ormand, the wounded victim of a rough divorce, falls for sad, soulful convict Tim Roth, a patient in her part-time prison duties. Her impulsive embrace of a man who seduces her with whispered confessions and little love bites (how better to flirt with a dentist?) and the rush of their affair raises unsettling questions: what exactly are his motives, and what crime is he in prison for? Captives can't decide whether it’s a tale of obsessive love or a film noir thriller with an erotic twist, and it finally falls back on mundane complications. But delicate Ormand is a beauty with a deer-in-the-headlights look, and Roth steals the film with his simmering and tragic eyes. —Sean Axmaker

Stanley Tucci, Campbell Scott Actor Stanley Tucci cowrote, codirected, and stars (along with Tony Shaloub) in this touching and funny parable about two brothers, Italian immigrants, who run an unsuccessful restaurant on the Jersey shore in the 1950s. Convinced by a thriving rival (Ian Holm) that jazz great Louis Prima will be stopping by their eatery for a late dinner after a show, the brothers pull out all stops and spend their last dollar organizing a banquet that ought to make culinary history. Expect to be very hungry after watching this delightful and touching film, but don't rush off to the kitchen until the full design of the characters and their relationships with lovers, suppliers, customers, and one another completes itself. With a memorable performance by Ian Holm and a quirky cameo by Tucci's codirector, Campbell Scott. —Tom Keogh

As one of the most respected American independent filmmakers, John Sayles has created a body of work as distinguished in its diversity as for its consistent quality and inspiring originality. He's never been one to march to the commercial beat, but chooses instead to follow his creative impulse wherever it leads him. The Secret of Roan Inish led Sayles to the beautiful and moody West Coast of Ireland; it is a tale of a girl who discovers that her family has been touched by myth and magic throughout the years. Following the death of her mother, young Fiona (Jeni Courtney) is sent to live with her grandparents on the Irish coast across from Roan Inish, the island where her family once lived. She's told stories about the selkies—seals that can turn into humans—who have been connected with Fiona's family over the ages. At first she's not sure if the selkies are real or mythological, but she later realizes that they hold the key to reclaiming her family heritage.

What's remarkable about this film (which Sayles adapted from Rosalie Fry's novel Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry) is that it's not told as a cute fantasy for children, but as a straightforward, unsentimental story of a young girl's family history. That gives the film—which was beautifully photographed by master cinematographer Haskell Wexler—an understated charm that is completely absorbing in its atmosphere and subtle tone. There's magic as well, to be sure—you could almost swear that the seals and seagulls in the film took direction from Sayles as well as any human actor! —Jeff Shannon

Akira Kurosawa This extraordinary tale of adventure, romance, humor, and suspense has been hailed by critics worldwide as one of the best films of all time. A peasant village hires seven medieval mercenaries to defend it from marauding bandits. When the samurais arrive, a spectacular series of battles begin in which a splendidly mobile camera seems to be everywhere: shooting through foliage, rainstorms, dust, and wind. Toshiro Mifune's performance is ferocious as an overzealous and loudmouthed would-be samurai. He is complemented by the wise, veteran warrior played masterfully by Takashi Shimura. The inspiration for the Hollywood Western The Magnificent Seven, Kurosawa's classic explores the timeless themes of personal bravery and the resilience of the human spirit.

Yasujirô Ozu

John Musker, Ron Clements A Walt Disney Classic movie about Aladdin and the magic lamp. plastic protective case good and VHS plays very good.

Ian MacNaughton Monty Python's first feature is essentially a reworking of their best skits from the first two seasons of their cult TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus, shot on film outside the usual studio sets (Nudge Nudge, for example, is set in a tavern filled with passersby). As the TV series was as yet unseen in the U.S. at the time of this feature, And Now for Something Completely Different became for many Americans their first taste of the Pythons' brand of surreal, silly humor and remains a fond favorite. The writing and performances are fine and the film is packed with some of their best bits: How to Avoid Being Seen, Hell's Grannies, Blackmail, The Lumberjack Song, and The Upper Class Twit of the Year, among others. Many of the sketches have been shortened, however, and the loss of the overbright video sheen (the film has a muddy, dull look to it) and the invigorating presence of a live audience leaves the film sluggish at times. They're still feeling out the possibilities of the feature-length, which they finally conquer with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, still their finest hour and a half. —Sean Axmaker

Tariq Anwar, Nicholas Hytner Nicholas Hytner had an international stage phenomenon with Alan Bennett's play The Madness of King George, starring Nigel Hawthorne as King George III, the British monarch who lost the American colonies. But in this film adaptation, Hytner unfortunately yields to the old temptation to "open up" the piece with lots of arbitrary exteriors, rushed set pieces, choppy editing, and so on, robbing Hawthorne's acclaimed stage performance of coherency and power on the big screen. Viewers are forced to fill in emotional gaps for themselves (and try to imagine what Bennett's work must have looked and felt like originally), and the whole enterprise has a pseudo-cinematic, self-congratulatory air. —Tom Keogh

Forest Whitaker Based on a novel by Terry McMillan, this weepy melodrama about four African American women and the men who wronged them became an instant cultural phenomenon when it was released back in 1995. It's easy to see why Exhale struck a nerve: the movie boasts an attractive cast of African American actresses and personalities, including Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, and Lela Rochon. Unfortunately, though, Exhale sags under the weight of its soapy, crisis of the week plotting and relentlessly cheery "you go, girl!" optimism. And African American men, cast here as insensitive lovers and pigheaded materialists, get the very short end of the feminist stick. Perhaps moviegoers were simply responding to the brilliant soundtrack by R&B superstar Babyface, who provided the movie's only real groove. —Ethan Brown

Lasse Hallström

Waris Hussein

Michael Hoffman A fantastic premise is utterly blown in this film by director Michael Hoffman and screenwriter Rupert Walters (the two collaborated previously on the winning Some Girls). Robert Downey Jr. plays Robert Merivel, King Charles II's (Sam Neill) spirited young physician in 17th-century England. The king offers to set Merivel up for life in exchange for one small favor: marry the royal mistress (Polly Walker) to provide his highness some cover for his philandering. But Merivel blows it by falling in love with the woman, and he is cast out of his pampered paradise to reinvent himself as a serious man helping victims of the plague beyond the palace's walls. It's a superb notion, and the film looks just terrific, particularly Charles's court, where scientific and artistic innovation flourishes. But somehow the story completely falls apart once Merivel goes on his quest for salvation. The scenes aren't there, the characters are underdeveloped, the drama is clunky. The whole enterprise feels as if an editor tried to salvage a major failure and barely came up with something coherent. —Tom Keogh

Michael Austin This gentle "true" fairy tale succeeds on nearly every level, becoming an intelligent handling of a tabloid story. In 1817 a young foreign drifter (Phoebe Cates, never better) sets a small portion of England buzzing that she is a royal princess from an uncharted land. This feels like a magical movie with slightly overcooked characters, such as Kevin Kline's Greek butler. The supporting cast is older than in most movies of this type—no cute actors, we have performers with chiseled features and gruff voices. Director Michael Austin's decision to approach this as a true story keeps things firmly grounded so the eccentrics are not overplayed. Beautifully filmed by the great Freddie Francis (Glory) and featuring a surprisingly rich cast (Stephen Rea, Wendy Hughes, Jim Broadbent, and John Lithgow), this is simply the best family movie since The Secret Garden. —Doug Thomas

Marisa Tomei Marisa Tomei releases her inner spitfire in The Perez Family. Dottie Perez (Tomei) comes to the U.S. from Cuba, along with a mixed lot of criminals, lunatics, and political prisoners—including Juan Perez (Alfred Molina), who hopes to be reunited with his wife after 20 years. To work around the bureaucratic politics of the refugee camps, Dottie persuades Juan to pretend that they're married, and drafts a few other Perezes to create a family. Meanwhile, Juan's wife Carmella believes that Juan never arrived and is finally letting go of his memory, helped by the attentions of a Miami police detective (Chazz Palmintieri). Tomei's sexy passion sometimes spills over into silliness and the story unfolds erratically, but the examination of how love grows and how love fades is sincere and affecting. The actors are charismatic, the music's fantastic, and Tomei wears many skimpy outfits. Directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding). —Bret Fetzer

Michael Horton, Lee Tamahori New Zealand filmmaker Lee Tamahori (The Edge) directed this brutal but powerful story drawn from the culture of poverty and alienation enveloping contemporary Maori life. Rena Owen plays the beleaguered mother of two boys—one of whom is already in prison while the other contemplates membership in a gang—and a daughter whose potential is being smothered at home. Temuera Morrison gives an outstanding and sometimes shocking performance as the violent head of the household, more adept at keeping up his social stature within his community of friends than holding down a job. The film pulls no punches, literally and figuratively, but despite the rough going, Tamahori gives us a rare and important insight into a disenfranchised people digging down deep to find their pride. —Tom Keogh

Wesley Ruggles

Oliver Stone Oliver Stone would like to have the last word on America's media culture of voyeurism and violence, but whatever he's trying to say in this grisly, unconventional movie comes across terribly garbled. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play traveling serial killers who become television celebrities when a Geraldo-like personality (Robert Downey Jr.) turns their madness into the biggest story in the country. Stone extensively rewrote an original script by Quentin Tarantino, and he employs a mosaic of different film stocks, video, and pop pastiches to create a sense of blurred lines between visual phenomena. (The background on Lewis's character's life as an abused child, for instance, is presented as a sitcom starring Rodney Dangerfield.) But the result of these experiments is a pompous, even amateurish effort at grasping the reins of a real-life national debate. One almost wants to tell Stone to sit down and raise his hand next time if he thinks he has something to say. The controversial director would like Natural Born Killers to be nothing less than a monumental achievement, but it's one of the emptier entries in his filmography. —Tom Keogh

Sorvino, Allen Mira Sorvino won an Oscar for her performance as a bubbleheaded hooker and porn star who happens to be the mother of a bright young boy adopted by a Manhattan couple (Woody Allen and Helena Bonham Carter). The story finds Allen's sportswriter character becoming curious about the identity of his son's biological mom, and he strikes up a relationship with her without revealing why. This 27th feature written and directed by Allen is a nice combination of smart comedy and some of the wackier energy of his earliest movies. (Between scenes, there's a running gag involving a Greek chorus—actually filmed among some real Greek ruins—who do song-and-dance interpretations of the script's events.) This isn't Allen at his best, but it is a fine minor work graced by Sorvino's spin on the cinema's archetypal dumb blonde. —Tom Keogh

Keith Gordon William Wharton's autobiographical novel of World War II becomes a moving portrait of war's madness in the microcosm of a small intelligence patrol on the German front in 1944. The unit, composed of high IQ soldiers, is sent to scout ahead. They discover a small platoon of Germans hiding in the forest, but these soldiers would rather fight with snowballs than guns and exchange Christmas presents instead of mortar fire. The young, rather unsoldierly Americans are offered the opportunity to "capture" the Germans without a fight—until a fatal misunderstanding plunges their efforts into tragedy. Director Keith Gordon, who also penned the screenplay, creates an unusually eloquent, offbeat platoon drama shot amidst the tranquil beauty of a snow-covered forest. His excellent cast includes future stars Ethan Hawke and Gary Sinise, with Frank Whaley, Kevin Dillon, Arye Gross, and Peter Berg rounding out the platoon. Though little seen upon its 1992 release, this moving drama received high praise for its vivid characters and delicately wrought imagery and remains one of the most powerful pacifist dramas of the post-war era. —Sean Axmaker

Frederic Knudtson, Gene Fowler Jr., Robert C. Jones, Stanley Kramer Stanley Kramer's sprawling 1963 comedy about a search for buried treasure by at least a dozen people—all played by well-known entertainers of their day—is the kind of mass comedy that Hollywood hasn't made in many years. (Another example from around the same time is Blake Edwards's The Great Race.) After a number of strangers (including Milton Berle, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, and others) witness a dying stranger (Jimmy Durante) identify the location of hidden money, a conflict-ridden hunt begins, watched over carefully by a suspicious cop (Spencer Tracy). The ensuing two and a half hours of mayhem has its ups and downs—some bits and performers are certainly funnier than others. But Kramer, who is better known for socially conscious, serious cinema (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?), is in a mood for broad comic characterization, and some of his jokes are so intentionally obvious (Durante literally kicks a bucket when he dies), they'd have a place in Airplane! Watch for lots of cameo appearances, including Jerry Lewis (who had called Kramer and asked him why he hadn't been invited to participate). —Tom Keogh

John Henderson

Expect to be very hungry (and perhaps amorous) after watching this contemporary classic in the small genre of food movies that includes Babette's Feast and Big Night. Director Alfonso Arau (A Walk in the Clouds), adapting a novel by his former wife, Laura Esquivel, tells the story of a young woman (Lumi Cavazos) who learns to suppress her passions under the eye of a stern mother, but channels them into her cooking. The result is a steady stream of cuisine so delicious as to be an almost erotic experience for those lucky enough to have a bite. The film's quotient of magic realism feels a little stock, but the story line is good and Arau's affinity for the sensuality of food (and of nature) is sublime. You might want to rush off to a good Mexican restaurant afterward, but that's a good thing. —Tom Keogh

Arthur P. Schmidt, Melvin Frank When the hillbilly town of dogpatch - deemed the most useless community in america - is chosen as a test site for a-bombs its colorful citizens take up the good fight with lots of fun & merriment. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 05/23/2006 Starring: Peter Palmer Leslie Parrish Run time: 113 minutes Rating: Nr

Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example of the genre, but under the tasteful decor and high-society fashions lies a world seething in jealousy, passion, blackmail, and murder. Vincent Price costars as a blithe gigolo and David Raksin's lush theme has become a wistful romantic standard. —Sean Axmaker

Jamie Uys Three separate story lines set in Africa eventually come together in this 1980 film by Jamie Uys. (The film wasn't released in the U.S., where it became a huge hit, until 1984.) Story one involves a bushman whose discovery of a Coke bottle causes consternation among his tribe, story two concerns an awkward romance between a clumsy scientist and a sweet schoolteacher, and the third plot involves a group of terrorists on the run. Slapstick, satire, romance, violence—it's all here in a somewhat bumpy but entertaining movie. —Tom Keogh

Dorothy Spencer, Joseph L. Mankiewicz Joseph Mankiewicz's moody classic is less ghost story than romantic fantasy, a handsome 1947 drama of impossible love set on the picturesque turn-of-the-century New England coast. Independent young widow Lucy Muir (the luminous Gene Tierney), desperate to escape her uptight in-laws, falls in love with a grand seaside house and moves in, only to discover the cantankerous ghost of the hot-tempered Captain Gregg (a histrionically flamboyant performance by Rex Harrison). Lucy refuses to let the bombastic captain frighten her away, earning his respect, his friendship, and later his love. They team up to turn the captain's salty memoirs into a bestseller, but as his affection grows he fades away, leaving Lucy free to undertake a more worldly suitor, notably a charismatic children's author (George Sanders at his smarmy smoothest) with his own guarded secret. Charles Lang's melancholy black-and-white photography and Bernard Herrmann's haunting score set the tone for this sublime adult drama, and Tierney delivers one of her most understated performances as the resolute Mrs. Muir. Mankiewicz turns this ghost story into a refreshingly mature and down-to-earth romance. —Sean Axmaker

Funny Bones, directed by Peter Chelsom (Hear My Song), is a weird but intriguing comedy with a particularly dark edge. Oliver Platt plays a would-be comedian, the son of a major comedy star (Jerry Lewis); Dad's reputation even overshadows his son's Las Vegas debut. After that flop the son tries to go back to his roots and heads for his father's launch pad in Blackpool, England. There, he meets his previously unknown half-brother (Lee Evans), a bizarre comedy savant who teaches him a thing or two about taking risks to get laughs, and discovers a secret about how his father got started. Platt is likably lost and Lewis is perfectly overbearing, but the real find here is Evans, a rubber-faced, protean comic with always-surprising material. —Marshall Fine

John Boorman This lush retelling of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is a dark and engrossing tale. Director John Boorman (Deliverance) masterfully handles the tale of the mythical sword Excalibur, and its passing from the wizard Merlin to the future king of England. Arthur pulls the famed sword from a stone and is destined to be crowned king. As the king embarks on a passionate love affair with Guenevere, an illegitimate son, and Merlin's designs on power, threaten Arthur's reign. The film is visually stunning and unflinching in its scenes of combat and black magic. Featuring an impressive supporting cast, including early work from the likes of Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne, Excalibur is an adaptation of the legend both faithful and bold. —Robert Lane

Tim Burton Ed Wood [VHS] (1994) Johnny Depp (Actor), Martin Landau (Actor), Tim Burton . One of the years funniest movies.

Gregory Dark

A polished gem from 1995, this disarmingly sweet and dramatically insightful love story provided a charming showcase for Chris O'Donnell and, especially, then-newcomer Minnie Driver, whose performance drew critical raves and boosted her career to Hollywood. Smoothly adapted from the novel by Maeve Binchy and set in Ireland during the 1950s, the story focuses on Benny (Driver), a somewhat plump, plain-looking young woman attending university in Dublin who meets and quickly falls for Jack (O'Donnell), a handsome star of the university's rugby team who surprisingly reciprocates her glowing admiration. They're drawn together as soul mates, and their love is dramatically contrasted with a subplot involving Benny's more conventionally beautiful friend Nan (Saffron Burrows), whose appetite for older men leads her into a misguided and ultimately tragic relationship. A betrayal by Jack sets the stage for potential heartbreak, but director Pat O'Connor prevents these carefully drawn characters from resorting to sappy melodrama. They have lessons to learn about life and love, and Circle of Friends teaches those lessons with grace, humor, and heartfelt sincerity. —Jeff Shannon

Louis R. Loeffler, Otto Preminger Few actresses have captivated the camera as powerfully as Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones. Her polished beauty plays in irresistible contrast to her title character's leonine sexuality and fluid emotions; a man can't decide from moment to moment if he wants to save her from doom, build her a castle, or never let her out of bed. Of course, that's the problem with the boys in this semi-experimental adaptation of Bizet's opera, Carmen. Straight-arrow Joe (a strapping Harry Belafonte), an obedient corporal on a Southern military base during World War II, is all set to go to flight school and marry his hometown sweetie, Cindy Lou (Olga James), when his troublemaking sergeant orders him to accompany Carmen to a civilian court. In short order, Joe is swept up in Carmen's carnal anarchy and her craving for release from lousy options in life. An impulsive act of violence ensures that Joe's future is gone forever, putting Carmen in the difficult position of destroying their relationship to save him. Oscar Hammerstein II took Bizet's music in 1943 and rewrote the book and lyrics. The result is largely a smashing success with a few missteps (the bullfighter in Bizet's piece becomes a heavyweight boxer here, which breaks up a certain grace in the story) and a couple of perfect stretches (the long prelude to Carmen and Joe's first embrace, set on Carmen's hoodoo-ish home turf). Despite the fact that both Dandridge and Belafonte were singers, their vocal performances were dubbed by LeVern Hutcherson and Marilyn Horne. (Yes, it is a little disconcerting to hear another voice come out of the more familiar Belafonte's mouth.) Otto Preminger directed with his usual eye on economy of action and production, as the numerous musical numbers tend to be shot in lengthy, single, carefully choreographed takes. The result can be a little visually static at times, but the passion behind the singing pulls everything through. —Tom Keogh

Edward Burns Edward Burns's debut film as an actor-director makes a virtue of its limited budget in the same way John Sayles's The Return of the Secaucus 7 did in 1980. Stuck with limited technical means, Burns wisely puts his energies into a sophisticated story, knowing an audience couldn't care less about lighting problems if they're caught up in a terrific, character-driven movie with good actors. The tale concerns three adult brothers (Burns, Jack Mulcahy, Mike McGlone) whose complications in love and problems with commitment are rooted in their common experiences in a violent, loveless family. Burns has a hang- loose style that keeps the film from getting drunk on intense drama. He sets up the emotional backdrop and lets the characters' lives speak for themselves. Moreover, this is a filmmaker who enjoys life too much to spread any more misery; Burns delights as much in the things that aren't necessarily good for people—illicit lovers, castration anxiety, too much time with one's family, too much beer—as those things that are. The results are frequently very funny. —Tom Keogh

William Hornbeck, Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Barbara McLean, Joseph L. Mankiewicz Showered with Oscars, this wonderfully bitchy (and witty) comedy written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz concerns an aging theater star (Bette Davis) whose life is being supplanted by a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing ingenue (Anne Baxter) whom she helped. This is a film for a viewer to take in like a box of chocolates, packed with scene-for-scene delights that make the entire story even better than it really is. The film also gives deviously talented actors such as George Sanders and Thelma Ritter a chance to speak dazzling lines; Davis bites into her role and never lets go. A classic from Mankiewicz, a legendary screenwriter and the brilliant director of A Letter to Three Wives, The Barefoot Contessa, and Sleuth. —Tom Keogh

Biswas, Pandey, Bajpai

Akira Kurosawa Kurosawa's blackly humorous film, executed in the style of the American Western, is a sophisticated satire on greed, violence, paranoia, and human weakness. In a nonchalant manner reminiscent of a Bogart hero, a wandering samurai-for-hire (Mifune) turns the war between two clans fighting for control of a small town to his own advantage. One of the most popular Japanese films ever released in the U.S., Yojimbo inspired the Clint Eastwood film A Fistful of Dollars.

Akira Kurosawa A cinema classic, Rashomon introduced the Western world to the greatness of Akira Kurosawa and paved the way for fellow masters of the Japanese film industry. Using an innovative narrative style, this eloquent director reveals how the truth in any situation depends on your point of view. Four different narrators describe the same brutal act—a woman's rape and her husband's consequent death—yet the facts elude us because each interprets the story to make himself appear in the best light. Machiko Kyo and Toshiro Mifune turn in magnificent performances as the lady and her savage attacker.

Constance Talmadge

Robert Stevenson Made two years after Citizen Kane, this 1943 version of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre sure looks like star Orson Welles muscled his way behind the camera much of the time. (In fact, costar Joan Fontaine—who plays the title character—has maintained that Welles methodically did just that every day on the set.) Not that the film's official director was a hack: Robert Stevenson, who later had a busy career at Disney making numerous live-action hits for the studio, such as Mary Poppins, gets the credit. But there's no mistaking Welles's masterful hand in the film's bold and creative look, and there's no getting away from his enigmatic charisma as Rochester, the widower who takes in Jane as a governess to his daughter. An engrossing, gorgeous film, there's even a small role for Elizabeth Taylor at the beginning as Jane's unlucky, doomed friend at a cruel boarding school. —Tom Keogh

Peter Weir An outstanding drama, Gallipoli resonates with sadness long after you have seen it. Set during World War I, this brutally honest antiwar movie was cowritten by director Peter Weir. Mark Lee and a sinfully handsome Mel Gibson are young, idealistic best friends who put aside their hopes and dreams when they join the war effort. This character study follows them as they enlist and are sent to Gallipoli to fight the Turks. The first half of the film is devoted to their lives and their strong friendship. The second half details the doomed war efforts of the Aussies, who are no match for the powerful and aggressive Turkish army. Because the script pulls us into their lives and forces us to care for these young men, we are devastated by their fate. —Rochelle O'Gorman

Ingmar Bergman

Steven Spielberg had a banner year in 1993. He scored one of his biggest commercial hits that summer with the mega-hit Jurassic Park, but it was the artistic and critical triumph of Schindler's List that Spielberg called "the most satisfying experience of my career." Adapted from the best-selling book by Thomas Keneally and filmed in Poland with an emphasis on absolute authenticity, Spielberg's masterpiece ranks among the greatest films ever made about the Holocaust during World War II. It's a film about heroism with an unlikely hero at its center—Catholic war profiteer Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), who risked his life and went bankrupt to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in concentration camps.

By employing Jews in his crockery factory manufacturing goods for the German army, Schindler ensures their survival against terrifying odds. At the same time, he must remain solvent with the help of a Jewish accountant (Ben Kingsley) and negotiate business with a vicious, obstinate Nazi commandant (Ralph Fiennes) who enjoys shooting Jews as target practice from the balcony of his villa overlooking a prison camp. Schindler's List gains much of its power not by trying to explain Schindler's motivations, but by dramatizing the delicate diplomacy and determination with which he carried out his generous deeds.

As a drinker and womanizer who thought nothing of associating with Nazis, Schindler was hardly a model of decency; the film is largely about his transformation in response to the horror around him. Spielberg doesn't flinch from that horror, and the result is a film that combines remarkable humanity with abhorrent inhumanity—a film that functions as a powerful history lesson and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the context of a living nightmare. —Jeff Shannon

Frederic Knudtson, Stanley Kramer Nominated* for eleven Academy Awards®, including Best Picture, Judgment at Nuremberg is "magnificent" (Los Angeles Times), "continuously exciting" (The New Yorker) andboasts brilliant performances by an all-star cast. American judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) presides over the trial of four German jurists accused of "legalizing" Nazi atrocities. But as graphic accounts of sterilization and murder unfold in the courtroom, mounting political pressure for leniency forces Haywood to make the most harrowing and difficult decision of his career. *1961: Actor (Maximilian Schell, won); Actor (Spencer Tracy); Supporting Actor (Montgomery Clift); Supporting Actress (Judy Garland); Director; Adapted Screenplay (won); Cinematography (B&W); Art Direction (B&W); Film Editing; Costume Design (B&W).

Fritz Lang

Glenn Close

Paul Verhoeven Total Recall [Vhs] [Vhs Tape] (1990) Arnold Schwarzenegger; Sharon Stone

J. Watson Webb Jr., Edmund Goulding The Somerset Maugham novel should be read by everybody at a certain age (say, early twenties), and this 1946 movie adaptation of The Razor's Edge stays faithful to the book's questing spirit. Despite its apparently uncommercial storyline, it was a pet project of Fox honcho Darryl F. Zanuck, who saw the spiritual journey of Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power) as an "adventure" movie. Power, who was newly returned to Hollywood after his military service in World War I, does his most soul-searching work as the WWI vet who needs to find something in life deeper than money and conformity. The search takes him away from fiancee Gene Tierney and her skeptical uncle Clifton Webb and into Parisian streets and Himalayan mountain ranges. Herbert Marshall deftly plays the role of "Somerset Maugham," the observing author, and Anne Baxter picked up the supporting actress Oscar for her brassy turn as a floozy. The picture has the careful, glossy look of the studio system's peak years (you can sense Zanuck "classing it up" and squeezing the life out of it), and Edmund Goulding's tasteful approach is hardly the way to dig deep into the soul of man. If it seems a little staid today, its square sincerity nevertheless holds up well—and it just looks so fabulous. The really amazing thing about the movie is that it was made at all. A 1984 remake, with Bill Murray, is an extremely weird variation on the material. —Robert Horton

Luc Besson Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) made his American directorial debut with this stylized thriller about an Italian hit man (Jean Reno) who takes in an American girl (Natalie Portman) being pursued by a corrupt killer cop (Gary Oldman). Oldman is a little more unhinged than he should be, but there is something genuinely irresistible about the story line and the relationship between Reno and Portman. Rather than cave in to the cookie-cutter look and feel of American action pictures, Besson brings a bit of his glossy style from French hits La Femme Nikita and Subway to the production, and the results are refreshing even if the bullets and explosions are awfully familiar. —Tom Keogh

Jacques Witta, Krzysztof Kieslowski

Mark Warner, Lili Fini Zanuck "It's an ugly world," warns brooding undercover cop Jason Patric to his naive rookie partner Jennifer Jason Leigh. "You get ugly with it." First-time director Lili Fini Zanuck brings both accomplished style and three-days-without-a-shower grit to this tough adaptation of Kim Wozencraft's book, the real-life story of two undercover narcotics agents who succumb to the rush of the drugs and the danger while building a case in rural Texas in 1974. This isn't an action film, but a harrowing, tense drama in which sudden death hangs over every drug deal and the so-called rules no longer exist. Patric and Leigh give riveting performances as the compromised cops trying to survive the self-destructive spiral into addiction, and Gregg Allman is memorable in an almost wordless performance as a shady bar owner. Eric Clapton's bluesy score and a soundtrack of well-chosen roadhouse tunes perfectly set the time and the tone. —Sean Axmaker

Alan J. Pakula Rich with ambiguity, this smooth adaptation of Scott Turow's bestselling mystery novel stars Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich, the prosecuting attorney assigned to a case involving the murder of a beautiful, seductive lawyer (Greta Scacchi) with whom he'd been having a secret affair. After the investigation gets off to a slow start, damning evidence points to Rusty as the prime suspect. His career is destroyed when his superior and secondary suspect Raymond Horgan (Brian Dennehy) sets him up for the fall. Bonnie Bedelia plays Rusty's wife Barbara, who is not above suspicion herself. While Ford's performance rides a fine line between presumed innocence and possible guilt, director Alan J. Pakula (All the President's Men) maintains a consistent tone of uncertainty that keeps the viewer guessing. —Jeff Shannon

Randall Miller

Kevin Hooks It's Die Hard on a plane in this action thriller, starring Wesley Snipes as an antiterrorist specialist whose early retirement is interrupted when his flight is overtaken by a bloodthirsty villain (Bruce Payne). Watching this at home is pretty much an excuse to order pizza and kick back, as the familiar rhythms of maverick-cop-versus-international-criminal take over and nothing new or fresh in the formula emerges. The supporting cast includes Elizabeth Hurley (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) as a gun-wielding, junior terrorist, which is fun simply for being unexpected. —Tom Keogh

Steve Anderson (II)

Mario Van Peebles Some pundits called it a flawed, exploitative action film that glamorized drug dealing and the luxury of a lucrative criminal lifestyle, spawning a trend of films that attracted youth gangs and provoked violence in theaters. Others hailed it as a breakthrough movie that depicted drug dealers as ruthless, corrupt, and evil, leading dead-end lives that no rational youth would want to emulate. However you interpret it, New Jack City is still one of the first and best films of the 1990s to crack open the underworld of cocaine and peer inside with its eyes wide open. It's also the film that established Wesley Snipes as an actor to watch, with enough charisma to bring an insidious quality of seduction to his role as coke-lord Nino Brown, and enough intelligence to portray a character deluded by his own sense of indestructible power. Director Mario Van Peebles stretched his otherwise-limited talent to bring vivid authenticity and urgency to this crime story, and subplots involving a pair of tenacious cops (Ice-T, Judd Nelson) and a recovering coke addict (Chris Rock) provide additional dramatic tension. Although some critics may hesitate to admit it, New Jack City deserves mention in any serious discussion about African American filmmakers and influential films. —Jeff Shannon

Outer Limits

Byron Haskin Outer Limits: Demon With Glass Hand [VHS] [VHS Tape] (1963) Robert Culp

Leonard Horn

Gerd Oswald

Gerd Oswald

Outer Limits

Charles Haas

Byron Haskin

Gerd Oswald

Outer Limits

John Erman

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

Prisoner

As cult TV series go, none was more cultish than The Prisoner, a late-'60s British sci-fi drama that consisted of a scant 17 episodes yet left an indelible mark on all who saw it. Patrick McGoohan plays a spy who suddenly resigns his post, only to be followed home and knocked unconscious. He wakes to find himself in a quaint yet surreal place known as the Village, where everyone is referred to only by number. There, using a variety of psychological methods, his captors, led by Number Two, attempt to extract information about why he resigned. Every attempt to escape is rebuffed by the Village's bizarre but comprehensive security system. "Who is Number One?" our hero demands of Number Two in the opening credits of each episode. "You are Number Six," comes the maddeningly obtuse reply. "I am not a number—I am a free man!" Number Six shouts in defiance, only to hear Number Two's derisive laughter.

Episode 2, "The Chimes of Big Ben," finds McGoohan pitted against a new Number Two, played this time by Leo McKern. A new "prisoner," a spy from Estonia, is brought to the Village, and Number Two urges Number Six to be her guide. Warily, he agrees, though he remains cold to her until he feels sure she can be trusted. Together, they hatch an escape plan rooted in her supposed knowledge of the Village's secret location.

McKern, famous later for his title role in Rumpole of the Bailey, is a joy to watch as Number Two and a perfect foil for McGoohan; their scenes, full of sharp, witty dialogue, are priceless. In typical fashion, McGoohan smirks and glowers his way through the part of Number Six, but his terse body language is perfect for a character trapped in the sunny, scenic prison that is the Village. Shot entirely on film and at lavish expense for the period, The Prisoner remains a timeless reminder of television's true potential. —Steve Landau

Don Chaffey

Jonathan Frakes

Alfred Hitchcock Although it wasn't a box-office success when originally released in 1958, Vertigo has since taken its deserved place as Alfred Hitchcock's greatest, most spellbinding, most deeply personal achievement. In fact, it consistently ranks among the top 10 movies ever made in the once-a-decade Sight & Sound international critics poll, placing at number 4 in the 1992 survey. (Universal Pictures' spectacularly gorgeous 1996 restoration and rerelease of this 1958 Paramount production was a tremendous success with the public, too.) James Stewart plays a retired police detective who is hired by an old friend to follow his wife (a superb Kim Novak, in what becomes a double role), whom he suspects of being possessed by the spirit of a dead madwoman. The detective and the disturbed woman fall ("fall" is indeed the operative word) in love and...well, to give away any more of the story would be criminal. Shot around San Francisco (the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of the Legion of Honor are significant locations) and elsewhere in Northern California (the redwoods, Mission San Juan Batista) in rapturous Technicolor, Vertigo is as lovely as it is haunting. —Jim Emerson

James Cameron From The Terminator to Titanic, you can always rely on writer-director James Cameron to show you something you've never seen on the big screen before. The guy may not consistently pen the most scintillating dialogue in the world (and, especially in this movie, he doesn't seem to have a particularly high regard for women), but as a director of kinetic, push-the-envelope action sequences, he is in a class by himself. In True Lies, the highlight is a breathtaking third-act jet and car chase through the Florida Keys. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a covert intelligence agent whose wife of 15 years (Jamie Lee Curtis) finally finds out that he's not really a computer salesman and who becomes mixed up in a case involving nuclear arms smuggling. Tom Arnold is surprisingly funny and engaging as Schwarzenegger's longtime spy partner, and Bill Paxton is a smarmy used-car salesman (is that redundant?) whom Arnold thinks is having an affair with his wife. Purely in terms of spectacular action and high-tech hardware, True Lies is a blast. —Jim Emerson

Aaron Stell, Robert Mulligan Ranked 34 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Films, To Kill a Mockingbird is quite simply one of the finest family-oriented dramas ever made. A beautiful and deeply affecting adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee, the film retains a timeless quality that transcends its historically dated subject matter (racism in the Depression-era South) and remains powerfully resonant in present-day America with its advocacy of tolerance, justice, integrity, and loving, responsible parenthood. It's tempting to call this an important "message" movie that should be required viewing for children and adults alike, but this riveting courtroom drama is anything but stodgy or pedantic. As Atticus Finch, the small-town Alabama lawyer and widower father of two, Gregory Peck gives one of his finest performances with his impassioned defense of a black man (Brock Peters) wrongfully accused of the rape and assault of a young white woman. While his children, Scout (Mary Badham) and Jem (Philip Alford), learn the realities of racial prejudice and irrational hatred, they also learn to overcome their fear of the unknown as personified by their mysterious, mostly unseen neighbor Boo Radley (Robert Duvall, in his brilliant, almost completely nonverbal screen debut). What emerges from this evocative, exquisitely filmed drama is a pure distillation of the themes of Harper Lee's enduring novel, a showcase for some of the finest American acting ever assembled in one film, and a rare quality of humanitarian artistry (including Horton Foote's splendid screenplay and Elmer Bernstein's outstanding score) that seems all but lost in the chaotic morass of modern cinema. —Jeff Shannon

Don Guidice, Sydney Pollack Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack continued their longtime collaboration (the actor and director have worked together on Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Electric Horseman, and Out of Africa, among other films) with this taut spy drama. Redford plays a reader for U.S. intelligence who becomes a hunted man after he is not among the victims of a mass murder of his colleagues. Faye Dunaway does solid work as the frightened and mystified woman whom he forces to conceal him, and Max von Sydow is appropriately cool as a professional assassin. That same, sustained tone of danger and expectation that made Pollack's The Firm so much fun can be found in this 1975 thriller, albeit with an appropriate dose of post-Watergate paranoia. —Tom Keogh

Ted J. Kent, George Waggner Wolf Man (1941) [VHS] (1941) Claude Rains (Actor), Warren William (Actor), George Waggner

George Tomasini, George Pal After scoring popular hits with When Worlds Collide and The War of the Worlds, special-effects pioneer George Pal returned to the visionary fiction of H.G. Wells to produce and direct this science-fiction classic from 1960. Wells's imaginative tale of time travel was published in 1895 and the movie is set in approximately the same period with Rod Taylor as a scientist whose magnificent time machine allows him to leap backward and forward in the annals of history. His adventures take him far into the future, where a meek and ineffectual race known as the Eloi have been forced to hide from the brutally monstrous Morlocks. As Taylor tests his daring invention, Oscar-winning special effects show us what the scientist sees: a cavalcade of sights and sounds as he races through time at varying speeds, from lava flows of ancient earth to the rise and fall of a towering future metropolis.

The movie's charm lies in its Victorian setting and the awe and wonder that carries over from Wells's classic story. The pioneering spirit of the movie is still enthralling, but it gets a bit silly when Taylor turns into a stock hero, rescuing a beautiful blonde Eloi (Yvette Mimieux) and battling with the chubby green Morlocks whose light-bulb eyes blink out when they die. Although it's quaint when compared to the special-effects marvels of the digital age, the movie's still highly entertaining and filled with a timeless sense of wonder. —Jeff Shannon

William Reynolds, George Roy Hill Winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, this critical and box-office hit from 1973 provided a perfect reunion for director George Roy Hill and stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who previously delighted audiences with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 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. It's an added bonus that Newman and Redford were box-office kings at the top of their game, and while Shaw broods intensely as the Runyonesque villain, The Sting is further blessed by a host of great supporting players including Dana Elcar, Eileen Brennan, Ray Walston, Charles Durning, and Harold Gould. 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. —Jeff Shannon

Mick Audsley, Stephen Frears One little secret is about to cause a big, big commotion in this hilariously funny hit comedy that has everyone talking! When the oldest daughter of a riotous, close-knit family announces her unexpected pregnancy, everyone wants to know who fathered the "snapper" she's carrying. But the young woman's refusal to reveal anything about her predicament sends the entire town into a tizzy! Critics coast-to-coast praised THE SNAPPER as one of the year's finest and funniest films — it's sure to deliver nonstop laughs to you!

Lennart Wallén, Ingmar Bergman Movie lovers will always return to The Seventh Seal, regarded by many as one of the greatest films of all time. Bergman combines symbolic imagery, realistic details, and wry humor for the moving medieval tale of a knight searching for God in a world ravaged by plague. As the honorable knight, his cynical squire, a troupe of carefree actors, and black-robed Death, a superb cast of Bergman regulars portray the cruelty and charity that coexisted during this dark era.

Hugh S. Fowler, Billy Wilder It's a steamy summer in New York City and this scandalous, sexy comedy heats things up even more! A married man (Tom Ewell), whose wife and son are away for the summer, has his fidelity put to the test when a seductive starlet (Marilyn Monroe) moves in upstairs. Keeping his marriage vows in the face of her flirtations proves tough when challenged by the notorious "seven year itch." Faced with this provocative problem, he's victim to an outrageous mating dance filled with hilarious comedy!

Peter Tanner, Clive Donner It's tough trying to beat the 1934 version of the popular adventure-romance story, starring Leslie Howard as the 18th-century British hero who poses as a fop in London society but runs a secret mission to rescue the doomed in Robespierre's Paris. But this 1982 television version, starring Anthony Andrews (Under the Volcano) as the Pimpernel and Jane Seymour as his beloved but estranged wife, is quite a treat. Andrews and Seymour expertly capture the essence of a relationship suffering from misunderstandings and elusive passion, and there is plenty of crackle to the action sequences. Clive Donner (What's New, Pussycat?) brings some strong cinematic qualities to this television presentation. —Tom Keogh

Moira Shearer

Mel Brooks Mel Brooks's directorial debut remains both a career high point and a classic show business farce. Hinging on a crafty plot premise, which in turn unleashes a joyously insane onstage spoof, The Producers is powered by a clutch of over-the-top performances, capped by the odd couple pairing of the late Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, making his screen debut.

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 (but fortunately for us), 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. —Sam Sutherland

Barry Levinson

Russell Lloyd, John Huston A grandly entertaining, old-fashioned adventure based on the Rudyard Kipling short story, The Man Who Would Be King is the kind of rousing epic about which people said, even in 1975, "Wow! They don't make 'em like that anymore!" When director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen) first started trying to make the film, with Gable and Bogart, the project was derailed by the latter's death. It was a few decades before Huston was able to finally realize his dream movie—and with an unimprovable cast. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are, respectively, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, a pair of lovably roguish British soldiers who set out to make their fortunes by conning the priests of remote Kafiristan into making them kings. It's a rollicking tale, an epic satire of imperialism, and the good-natured repartee shared by Caine and Connery is pure gold. In today's screen adventures, humor is usually imposed on the material by a writer or director trying to make some kind of cleverly self-aware comment ("Hey, we know it's a movie!"), but that sort of jokiness can create so much ironic distance that it pushes the audience right out of the picture. Huston lets the humor emerge naturally from the characters, for whom we wind up caring more deeply than we ever expected. —Jim Emerson

Antony Gibbs, Tony Richardson A bleak, but powerful 1960 British film that ranks as one of the most important United Kingdom imports of the decade. Director Tony Richardson (Tom Jones) tells the story of a rebellious social misfit and petty thief played by Tom Courtenay (The Dresser) who is picked to run on the track team at a reform school for boys. He finds he must balance his spirit and desire to win with his anger and frustration at the life he has led. At times a wrenching character study with no easy answers, Courtenay's performance is a touching portrait of a young man and the journey he takes as he tries to run not only for an unclear future, but from a past he cannot forget. A film indicative of the working class expressionism that came out of England in the early 1960s, Richardson's films stands alone as a downbeat, but insightful story of one man's struggle to determine who he is. —Robert Lane

Martin Scorsese

In English comedy at its blackest (and funniest) pitch, this droll 1955 farce finds Alec Guinness in one of his typically deft, chameleon turns as would-be criminal mastermind Professor Marcus. When Marcus's grand plan to pull off a train heist leads him to a strategically situated house occupied by the genteel Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), the ensuing masquerade triggers a mordant, even macabre comedy of manners. With Marcus and his rough-hewn cronies (Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, and Danny Green) posing as a string quartet, and the dear lady's demise seen as the means to their larcenous end, the gang's sinister machinations are consistently, if unwittingly, foiled by the good-hearted, resourceful widow. —Sam Sutherland

George Hively, John Ford Four years before he revived and elevated the Western in Stagecoach, director John Ford guided this atmospheric melodrama to multiple Academy Awards, proving that his underlying skills as a storyteller, visual designer, and dramatic guide didn't need epic scale, sweeping action, or favorite star John Wayne to achieve dramatic impact. Based on Liam O'Flaherty's novel set during the Sinn Fein rebellion in 1922, Dudley Nichols's script offers an intimate portrait of Gypo Nolan, a violent, alcoholic Dubliner who betrays a friend (Wallace Ford) for £20, setting in motion a downward spiral of fear, anger, and drunken oblivion.

The Imposter captures Ford and filmmaking at an evolutionary balance point between the purer visual storytelling of silent film and the emerging literary possibilities of sound: on the one hand, Ford paints a nocturnal Dublin of deep shadows and billowing fog in which his characters are placed in pointed tableaux, and project their actions and attitudes with stylized, theatrical gestures that seem naive alongside later, more naturalistic films; on the other, the director pushes his star, Victor McLaglen, past traditional stagecraft toward a truly harrowing, authentic performance. Pauline Kael has noted the Hollywood legend that Ford induced McLaglen's Oscar-winning turn by keeping him too drunk to embellish his work. Whatever the cause, the actor achieves a lumbering, out-of-control power that traces the rage, confusion, and ultimate despair that Nolan's descent describes. That gripping performance is the film's most modern aspect and riveting dramatic hook and more than justifies watching. —Sam Sutherland

Bille August The House of the Spirits is a generational tale of life among the ruling class in a South American country, as adapted from the Isabel Allende novel, but the political realities coexist very uneasily with the magical realism in this Bille August film. The star power alone (Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, Vanessa Redgrave, and Armin Mueller-Stahl) should have cranked it up a few notches, but that's not the case. Irons is appropriately cruel as the ambitious man who achieves wealth and makes everyone around him miserable and Streep is luminous, but it's slow and ponderous all the way. —Marshall Fine

Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Jean Summons Digitally mastered from the original film negative. Includes Original Theatrical Release

Peter Zinner, William Reynolds, Francis Ford Coppola this product comes ith to vhs tapes

Francis Ford Coppola 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. But even with him and a number of truly brilliant actors (including maestro Lee Strasberg), this is ultimately Pacino's film and a masterful performance. —Tom Keogh

Mario Serandrei, Luchino Visconti Ossessione isn't just the finest film version of The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain's classic tale of murder, betrayal, and erotic obsession; it's also the first masterpiece of Italian neorealism and a key historical precursor of film noir. A handsome drifter (Massimo Girotti) fetches up at an isolated roadhouse, gets mutually besotted with the proprietor's sultry wife (Clara Calamai), and has soon carried out a plot to murder the older man in an apparent off-road accident. That's only the beginning, of course. In his directorial debut, Luchino Visconti weaves a sensuous, tragic spell, born equally of the stark, sun-struck settings—especially those utterly realistic yet somehow otherworldly highways, elevated above the surrounding marshland—and a dynamic camera style that lifts the storytelling to operatic heights. Yet another layer of erotic complication is added by the presence of "La Spagnolo" (Elio Marcuzzo), a philosopher-king of vagabonds who—like the director—is at least as infatuated with Girotti's studly beauty as the heroine is. —Richard T. Jameson

Roberto Silvi, John Huston

D.W. Griffith 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 jumbo-size 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 favorite 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. —Robert Horton

Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei M. Eisenstein Sergei Eisenstein's revolutionary sophomore feature has so long stood as a textbook example of montage editing that many have forgotten what an invigoratingly cinematic experience he created. A 20th-anniversary tribute to the 1905 revolution, Eisenstein portrays the revolt in microcosm with a dramatization of the real-life mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. The story tells a familiar party-line message of the oppressed working class (in this case the enlisted sailors) banding together to overthrow their oppressors (the ship's officers), led by proto-revolutionary Vakulinchuk. When he dies in the shipboard struggle the crew lays his body to rest on the pier, a moody, moving scene where the citizens of Odessa slowly emerge from the fog to pay their respects. As the crowd grows Eisenstein turns the tenor from mourning a fallen comrade to celebrating the collective achievement. The government responds by sending soldiers and ships to deal with the mutinous crew and the supportive townspeople, which climaxes in the justly famous (and often imitated and parodied) Odessa Steps massacre. Eisenstein edits carefully orchestrated motions within the frame to create broad swaths of movement, shots of varying length to build the rhythm, close-ups for perspective and shock effect, and symbolic imagery for commentary, all to create one of the most cinematically exciting sequences in film history. Eisenstein's film is Marxist propaganda to be sure, but the power of this masterpiece lies not in its preaching but its poetry. —Sean Axmaker

John Huston One of Bogey's best movie. If you are a Bogey fan, then you want this movie for your collection.

Claire Simpson, Robert Towne Robert Towne is one of Hollywood's most celebrated screenwriters, but because his directorial efforts have been few and far between, anticipation was high when this star-powered crime story was released in 1988. Critical reaction was decidedly mixed, but there's plenty to admire in this silky, visually seductive film about a drug dealer (Mel Gibson) whose best friend from high-school (Kurt Russell) is now working for the Los Angeles sheriff's drug detail. Their personal and professional conflicts are intensified by their love for the same woman, a waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer) at the Italian restaurant they both frequent. There's a big deal going down with a drug lord (the late Raul Julia), but as it twists and turns, Towne's story is really more about personal loyalties and individual honor. And even if it doesn't quite hold together, the movie's got a fantastic look to it (courtesy of the great cinematographer Conrad Hall), and the three stars bring depth and dimension to their well-written roles. —Jeff Shannon

Franco Zeffirelli

John Ford

John Wright, Jan de Bont Everything clicked in this 1994 action hit, from the premise (a city bus has to keep moving at 50 mph or blow up) to the two leads (the usually inscrutable Keanu Reeves and the cute-as-a-button Sandra Bullock) to the villain (Dennis Hopper in psycho mode) to the director (Jan De Bont, who made this film hit the ground running with an edge-of-your-seat opening sequence on a broken elevator). This is the sort of movie that becomes a prototype for a thousand lesser films (including De Bont's lousy sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control), but Speed really is a one-of-a-kind experience almost anyone can enjoy. —Tom Keogh

Oscar Rosander, Ingmar Bergman Bergman carefully sets the stage for romantic intrigue in Smiles of a Summer Night, his brilliant breakthrough film. At a country estate in turn-of-the-century Sweden, eight characters become four couples during a long, languorous summer night. Under the spell of a mysterious elixir, the mismatched couples switch partners in an intricate roundelay that is both lyrical and erotic. One of the greatest tragicomedies of all time, Bergman's perceptive send-up of social rites and sexual mores was the inspiration for the Sondheim musical A Little Night Music and Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy. The theatrical ironies and sexual chases have their roots in Shakespeare and boudoir farce, but the sudden dark glimpses of despair are pure Bergman.

The director and stars of 1998's You've Got Mail scoreda breakthrough hit with this hugely popular romantic comedy from 1993, about a recently engaged woman (Meg Ryan) who hears the sad story of a grieving widower (Tom Hanks) on the radio and believes that they're destined to be together. She's single in New York, he lives in Seattle with a young son, but the cross-country attraction proves irresistible, and pretty soon Meg's on a westbound flight. What happens from there is ... well, you must have been living in a cave to have let this sweet-hearted comedy slip below your pop-cultural radar. There's little complexity or depth to writer-director Nora Ephron's cheesy tale of a romantic fait accompli, and more than a little contrivance to the subplots that threaten to keep Hanks and Ryan from actually meeting. But the purity of star chemistry here is hard to deny, and this may be the first film to indicate the more serious and sympathetic side of Hanks that is revealed in later roles. With its clever jokes about "chick movies" and repeated homage to the classic weeper An Affair to Remember, this may not be everybody's brand of amorous entertainment, but it's got an old-Hollywood charm that appeals to many a movie fan. —Jeff Shannon

Bill Duke

Tom McAdoo, George Stevens Consciously crafted by director George Stevens as a piece of American mythmaking, Shane is on nearly everyone's shortlist of great movie Westerns. A buckskin knight, Shane (Alan Ladd) rides into the middle of a range war between farmers and cattlemen, quickly siding with the "sod-busters." While helping a kindly farmer (Van Heflin), Shane falls platonically in love with the man's wife (Jean Arthur, in the last screen performance of a marvelous career). Though the showdowns are exciting, and the story simple but involving, what most people will remember about this movie is the friendship between the stoical Shane and the young son of the farmers. The kid is played by Brandon De Wilde, who gives one of the most amazing child performances in the movies; his parting scene with Shane is guaranteed to draw tears from even the most stonyhearted moviegoer. And speaking of stony hearts, Jack Palance made a sensational impression as the evil gunslinger sent to clean house—he has fewer lines of dialogue than he has lines in his magnificently craggy face, but he makes them count. The photography, highlighting the landscape near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, won an Oscar. —Robert Horton

This emotionally moving romantic drama was adapted by WilliamNicholson from his own acclaimed play, based upon the real-life romance (during the 1950s) between the British writer C.S. Lewis and a divorced American poet named Joy Gresham. Best known for writing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) is living comfortably as a respected Oxford don, his academic lifestyle a kind of shell protecting him from the emotional risk of love. Joy Gresham (Debra Winger) arrives at Oxford as an avid admirer of Lewis's writing, and the safety of his collegiate routine is quickly disrupted when Lewis realizes that he's fallen deeply and unexpectedly in love. Their courtship is uniquely engaging; he's shy and uncertain, she's outspoken and bold. But when Joy is diagnosed with cancer, Lewis's Christian faith is put to the test—he cannot fathom why their happiness together would be so drastically challenged. Together, they find a way to accept and honor the time they have shared together, and under the sensitive direction of Richard Attenborough, Shadowlands arrives at a conclusion that is both heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. Hopkins and Winger are equally superb in this absorbing story of personal and spiritual transformation—a story previously filmed for British television in 1985, with Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom. —Jeff Shannon

Martin Brest Hoo-hah! After seven Oscar nominations for his outstanding work in films such as The Godfather, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon it's ironic that Al Pacino finally won the Oscar for his grandstanding lead performance in this 1992 crowd pleaser. As the blind, blunt, and ultimately benevolent retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, Pacino is both hammy and compelling, simultaneously subtle and grandly over-the-top when defending his new assistant and prep school student Charlie (Chris O'Donnell) at a disciplinary hearing. While the subplot involving Charlie's prep-school crisis plays like a sequel to Dead Poets Society, Pacino's adventurous escapades in New York City provide comic relief, rich character development, and a memorable supporting role for Gabrielle Anwar as the young woman who accepts the colonel's invitation to dance the tango. Scent of a Woman is a remake of the 1972 Italian film Profumo di donna. In addition to Pacino's award, the picture garnered Oscar nominations for director Martin Brest and for screenwriter Bo Goldman. —Jeff Shannon

Humphrey Dixon, James Ivory The prestigious filmmaking trio of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala had made other critically acclaimed films before A Room with a View was released in 1985, but it was this popular film that made them art-house superstars. Splendidly adapted from the novel by E.M. Forster, it's a comedy of the heart, a passionate romance and a study of repression within the British class system of manners and mores. It's that system of rigid behavior that prevents young Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) from accepting the loving advances of a free-spirited suitor (Julian Sands), who fears that she will follow through with her engagement to a priggish intellectual (Daniel Day-Lewis) whose capacity for passion is virtually nonexistent. During and after a trip to Italy with her protective companion (Maggie Smith), Lucy gradually gets in touch with her true emotions. The fun of watching A Room with a View comes from seeing how Lucy's thoughts and feelings finally arrive at the same romantic conclusion. Through an abundance of humor both subtle and overt, this crowd-pleasing "art movie" rose to an unexpected level of popular appeal. The Merchant-Ivory team received eight Academy Award nominations for their efforts, and won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, and Costume Design. —Jeff Shannon

Folmar Blangsted, Howard Hawks When it comes down to naming the best Western of all time, the list usually narrows to three completely different pictures: John Ford's The Searchers, Howard Hawks's Red River, and Hawks's Rio Bravo. About the only thing they all have in common is that they all star John Wayne. But while The Searchers is an epic quest for revenge and Red River is a sweeping cattle-drive drama ("Take 'em to Missouri! Yeeee-hah!"), Rio Bravo is on a much more modest scale. Basically, it comes down to Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne), his sobering-up alcoholic friend Dude (Dean Martin), the hotshot new kid Colorado (Ricky Nelson), and deputy-sidekick Stumpy (Walter Brennan), sittin' around in the town jail, drinkin' black cofee, shootin' the breeze, and occasionally, singin' a song. Hawks—who, like his pal Ernest Hemingway, lived by the code of "grace under pressure"—said he made Rio Bravo as a rebuke to High Noon, in which sheriff Gary Cooper begged for townspeople to help him. So, Hawks made Wayne's Sheriff Chance a consummate professional—he may be getting old and fat, but he knows how to do his job, and he doesn't want amateurs getting mixed up in his business; they could get hurt. This most entertaining of movies also achieved some notoriety in the '90s when Quentin Tarantino (director of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Jackie Brown) revealed that he uses it as a litmus test for prospective girlfriends. Oh, and if the configuration of characters sounds familiar, it should: Hawks remade Rio Bravo two more times—as El Dorado in 1967, with Wayne, Robert Mitchum, and James Caan; and as Rio Lobo in 1970, with Wayne, Jack Elam, and Christopher Mitchum. —Jim Emerson

Robert Z. Leonard Jane Austen's wonderful novel has been adapted to the screen many times, with this 1940 version representing the golden age of the Hollywood studio era. Greer Garson, then just on the cusp of her stardom, plays the headstrong Elizabeth Bennet, smartest of five daughters who must be married off. Laurence Olivier is that difficult fellow Mr. Darcy, whose mulishness about the Bennet girls begins to thaw when he gets a dose of Elizabeth's sense and sensibility. The film is done up in the glamorous MGM house style, which means we're stuck with the less-than-inspired direction of Robert Z. Leonard (The Great Ziegfeld), redeemed somewhat by a collection of handsome sets (Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse won the Oscar for Interior Decoration) and the dandy photography by Karl Freund, one of the greats. Anyone accustomed to the 1995 miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice will need to adjust to the swifter demands of a two-hour movie, and to be sure this version, like the 2005 Keira Knightley remake, simplifies some of Austen's scenes. It's one of the few films, by the way, with Aldous Huxley as a credited screenwriter. Edmund Gwenn is lovely as Mr. Bennet, and Mary Boland brash as Mrs. Bennet; Garson, although MGM liked to corset her in fine-lady roles, manages to let Elizabeth's sauciness come through. Actually, the movie's weak spot is Laurence Olivier's elaborate performance as Darcy, which feels too theatrical. Not that it matters; Austen's story is so good, the film sails through to its delicious finish with all flags flying. —Robert Horton

Frank Sullivan, George Cukor Re-creating the role she originated in Philip Barry's wickedly witty Broadway play, Katharine Hepburn stars as the spoiled and snobby socialite Tracy Lord in this sparkling 1940 screen adaptation of The Philadelphia Story, one of the great romantic comedies from the golden age of MGM studios. Applying her impossibly high ideals to everyone but herself, Tracy is about to marry a stuffy executive when her congenial ex-husband (Cary Grant), arrives to protect his former father-in-law from a potentially scandalous tabloid exposé. In an Oscar-winning role, James Stewart is the scandal reporter who falls for Tracy as her wedding day arrives, throwing her into a dizzying state of premarital jitters. Who will join Tracy at the altar? Snappy dialogue flows like sparkling wine under the sophisticated direction of George Cukor in this film that turned the tide of Hepburn's career from "box-office poison" to glamorous Hollywood star. —Jeff Shannon

Jonathan Demme Philadelphia wasn't the first movie about AIDS (it followed such worthy independent films as Parting Glances and Longtime Companion), but it was the first Hollywood studio picture to take AIDS as its primary subject. In that sense, Philadelphia is a historically important film. As such, it's worth remembering that director Jonathan Demme (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild, The Silence of the Lambs) wasn't interested in preaching to the converted; he set out to make a film that would connect with a mainstream audience. And he succeeded. Philadelphia was not only a hit, it also won Oscars for Bruce Springsteen's haunting "The Streets of Philadelphia," and for Tom Hanks as the gay lawyer Andrew Beckett who is unjustly fired by his firm because he has AIDS. Denzel Washington is another lawyer (functioning as the mainstream-audience surrogate) who reluctantly takes Beckett's case and learns to overcome his misconceptions about the disease, about those who contract it, and about gay people in general. The combined warmth and humanism of Hanks and Demme were absolutely essential to making this picture a success. The cast also features Jason Robards, Antonio Banderas (as Beckett's lover), Joanne Woodward, and Robert Ridgely, and, of course, those Demme regulars Charles Napier, Tracey Walter, and Roger Corman. —Jim Emerson

Buster Keaton, John G. Blystone

Gene Milford, Elia Kazan Marlon Brando's famous "I coulda been a contenda" speech is such a warhorse by now that a lot of people probably feel they've seen this picture already, even if they haven't. And many of those who have seen it may have forgotten how flat-out thrilling it is. 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. —David Chute

George Tomasini, Alfred Hitchcock A strong candidate for the most sheerly entertaining and enjoyable movie ever made by a Hollywood studio (with Citizen Kane, Only Angels Have Wings and Trouble in Paradise running neck and neck). Positioned between the much heavier and more profoundly disturbing Vertigo (1958) and the stark horror of Psycho (1960), North by Northwest (1959) is Alfred Hitchcock at his most effervescent in a romantic comedy-thriller that also features one of the definitive Cary Grant performances. Which is not to say that this is just "Hitchcock Lite"; seminal Hitchcock critic Robin Wood (in his book Hitchcock's Films Revisited) makes an airtight case for this glossy MGM production as one of The Master's "unbroken series of masterpieces from Vertigo to Marnie." It's a classic Hitchcock Wrong Man scenario: Grant is Roger O. Thornhill (initials ROT), an advertising executive who is mistaken by enemy spies for a U.S. undercover agent named George Kaplan. Convinced these sinister fellows (James Mason as the boss, and Martin Landau as his henchman) are trying to kill him, Roger flees and meets a sexy Stranger on a Train (Eva Marie Saint), with whom he engages in one of the longest, most convolutedly choreographed kisses in screen history. And, of course, there are the famous set pieces: the stabbing at the United Nations, the crop-duster plane attack in the cornfield (where a pedestrian has no place to hide), and the cliffhanger finale atop the stone faces of Mount Rushmore. Plus a sparkling Ernest Lehman script and that pulse-quickening Bernard Herrmann score. What more could a moviegoer possibly desire?—Jim Emerson

Stills from North by Northwest (Click for larger image)

Ron Clements, John Musker

Brian Smith, Jim Kammerud Disney's amazing undersea classic lives on in an all-new story bursting with the same captivating musical style, unforgettably colorful characters, and brilliant animation that made the original film an Academy Award(R)-winning favorite. After rejoicing over the birth of their daughter Melody, Ariel and Eric must face a new threat from Ursula's revengeful sibling Morgana — a threat that forces them to hide Melody's true mermaid heritage. Melody, a young princess curious about her roots, ultimately ventures into the sea against her parents' wishes. There, she meets new friends, and in her dream to be a mermaid becomes a pawn in Morgana's plot to gain control of the Seven Seas. Ariel must reunite with her childhood friends Sebastian, Flounder, and Scuttle to rescue her daughter and restore harmony to her family. An all-star cast returns, including Jodi Benson (Ariel) and Samuel E. Wright (Sebastian), for a remarkable adventure teeming with surprises and four phenomenal new songs.

Clarence Brown This classic family film made a star of 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor in the title role as spunky Velvet Brown, a girl who's determined to enter her horse, Pie, in the Grand National Steeplechase. Critic Pauline Kael called it "One of the most likeable movies of all time." Mickey Rooney costars as a young man who helps Velvet train Pie for the big race. At the last minute, Velvet herself has to ride Pie in the tournament and cuts her hair to pass for a jockey. Anne Revere won an Oscar as Velvet's mother, as did editor Robert J. Kern, who cut together a terrifically exciting horse race. Donald Crisp and Angela Lansbury are also featured as members of the Brown family. —Jim Emerson

Joe Strummer

Edward Curtiss, Edward F. Cline When Columbia Pictures sought to pair Mae West and W.C. Fields in a film, neither was thrilled, but since both stars' careers were on the skids, they agreed to the project. They fought about everything: script, billing, casting, philosophy, work habits, style. Onscreen, Fields is always the butt of his own jokes. West never is. He's all broad slapstick, she, all sly innuendo. In the film West hangs onto her precious image—that inimitable combo of sexiness and wit—as Fields systematically subverts it. It's the clash of the screen-legend titans.

In the Wild West town of Greasewood, West, as Flower Belle Lee (her usual seductive saloon singer), is kidnapped by the Masked Bandit (Joseph Calleia, in a role Bogart turned down). After refusing to turn him in, she's run out of town and can only return when she's "married and respectable." She meets flimflam man Cuthbert J. Twillie (Fields) on a train. He's instantly smitten: "My heart is a bargain today, will you take me?" "I'll take you, and how," she agrees, spying his satchel of cash. Many plot twists later, Twillie's on the gallows. Hangman: "Have you any last requests?" Twillie: "I'd like to see Paris before I die. Philadelphia will do." In her ideal happy ending, West's Flower Belle finds true love—with two men—the Masked Bandit and the town muckraker, Wayne Carter (Dick Foran).

The film's funniest scenes involve Field's futile attempts to get West into a compromising position: "I have some very definite pear-shaped ideas I'd like to discuss with thee." Suffice it to say that Fields ends up in bed with a goat. —Laura Mirsky

William H. Ziegler, George Cukor 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 (Harrison also played the role, opposite Julie Andrews, on stage), who draws Eliza into a social experiment that works almost too well. The letterbox edition of this film on video certainly pays tribute to the pageantry of Cukor's set, but it also underscores a certain visual stiffness that can slow viewer enthusiasm just a tad. But 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. —Tom Keogh

This huge 1993 hit for Robin Williams and director Chris Columbus (Home Alone), based on a novel called Alias Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine, stars Williams as a loving but flaky father estranged from his frustrated wife (Sally Field). Devastated by a court order limiting his time with the children, Williams's character disguises himself as a warm, old British nanny who becomes the kids' best friend. As with Dustin Hoffman's performance in Tootsie, Williams's drag act—buried under layers of latex and padding—is the show, and everything and everyone else on screen serves his sometimes frantic role. Since that's the case, it's fortunate that Williams is Williams, and his performance is terribly funny at times and exceptionally believable in those scenes where his character misses his children. Playing Williams's brother, a professional makeup artist, Harvey Fierstein has a good support role in a bright sequence where he tries a number of feminine looks on Williams before settling on Mrs. Doubtfire's visage. —Tom Keogh

Political heavyweights decide that Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), an obscure scoutmaster in a small town, would be the perfect dupe to fill a vacant U.S. Senate chair. Surely this naive bumpkin can be easily controlled by the senior senator (Claude Rains) from his state, a respectable and corrupted career politician. Director Frank Capra fills the movie with Smith's wide-eyed wonder at the glories of Washington, all of which ring false for his cynical secretary (Jean Arthur), who doesn't believe for a minute this rube could be for real. But he is. Capra was repeating the formula of a previous film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, but this one is even sharper; Stewart and Arthur are brilliant, and the former cowboy star Harry Carey lends a warm presence to the role of the vice president. Bright, funny, and beautifully paced, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is Capra's ode to the power of innocence—an idea so potent that present-day audiences may find themselves wishing for a new Mr. Smith in Congress. The 1939 Congress was none too thrilled about the film's depiction of their august body, denouncing it as a caricature; but even today, Capra's jibes about vested interests and political machines look as accurate as ever. —Robert Horton

Albert Akst, Vincente Minnelli One of the finest American musicals, this 1944 film by Vincente Minnelli is an intentionally self-contained story set in 1903, in which a happy St. Louis family is shaken to their roots by the prospect of moving to New York, where the father has a better job pending. Judy Garland heads the cast in what amounts to a splendid, end-of-an-era story that nicely rhymes with the onset of the 20th century. The film is extraordinarily alive, the characters strong, and the musical numbers are so splendidly part of the storytelling that you don't feel the film has stopped for an interlude. —Tom Keogh

Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones Perhaps only the collective brilliant minds of the Monty Python film and television troupe are up to the task of tackling a subject as weighty as the Meaning of Life. Sure, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and their ilk have tried their hands at this puzzler, but only Python has attempted to do so within the commercial motion picture medium. Happily for us all, Monty Python's the Meaning of Life truly explains everything one conceivably needs to know about the perplexities of human existence, from the mysteries of Catholic doctrine to the miracle of reproduction to why one should avoid the salmon mousse to the critical importance of the machine that goes ping! Using fish as a linking device (and what marvelous links those aquatic creatures make), The Meaning of Life is presented as a series of sketches: a musical production number about why seed is sacred; a look at dining in the afterlife; the quest for a missing fish (there they are again); a visit from Mr. Death; the cautionary tale of Mr. Creosote and his rather gluttonous appetite; an unflinching examination of the harsh realities of organ donation, and so on. Sadly, this was the last original Python film, but it's a beaut. You'll laugh. You'll cry (probably because you're laughing so hard). You may even learn something about the Meaning of Life. Or at least about how fish fit into the grand scheme of things. —Jim Emerson

Chuck Russell Guaranteed to work or your money back - PLEASE NOTE ALL MONIES FROM THIS SALE GO TO A 501 (C)3 NO KILL ANIMAL SHELTER

Robert J. Flaherty While it stretches the definition of documentary, Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran remains a triumph of poetic imagery, and one of the greatest nonfiction films ever made. Critic Pauline Kael hailed it as "the greatest film tribute to man's struggle against hostile nature," referring to conditions faced by bold residents of the Aran Islands, 30 miles offshore from Galway, Ireland, amidst the harshest seas of the Atlantic. Flaherty and his tiny crew spent over two years on the islands, chronicling the rugged lives of the Araners on a landscape so rocky that seaweed is used as improvised soil. Flaherty cast the film with assorted locals and recreated anachronistic events (such as the harpooning of a basking shark) from Aran's past, inviting controversy over the film's authenticity. That debate continues on this DVD's exceptional bonus features (for retrospective insight, "How the Myth Was Made" is every bit as good as Flaherty's film), but Man of Aran is, and always will be, a timeless record of extraordinary people, miraculously surviving in a most extraordinary place. —Jeff Shannon

Dede Allen, Arthur Penn Jack Crabb is the only white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn and the centenarian shares his story in this picaresque fable of the Old West. In Arthur Penn's adaptation of Thomas Berger's novel, Dustin Hoffman plays Jack from teen years into old age in a bravura performance. And Jack's story is a fantastic one: captured by Indians as a boy, reared as an Indian, shuttling back and forth between the white and Indian worlds. In the process, he befriends everyone from Wild Bill Hickock to George Armstrong Custer and is a gunslinger, a snake-oil salesman, and an Army scout. This is a solid blend of comedy and tragedy, with a strong statement to make about America's treatment of Native Americans without sermonizing. A terrific cast includes Faye Dunaway, Martin Balsam, and Richard Mulligan. But this show is all Hoffman's. —Marshall Fine

Pietro Scalia, Bernardo Bertolucci In many ways Little Buddha is a companion piece to Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. A beautiful travelogue and history lesson unfolds in the two parts of this film: a historical text of Siddhartha (Keanu Reeves) and the contemporary quest of Lama Norbu (Ying Ruocheng), who believes he has found the reincarnation of his former teacher in a Seattle child. The ancient, magical tales sweep away the blasé contemporary action. Ruocheng's presence drives the story of discovery as the child learns about the teachings of Buddhism. A visual feast that will dazzle both young and old. In fact, were it not a religious icon, the youngsters might want Siddhartha dolls after viewing his magical on-screen adventures. Beautiful cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. —Doug Thomas

Terry Jones "Blessed are the cheesemakers," a wise man once said. Or maybe not. But the point is Monty Python's Life of Brian is a religious satire that does not target specific religions or religious leaders (like, say, Jesus of Nazareth). Instead, it pokes fun at the mindless and fanatical among their followers—it's an attack on religious zealotry and hypocrisy—things that that fellow from Nazareth didn't particularly care for either. Nevertheless, at the time of its release in 1979, those who hadn't seen it considered it to be quite "controversial." Life of Brian, you see, is about a chap named Brian (Graham Chapman) born December 25 in a hovel not far from a soon-to-be-famous Bethlehem manger. Brian is mistaken for the messiah and therefore manipulated, abused, and exploited by various religious and political factions. And it's really, really funny. Particularly memorable bits include the brassy Shirley Bassey/James Bond-like title song; the bitter rivalry between the anti-Roman resistance groups, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea; Michael Palin's turn as a lisping, risible Pontius Pilate; Brian urging a throng of false-idol worshippers to think for themselves—to which they reply en masse "Yes, we must think for ourselves!"; the fact that everything Brian does, including losing his sandal in an attempt to flee these wackos, is interpreted as "a sign." Life of Brian is not only one of Monty Python's funniest achievements, it's also the group's sharpest and smartest sustained satire. Blessed are the Pythons. —Jim Emerson

Halina Prugar-Ketling, Roman Polanski For those who know Roman Polanski (Chinatown, Repulsion) only for his acclaimed English-language films, Knife in the Water will come as a revelation. Polanski's first feature—his doctoral dissertation from the Polish Film School—is

Peter Tanner, Robert Hamer Alec Guinness, best known for the serious dramatic roles and authoritative presence of his later films, made his mark early as a versatile character actor and a gifted comic performer. These talents are shown to their best in this bewitchingly black-hearted 1949 comedy of a poor cousin murdering his way up the inheritance ladder of a titled, old-money family. Guinness, in only his third film, becomes practically the entire family tree, starring in no less than eight hilarious roles. Handsome Dennis Price is the scheming relative, the progeny of an unfortunate marriage that turned his mother into a family pariah. Determined to earn the title he believes is rightfully his, he ingratiates himself back into the family and plots his ascension through a succession of Guinness-created social dinosaurs, joyfully killing off his kin in a series of inventive assassinations. It's class warfare in action, and Price is winning the war. The delectable Joan Greenwood costars as the married object of Price's affections, whose own venomous nature becomes apparent when Price falls for Valerie Hobson, the cultured widow of one of his victims. Robert Hamer directs with a light touch and dry wit, marrying the understated Ealing Studios comic style with the dark, satirical edge of John Dighton's sharp screenplay. The wiliest of all Ealing comedies, right down to its splendidly sardonic conclusion. —Sean Axmaker

John Guillermin

Françoise Javet, Philippe de Broca This film was a touchstone of the late 1960s, when it was seen as an antiwar allegory for a world in which madness seemed to reign. Of course, that would probably be true whenever this movie was shown, wouldn't it? Directed by Philippe de Broca and set during World War I, King of Hearts stars Alan Bates as a Scottish soldier separated from his unit in France. He wanders into a small French village that has been abandoned by its residents in the face of oncoming combat. Instead, the town is populated by the residents of a nearby insane asylum, whose keepers have fled—a fact that escapes the innocent soldier, who assumes these are the regular folks. A film that celebrates the innocence and wisdom of the insane, even as it questions who the real madmen are. —Marshall Fine

John Huston

Ben Sharpsteen, David Hand, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Wilfred Jackson Walt Disney's Classic Masterpiece movie. Comes in plastic protective case enjoyable entertainment for young and old.

Alfred Hitchcock After a poor man's legacy fails to come through, his armless son is shot, but by whom? A dramatic story of Ireland and the Dublin Rebellion. Based on the play by Sean O'Casey.

Terry Gilliam By the late 1970s, Monty Python's resident animator and occasional performer, Terry Gilliam, was ready to direct a feature film on his own (he codirected Monty Python and the Holy Grail two years earlier). Returning to the medieval muck and monstrosities that served as a backdrop for Holy Grail, Gilliam chose a darker satire for this erratic but funny outing. The result was a witty, modernist fable about an unprepared hero (Michael Palin) pushed through a heroic journey by uncontrollable forces of destiny, propelling him into a duel with a fearsome, man-eating dragon called Jabberwock. Raunchy, irreverent, and borderline cynical, Jabberwocky reveals a lot of Gilliam's flaws as a first-time solo filmmaker, but it also serves as a map of his obsessions and extravagant sense of art direction—elements of his artistry that certainly flourished in subsequent works. —Tom Keogh

Frederic Knudtson, Stanley Kramer Two of the juiciest roles in the American theater fall at the feet of Spencer Tracy and Fredric March, and both men make a meal of it. Inherit the Wind, based on the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, is a slightly fictionalized account of the Scopes Monkey Trial, that galvanizing legal drama of the 1920s. When a young Tennessee teacher is prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution in a public school, he receives unwanted public attention as well as the legal advice of a giant. Tracy plays the role based on Clarence Darrow, the eloquent defense attorney, and March storms his way through a part based on Williams Jennings Bryan, the failed presidential candidate (and famed orator) who prosecuted the case. Gene Kelly plays a character based on the acid-penned H.L. Mencken, reporting on the trial and caustically commenting on the absurdity of the human animal. Stanley (Judgment at Nuremberg) Kramer's direction is not especially subtle, but the verbal fireworks unleashed during the trial sequences are still stirring. Even the different styles of the actors are intriguing: March is all mannerism and false padding around the belly, while Tracy does his patented naturalistic grumbling. It would be nice if this story were a quaint period piece, but its issues and arguments keep reemerging in the headlines with each new generation. —Robert Horton

Both riveting murder mystery and classic fish-out-of-water yarn, Norman Jewison's Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night represents Hollywood at its wiliest, cloaking exposé in the most entertaining trappings. 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. —Glenn Lovell

Lindsay Anderson

Elmo Williams, Fred Zinnemann Written by Carl Foreman (who was later blacklisted during the anticommunist hearings of the '50s) and superbly directed by Fred Zinnemann, this 1952 classic stars Gary Cooper as just-married lawman Will Kane, who is about to retire as a small-town sheriff and begin a new life with his bride (Grace Kelly) when he learns that gunslinger Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) is due to arrive at high noon to settle an old score. Kane seeks assistance from deputies and townsfolk, but soon realizes he'll have to stand alone in his showdown with Miller and his henchmen. Innovative for its time, the suspenseful story unfolds in approximate real time (from 10:40 a.m. to high noon in an 84-minute film), and many interpreted Foreman's drama as an allegorical reflection of apathy and passive acceptance of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist campaign. Political underpinnings aside, this remains a milestone of its genre (often referred to as the first "adult" Western), and Cooper is flawless in his Oscar-winning role. —Jeff Shannon

Warren Low, John Sturges Novelist Leon Uris wrote the script for this Western directed by John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven) and based on the life and times of Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) and his sickly companion, Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas). The action inevitably leads to the legendary battle between the two heroes and the villainous Clanton gang, but the film is also very much about the conflicts each man faces with women, with one another, and with their own destinies. Lancaster is terrific as the downbeat Earp, and Douglas has one of his best roles as the consumptive Holliday. The thoughtfulness of the tale is matched by Sturges's captivating way with the dramatic duel. All in all, the film appeals both as a solid action piece and as a fascinating, two-character study. —Tom Keogh

Charles Rees, Stephen Frears This little British gem is a must-have for all fans of hard-boiled detective films—and their spoofs. Gumshoe actually succeeds at being both—a sendup of classic '40s Raymond Chandler masterpieces, but particularly cheeky in that singular English manner. Albert Finney plays a struggling comedian who, on a lark, decides to place an ad as a private eye ("no divorce work"). Finney affects just about every classic tic of the genre: the side-of-the-mouth delivery, the world-weary outlook ("It was the kind of a place where you needed a black tie just to take a bath"), the quip-for-quip dialogue. But then he’s sucked right into the world he’s been dancing around, complete with murder plots, drug smuggling, blowzy dames, and too-close calls. Finney’s believable as a real private dick, and is also subtly hilarious sending up the genre. The film was directed by a young Stephen Frears, and his deft touch keeps the sometimes out-there plot moving forward confidently. And Andrew Lloyd Webber provides the memorable score, which film music fans will recognize as an homage to the theme of the all-time great film noir masterpiece Sunset Boulevard. Sam Spade would be proud. —A.T. Hurley

Stills from Gumshoe (Click for larger image)

George Stevens They call it Giant because everything in this picture is big, from the generous running time (more than 200 minutes) to the sprawling ranch location (a horizon-to-horizon plain with a lonely, modest mansion dropped in the middle) to the high-powered stars. Stocky Rock Hudson stars as the confident, stubborn young ranch baron Bick Benedict, who woos and wins the hand of Southern belle Elizabeth Taylor, a seemingly demure young beauty who proves to be Hudson's match after she settles into the family homestead. For many the film is chiefly remembered for James Dean's final performance, as poor former ranch hand Jett Rink, who strikes oil and transforms himself into a flamboyant millionaire playboy. Director George Stevens won his second Oscar for this ambitious, grandly realized (if sometimes slow moving) epic of the changing socioeconomic (and physical) landscape of modern Texas, based on Edna Ferber's bestselling novel. The talented supporting cast includes Mercedes McCambridge as Bick's frustrated sister, put out by the new "woman of the house"; Chill Wills as the Benedicts' garrulous rancher neighbor; Carroll Baker and Dennis Hopper as the Benedicts' rebellious children; and Earl Holliman and Sal Mineo as dedicated ranch hands. —Sean Axmaker

Elia Kazan Elia Kazan directed this sometimes powerful study of anti-Semitism in nicer circles, based on Laura Z. Hobson's post-World War II novel. Gregory Peck is a hotshot magazine writer who has been blind to the problem; to ferret it out, he passes himself off as Jewish and watches the WASPs squirm. Seen a half-century later, the attitudes seem quaint and dated: Could it really have been like this? Yet the truth of the story comes through, in the wounded dignity of John Garfield, the upright indignation of Peck, and the hidden ways bigotry and hatred can poison relationships. That's particularly true in the Oscar-winning performance of Celeste Holm, who finds more layers than you'd expect in what seems like a stock character. —Marshall Fine

Robert Zemeckis Forrest Gump [VHS] (1994) Tom Hanks (Actor), Robin Wright (Actor), Robert Zemeckis (Director) | Rated: PG-13 | Format: VHS Tape

Sidney Lumet It's Dr.Strangelove, but without the laughs. Fail Safe, made within a year of Strangelove and at the height of cold war atomic anxiety, posits a similar nightmare scenario. A U.S. bomber is accidentally ordered toward Moscow, ready to drop its load. The U.S. president (Henry Fonda) and various military and congressional leaders must then scramble to deal with the disaster. The built-in suspense is well maintained by director Sidney Lumet, working from a script by former blacklisted writer Walter Bernstein. The solemn, serious approach doesn't begin to touch the brilliance of Strangelove's inspired take on the nuclear nightmare, but Fail Safe is absorbing and well acted (a memorable role for Walter Matthau, for instance). The movie enters unexpected territory in its final minutes; conditioned for feel-good endings, viewers are still genuinely shocked by the plot turns in the final reels. The climax comes as a sobering slap in the face, intriguingly staged by Lumet. Now that the cold war has passed on into history, Fail Safe stands as—thank goodness—an interesting period piece. —Robert Horton

Brothers and sisters, can we get a witness for this woeful tale of saints and sinners? Burt Lancaster earned his only Oscar as the wide-smiling, glad-handing, soul-saving charlatan Elmer Gantry, a salesman who turns his gift for preaching into a career at the pulpit. Climbing on board the barnstorming evangelical tour of revivalist Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons), a true believer in the Aimee Semple McPherson mold, Gantry declaims, invokes, and sermonizes his way to the top until a former flame-turned-prostitute (Shirley Jones in an Oscar-winning performance) threatens to reveal his dark past as a womanizer and con man. Lancaster harnesses all his physical vigor and natural charisma for this role, literally throwing himself into his preaching with the vigor of an acrobat and the sing-song delivery of a gospel singer—he even brays like a hound to show the Holy Spirit within him. Gantry is a showman, pure and simple, and while he doesn't fool true-believer Sister Sharon, he gives her a few object lessons in playing the crowd. Director Richard Brooks, who also took home an Oscar for his screenplay (adapted from the Sinclair Lewis novel), creates a rousing drama both on and off the pulpit, and provides fine roles for an excellent supporting cast, including Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger, John McIntire, and singer Patti Page. —Sean Axmaker

John G. Avildsen, Bud S. Smith John G. Avildsen not only directed Rocky, he tried remaking it over the years in a dozen different ways. One of them was this popular 1984 drama about a new kid (Ralph Macchio) in town targeted by karate-wielding bullies until he gets a new mentor: the handyman (Pat Morita) from his apartment building, who teaches him self-confidence and fighting skills. The screen partnership of Macchio's motor-mouth character and Morita's reserved father figure works well, and the script allows for the younger man to develop sympathy for the painful memories of his teacher. But the film's real engine, as with Rocky, is the fighting, and there's plenty of that. Elisabeth Shue is on board as the girl the klutzy Macchio dreams of winning. —Tom Keogh

LeRoy Stone, Leo McCarey For those who love the Marx Brothers (Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera), that this movie is side-slappingly funny is a given. For those new to the Marx Brothers, this is the perfect introduction to Groucho, Chico, and Harpo (and even Zeppo), three of the funniest men to ever grace the screen. Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) is the dictator of the small nation Freedonia. The country is a disaster, in financial disrepair, and the wealthy Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) is its benefactor and the object of Firefly's shrewd affection. When the leader of the neighboring Sylvania decides he's in love with Mrs. Teasdale, Firefly declares war. The movie, from 1933, is tremendously satirical, a play on politics and war. (As Firefly says to a hapless young solider, "You're a brave man. Go and break through the lines. And remember, while you're out there risking your life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in be in here thinking what a sucker you are.") Full of witty lines, great sight gags, and even some snazzy song numbers ("Freedonia's Going to War" is the hilarious declaration of battle), this is surely one of the best—if not the best—the Marx Brothers have to offer. —Jenny Brown

Stanley Kubrick

John Schlesinger

Spike Lee Spike Lee's semiautobiographical, 1994 film about the good and bad times for a Brooklyn family in the '70s has passion and nostalgic good feeling, but it is also a mess of random reflections and arbitrary storytelling. The centerpiece of the movie is a little girl (Zelda Harris) who views the ups and downs of her parents' experiences (mom and dad are played by Delroy Lindo and Alfre Woodard), and who navigates the life of her neighborhood. Lee tosses in a lot of '70s detail (watching The Partridge Family) and other diversions (Harris's journey through suburbia), but he has no master sensibility controlling the flow of it all. The film is more wearying than anything, although bright spots include Lindo's fine performance as a talented man suffering from irrelevance. —Tom Keogh

Joel Schumacher The exceptionally fine cast—Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones, J.T. Walsh, Mary-Louise Parker, Anthony Edwards, William H. Macy, Anthony LaPaglia, Ossie Davis, and Brad Renfro—goes a long way toward making The Client one of the more solidly enjoyable screen adaptations of a John Grisham southern gothic legal thriller. Teen-hearthrob Renfro is a natural, playing a kid whose life is in jeopardy after he witnesses the death of a Mob lawyer. Susan Sarandon is the attorney who decides to look after the boy; nobody can match her when it comes to playing strong and protective maternal figures (Thelma and Louise, Lorenzo's Oil, Dead Man Walking). Sarandon won her fourth Oscar nomination as best actress for this role, before finally winning the following year for Dead Man Walking. Author Grisham was so impressed with former window dresser/fashion designer/screenwriter-turned-director Joel Schumacher's work on this movie that he later asked him to direct A Time to Kill. —Jim Emerson

Charles Chaplin City Lights is a film to pick for the time capsule, a film that best represents the many aspects of director-writer-star Charlie Chaplin at the peak of his powers: Chaplin the actor, the sentimentalist, the knockabout clown, the ballet dancer, the athlete, the lover, the tragedian, the fool. It's all contained in Chaplin's simple story of a tramp who falls in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill). Chaplin elevates the Victorian contrivances of the plot to something glorious with his inventive use of pantomime and his sure grasp of how the Tramp relates to the audience. In 1931, it was a gamble for Chaplin to stick with silence after talking pictures had killed off the art form that had made him famous, but audiences flocked to City Lights anyway. (Chaplin would not make his first full talking picture until 1940's The Great Dictator.) After all the superb comic sequences, the film culminates with one of the most moving scenes in the history of cinema, a luminous and heartbreaking fade-out that lifts the picture onto another plane. (Woody Allen paid homage to the scene at the end of Manhattan.) This is why the term "Chaplinesque" became a part of the language. —Robert Horton

Roman Polanski 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 black-hole center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten 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. One of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time. —Anne Hurley

Folmar Blangsted, Joshua Logan This is the 2-tape collection of the musical "Camelot"

John C. Howard, Richard C. Meyer, George Roy Hill This 1969 film has never lost its popularity or its unusual appeal as a star-driven Western that tinkers with the genre's conventions and comes up with something both terrifically entertaining and—typical of its period—a tad paranoid. Paul Newman plays the legendary outlaw Butch Cassidy as an eternal optimist and self-styled visionary, conjuring dreams of banks just ripe for the picking all over the world. Robert Redford is his more levelheaded partner, the sharpshooting Sundance Kid. The film, written by William Goldman (The Princess Bride) and directed by George Roy Hill (The Sting), basically begins as a freewheeling story about robbing trains but soon becomes a chase as a relentless posse—always seen at a great distance like some remote authority—forces Butch and Sundance into the hills and, finally, Bolivia. Weakened a little by feel-good inclinations (a scene involving bicycle tricks and the song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" is sort of Hollywood flower power), the movie maintains an interesting tautness, and the chemistry between Redford and Newman is rare. (A factoid: Newman first offered the Sundance part to Jack Lemmon.) —Tom Keogh

Alan Bridges

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 honor, 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, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivors of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling—Lean doesn't pander to attention deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) 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.

Like Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai has been beautifully restored and released in a highly recommended widescreen version that preserves its original aspect ratio. —Sam Sutherland

Stills from The Bridge on the River Kwai (click for larger image)

Beyond The Bridge on the River Kwai
The David Lean Collection
WWII 60th Anniversary Collection
The True Story of the Bridge on the River Kwai (History Channel)

Ridley Scott When Ridley Scott's cut of Blade Runner was finally released in 1993, one had to wonder why the studio hadn't done it right the first time—11 years earlier. This version is so much better, mostly because of what's been eliminated (the ludicrous and redundant voice-over narration and the phony happy ending) rather than what's been added (a bit more character development and a brief unicorn dream). Star Harrison Ford originally recorded the narration under duress at the insistence of Warner Bros. executives who thought the story needed further "explanation"; he later confessed that he thought if he did it badly they wouldn't use it. (Moral: Never overestimate the taste of movie executives.) The movie's spectacular futuristic vision of Los Angeles—a perpetually dark and rainy metropolis that's the nightmare antithesis of "Sunny Southern California"—is still its most seductive feature, an otherworldly atmosphere in which you can immerse yourself. The movie's shadowy visual style, along with its classic private-detective/murder-mystery plot line (with Ford on the trail of a murderous android, or "replicant"), makes Blade Runner one of the few science fiction pictures to legitimately claim a place in the film noir tradition. And, as in the best noir, the sleuth discovers a whole lot more (about himself and the people he encounters) than he anticipates.... With Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer, and M. Emmet Walsh. —Jim Emerson

Roger Cherrill, John Schlesinger

Francis Ford Coppola In the tradition of such obsessively driven directors as Erich von Stroheim and Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola approached the production of Apocalypse Now as if it were his own epic mission into the heart of darkness. On location in the storm-ravaged Philippines, he quite literally went mad as the project threatened to devour him in a vortex of creative despair, but from this insanity came one of the greatest films ever made. It began as a John Milius screenplay, transposing Joseph Conrad's classic story "Heart of Darkness" into the horrors of the Vietnam War, following a battle-weary Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) on a secret upriver mission to find and execute the renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has reverted to a state of murderous and mystical insanity. The journey is fraught with danger involving wartime action on epic and intimate scales. One measure of the film's awesome visceral impact is the number of sequences, images, and lines of dialogue that have literally burned themselves into our cinematic consciousness, from the Wagnerian strike of helicopter gunships on a Vietnamese village to the brutal murder of stowaways on a peasant sampan and the unflinching fearlessness of the surfing warrior Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who speaks lovingly of "the smell of napalm in the morning." Like Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, this film is the product of genius cast into a pit of hell and emerging, phoenix-like, in triumph. Coppola's obsession (effectively detailed in the riveting documentary Hearts of Darkness, directed by Coppola's wife, Eleanor) informs every scene and every frame, and the result is a film for the ages. —Jeff Shannon

Harmon Jones, John Cromwell This "magnificent spectacle" with "matchless pageantry" and "frequent moments of high comedy," (Hollywood Reporter) stars Rex Harrison as the King of Siam and Irene Dunne as Anna, the charming, strong-willed English widow who teaches him how to live in a modern world. Accompanied by her son, Anna Owens arrives in Siam to educate the king's harem and his sixty-seven children. She soon discovers there are many obstacles to overcome and it is only through her ingenuity, wit and dedication that she is able to continue her work. Slowly, she sees the effect of her influence on the court, but it is not until the stubborn king realizes he need's Ana's wisdom and guidance that her difficult mission is a success.

Arthur Schmidt, Barry Sonnenfeld This somewhat more cohesive follow-up to The Addams Family has the same director, Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black), but a better story line. Joan Cusack plays a busty gold digger who ingratiates herself into the Addams home and convinces Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) that she wants to marry him. Besides Lloyd, the cast includes Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia, ideal as those Brontëan lovers, Morticia and Gomez. But Christina Ricci again walks away with the best moments as the chilly Wednesday Addams, making life miserable for two camp counselors (Peter MacNicol and Christine Baranski) who want her to fit in with other kids.—Tom Keogh

Director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) brings his distinctly cartoonish sensibility to this feature film version of the old Charles Addams comic strip. Anjelica Huston was born to play Morticia Addams, matriarch of the ghoulish Addams clan, while the late Raul Julia is a very agreeable, lusty Gomez. But it's Christina Ricci who arguably steals the show as their stone-faced daughter, Wednesday. As is often the problem with adaptations of comics or television shows, somehow an original story has to be implemented that doesn't clutter things up. But clutter is an issue here as the script gets tangled on a lame plot concerning efforts to steal the Addams' house and fortune. Still, it's fun to see an ideal cast reanimate an old favorite. —Tom Keogh

Blake Edwards Meet Inspector Jacques Clouseau - the bumbling French detective whose career is one gigantic bananapeel. Showcasing the comic genius of Peter Sellers, this "delightful caper" (Leonard Maltin) brimswith "winning charm" (The Film Daily) and clever slapstick. David Niven, Robert Wagner and Capucineco-star in the sidesplitting film that launched one of the greatest comedy series of all time! Arriving at an Italian ski resort with a large diamond known as the Pink Panther, Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale) encounters the suave Sir Charles (Niven), who also happens to be the notorious jewel thief The Phantom. Can Clouseau (Sellers), the clumsiest inspector ever to trip over a case, stop SirCharles' plot...or will The Phantom steal the "cat" and leave Clouseau holding the bag?

Thom Noble, Ridley Scott Thelma & Louise is a feminist manifesto writ large on the big screen, a smart and funny gender reversal of the standard Hollywood buddy formula, a road movie extraordinaire, with characters who became instant cultural icons. No matter how you define it, Ridley Scott's 1991 box-office hit pinched a nerve and made the cover of national news magazines for tweaking gender politics like no movie before or since. Callie Khouri's screenplay overhauls the buddy formula with its story about two best friends (Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis) who embark on a liberating adventure that turns into an interstate police chase after a traumatic incident makes both women into fugitives; they are en route to a destiny they could never have imagined. The perfect casting of Sarandon and Davis makes Thelma & Louise a movie for the ages, and Brad Pitt became an overnight star after his appearance as the con-artist cowboy who gives Davis a memorable (but costly) night in a roadside motel. —Jeff Shannon

Mihalis Kakogiannis If you think Zorba the Greek is a simple-minded homage to a man with a zest for life, then you haven't seen the movie. 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. —Bret Fetzer

Michael Hoffman Though this movie did decent box-office business, it was never as funny as it should have been or as clever as it thought it was. The film is set behind the scenes at The Sun Also Sets, a soap opera starring Sally Field that is suffering a ratings slump. To lure the audience back, the producers resurrect a dead character, played by Kevin Kline, with whom Field was once a lover of but is now at odds (and helped exile to dinner theater, where he is first glimpsed playing Willy Loman). Written by Andrew Bergman and Robert Harling, the script has its funny moments but never manages to string them together, despite a cast that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Downey Jr., Cathy Moriarty, and Carrie Fisher. —Marshall Fine

Moore, Minnelli When you get lost between the moon and New York City (ahem), chances are you'll find yourself taking another look at this hit comedy starring Oscar-nominated Dudley Moore as the charmingly witty, perpetually drunken millionaire Arthur Bach. Arthur falls in love with a waitress (Liza Minelli) who doesn't care about his money, but unfortunately Arthur's stern father wants him to marry a Waspy prima donna. The young lush turns to his wise and loyal butler (Oscar-winner John Gielgud) for assistance and advice. Arthur was a huge hit when released in 1981, as was its Oscar-winning theme song by Christopher Cross. Few remember that the movie was, sadly, the only one ever made by writer-director Steve Gordon, who died less than a year after the film's release. Consistently funny and heartwarming, Arthur was hailed as a tribute to the great romantic comedies of the 1930s. —Jeff Shannon

George Miller Jack Nicholson was born to play the devil, and in George Miller's adaptation of John Updike's novel he plays it for all he's worth. As a wolfish womanizer summoned by three bored women in a picturesque New England town, he's sating all of his appetites with a rakish grin. Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer play the women who discover their untapped magical powers by accident. The smart and sexy singles, out of place in the conservatism of their village, find happiness, however briefly, in the arms and bed of the libidinous devil, but he's got his own ulterior motives. Miller revels in the sensual display of sex, food, and magic, whipping up a storm of effects that finally get out of hand in an overblown ending. It's a handsome film with strong performances all around, but the mix of anarchic comedy and supernatural horror doesn't always gel and Miller seems to lose the plot in his zeal for cinematic excitement. The performances ultimately keep the film aloft: the hedonistic joy that Nicholson celebrates with every leering gaze and boorish vulgarity is almost enough to make bad form and chauvinism cool. —Sean Axmaker

John Scott, Fred Schepisi In 1987, almost a hundred years after its first production, the romantic story of Cyrano de Bergerac found new life in a winsome film written by Steve Martin. Roxanne updates the tale with a smart '80s spin, yet writer-star Martin stays close to the old-fashioned heart of the matter. He plays a small-town firefighter named C.D. Bales, whose otherwise unremarkable existence is crowned by an amazingly long nose. He falls for the world's most beautiful astronomer (Daryl Hannah), but he is embarrassed by the size of his proboscis and prefers to stay on the sidelines. Like Cyrano, the shy C.D. instead helps a handsome friend (Rick Rossovich) woo the fair lady by providing flowery sentiments and soulful poetry. Not only does the story still work, but Australian director Fred Schepisi captures a dreamy grace in his visual design for the film (some of which will be lost without the widescreen format). Set in Washington State, but filmed in the hilly ski resort of Nelson, British Columbia, the location seems like a fairy-tale town, nearly as unreal as Steve Martin's nose. —Robert Horton

Kevin Costner Kevin Costner's 1990 epic won a bundle of Oscars for a moving, engrossing story of a white soldier (Costner) who singlehandedly mans a post in the 1870 Dakotas, and becomes a part of the Lakota Sioux community who live nearby. The film may not be a masterpiece, but it is far more than the sum of good intentions. The characters are strong, the development of relationships is both ambitious and careful, the love story between Costner and Mary McDonnell's character is captivating. Only the third-act portrait of white intruders as morons feels overbearing, but even that leads to a terribly moving conclusion. Costner's direction is assured, the balance of action and intimacy is perfect—what more could anyone want outside of an unqualified masterpiece? —Tom Keogh

William M. Anderson, Peter Weir Academy Award(R)-winner Robin Williams delivers a brilliant performance in one of Hollywood's most compelling and thought-provoking motion pictures. Williams portrays passionate English professor John Keating who, in an age of crew cuts, sports coats, and cheerless conformity, inspires his students to live life to the fullest, exclaiming ... "Carpe Diem, lads! Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary!" This charistmatic teacher's emotionally charged challenge is met by his students with irrepressible enthusiasm — changing their lives forever. Magnificently directed by Peter Weir (THE TRUMAN SHOW), DEAD POETS SOCIETY earned unparalleled praise among audiences and critics alike. Discover for yourself what all the cheering's about!

Kevin Reynolds Academy AwardO winner* Kevin Costner triumphs as the legendary Sherwood Forest outlaw leader in this epic adventure bringing a 12th-century medieval world to spectacular screen life. Enhancing the sheer fun of this audience rouser are 10 added minutes of footage not seen in theatres, especially more of the juicy malevolence and sinister background of Robin Hood's archenemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman). Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio also star in this lavish production lensed in Britain and France, where historic structures, majestic forests and vividly realistic recreations of Olde England combined to create a world at once ancient and ageless.

Mike Nichols As its title might suggest, this movie based on Carrie Fisher's Hollywood struggle works better as a snapshot than as a complete film. Meryl Streep plays Suzanne Vale, a successful actress who is lost in her addictions. Her episodes are never as bombastic as Clean and Sober or other antidrug movies of the 1990s, however. Vale's a more lovable person, and as with all lovable people in Hollywood, other Hollywood people care for her: an understanding director (Gene Hackman), a philandering boyfriend (Dennis Quaid), and a bemused doctor (Richard Dreyfuss). But if you are going to talk about Fisher, you are going to mention her mom, Debbie Reynolds. And here Vale's mom is the die-hard Doris Mann, played with appropriate virtuosity by Shirley MacLaine. The love-hate mother-daughter relationship takes over the film in an entertaining way, with Fisher's sharp comic writing coming into play. You nearly forgive Vale's troubles for having to live under a hurricane like Mann (who goes into her nightclub act at the drop of a hat). The film's sweetest pleasure is seeing Streep loose and modern, nary a drab outfit or an accent in sight. Streep and director Mike Nichols make a risky—and rewarding—finale (fueled by the Oscar-nominated "I'm Checking Out" by Shel Silverstein) work effortlessly. —Doug Thomas

Barry Malkin, Andrew Bergman Young Clark Kellog (Matthew Broderick) had no idea film school would drop him into the hands of a real-life Godfather, but after a street punk robs him his first day in New York City, that's just where the road leads. Marlon Brando let everyone know he was in on the joke with his hammy, good-humored performance as the bulldog-jowled Mafioso Carmine Sabatini, the man Clark's prissy, self-important professor swears was the real life inspiration of Don Corleone. Carmine has a modest proposal for the naive kid from Vermont involving Carmine's gorgeous daughter Tina (Penelope Ann Miller) and the illegal importing of an endangered lizard. Andrew Bergman's tongue-in-cheek comedy keeps the spoofing in a low key, underplaying the outrageous situations even as he piles them higher: if the sight of a six-foot-long lizard scattering shoppers as it runs wild through a New York City mall doesn't do it for you, there's always Bert Parks's rousing rendition of Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm." —Sean Axmaker

David Lean This adaptation of E.M. Forster's mysterious tale of British racism in colonial India turned out to be master director David Lean's final film. Subtle and grand at the same time, Lean's adaptation is faithful to the book, rendering its blend of the mystical and the all-too human with exquisite precision. Judy Davis plays a young British woman traveling in India with her fiancé's mother. While visiting a tourist attraction, she has a frightening moment in a cave—one that she eventually spins from an instant of mental meltdown into a tale of a physical attack that ruins several lives. Lean captures Forster's sense of awe at the kind of ageless wisdom and inexplicable phenomena to be encountered in India, as well as the British tendency to dismiss it all as savage, rather than simply different. —Marshall Fine

Stu Linder, Barry Levinson Writer-director Barry Levinson is at his best when exploring his native Baltimore during his formative years: the 1950s and 1960s. This film, drawing upon family stories, tells a compelling, amusing tale about an extended group that came to America one by one, each earning enough to bring the next sibling. The new, American-born generation—represented by Aidan Quinn and Kevin Pollak—see a future in that mysterious machine known as the television, even as the older generation, led by Armin Mueller-Stahl, finds its traditions shattering or being put aside. Funny, tragic, and telling, it's a terrific, multifaceted film that ultimately details the breakdown of the oral tradition in the wake of television's burgeoning popularity. —Marshall Fine

Gerry Hambling, Alan Parker Under the slick, professional direction of Alan Parker, Mississippi Burning is the kind of film that will either draw you into its emotionally volatile sphere of influence or outrage you with its repugnant, manipulative revision of American civil rights history. The fact-based story brings two highly different FBI agents (Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe) to Mississippi to investigate the murders of three young black men who had been promoting black voter registration. The key to solving the murders is the testimony of a local deputy's wife (Frances McDormand) who is struggling to break free of her husband's racist influence. As critic Pauline Kael argued, "...the movie hinges on the ploy that the FBI men can't stop the Ku Klux Klan from its terrorism against blacks until they swing over to vigilante tactics. And we're put in the position of applauding the FBI's dirtiest forms of intimidation. This cheap gimmick undercuts the whole civil rights subject; it validates the terrorist methods of the Klan." Or you can take the view of Roger Ebert, who named Mississippi Burning "the best film of 1988"; it would earn seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Actor (Hackman), Supporting Actress (McDormand), and Director. Which reaction is most appropriate? Both are, depending on your particular point of view. At the very least the performances are dynamic, but there's more to this provocative film than fine acting. We suggest you check it out and form your own opinion. —Jeff Shannon

The original 1947 version of this Valentine Davies story follows the misadventures of Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) as he gets a job playing Santa Claus at Macy's department store in New York City. Natalie Wood is the little girl who tells him she doesn't believe in Santa, and Maureen O'Hara and John Payne are the couple who help Kris through a trial in which he must prove he's the jolly fellow from the North Pole. A sweet movie and perennial Christmas favorite, this is one of those movies that gets under your skin and must be revisited every so often. —Tom Keogh

Daniel P. Hanley, Ron Howard This epic Lucasfilm fantasy serves up enough magical adventure to satisfy fans of the genre, though it treads familiar territory. With abundant parallels to Star Wars, the story (by George Lucas) follows the exploits of the little farmer Willow (Warwick Davis), an aspiring sorcerer appointed to deliver an infant princess from the evil queen (Jean Marsh) to whom the child is a crucial threat. Val Kilmer plays the warrior who joins Willow's campaign with the evil queen's daughter (Joanne Whalley, who later married Kilmer). Impressive production values, stunning locations (in England, Wales, and New Zealand) and dazzling special effects energize the routine fantasy plot, which alternates between rousing action and cute sentiment while failing to engage the viewer's emotions. A parental warning is appropriate: director Ron Howard has a light touch aimed at younger viewers, but doesn't shy away from grisly swordplay and at least one monster (a wicked two-headed dragon) that could induce nightmares. —Jeff Shannon

John Carpenter Once you settle into the realization that this 1986 John Carpenter (Halloween) film is not going to be one of the director's more masterful works, Big Trouble in Little China just becomes a full-tilt comic blast. Kurt Russell is hilarious as a drawling, would-be John Wayne hero who steps into the middle of a supernatural war in the heart of Chinatown. While kung fu warriors and otherworldly spirits battle over the fate of two women (Kim Cattrall and Suzee Pai), Russell's swaggering idiot manages to knock himself out or underestimate the forces he's dealing with. The whole thing is dopey, but it's supposed to be dopey and Russell's game performance brings an ironic edge. Carpenter directs some nifty spook effects (the sudden arrival of three martial arts demigods from out of nowhere is worth applause), and he also wrote the music. —Tom Keogh

Rob Reiner

Peter Weir When Samuel (Lukas Haas), a young Amish boy traveling with his mother Rachel (Kelly McGillis), witnesses the murder of a police officer in a public restroom, he and his mother become the temporary wards of John Book (Harrison Ford), a detective who's been assigned to solve the crime. After suspect lineups and mug-shot books yield nothing, Samuel, in the most memorable scene of the film, recognizes the murderer as a narcotics agent whose picture he sees in the precinct. Once Book realizes that the police chief is in on it, too, he whisks Samuel and Rachel back home to Amish country, where he himself goes into hiding as a plain Amish man. The juxtaposition between the life of the Amish and the violence of inner-city police corruption work surprisingly well for the story, and Kelly McGillis as the falling in love widow gives an almost perfect performance. Directed by Peter Weir, the film is extremely successful in drawing the viewer into its world and, accordingly, is immensely entertaining. The only thing that mars its polish is the one-dimensional, almost cartoonish handling of the upper-echelon police corruption—a subtler, more realistic treatment of this aspect of the story would have rendered the film near perfect. —James McGrath

Peter Masterson

Stanley Kramer

James L. Brooks

Steven Spielberg Steven Spielberg, proving he's one of the few modern filmmakers who has the visual fluency to be capable of making a great silent film, took a melodramatic, D.W. Griffith-inspired approach to filming Alice Walker's novel. His tactics made the film controversial, but also a popular hit. You can argue with the appropriateness of Spielberg's decision, but his astonishing facility with images is undeniable—from the exhilarating and eye-popping opening shots of children playing in paradisiacal purple fields to the way he conveys the brutality of a rape by showing hanging leather belts banging against the head of the shaking bed. In a way it's a shame that Whoopi Goldberg, a stage monologist who made her screen debut in this movie, went on to become so famous, because it was, in part, her unfamiliarity that made her understated performance as Celie so effective. (This may be the first and last time that the adjective understated can be applied to Goldberg.) Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including best picture and actress (supporting players Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Avery were also nominated), it was quite a scandal—and a crushing blow to Spielberg—when it won none. —Jim Emerson

Sydney Pollack

John Glen Timothy Dalton made his 007 debut in the lean, mean mode of Sean Connery, doing away with the pun-filled camp of Roger Moore's final outings. This James Bond is ruthless, tough, and romantic. The Living Daylights, set during the thaw of the cold war, begins with the defection of Russian KGB General Koskov (Jeroen Krabb) and his revelation of a Soviet plot to eliminate Britain's secret agent force. Assigned to eliminate Koskov's Soviet boss (John Rhys-Davies), Bond uncovers a conspiracy involving Koskov and an American arms dealer (Joe Don Baker). Veteran series director John Glen's action scenes have never been better—especially the show-stopping mid-air battle on the net of a speeding cargo plane—and he returns the series to the smart, rough, high-energy adventures that made the Bond reputation. —Sean Axmaker

Fredric Steinkamp, William Steinkamp, Chris Columbus Way before she grabbed an Oscar nomination for her searing performance as a world-weary prostitute in Leaving Las Vegas, Elisabeth Shue was known as one of the squeaky-clean actresses of the '80s. Having made a splash in The Karate Kid and the '60s-nostalgia TV series Call to Glory, Shue cemented her good-girl reputation with the charming but badly titled Adventures in Babysitting. Set in the John Hughes-style suburbs of Chicago, the titular adventures follow babysitter Chris (Shue), who agrees to watch the Anderson kids (Keith Coogan and Maia Brewton) when her boyfriend cancels their anniversary date. All is quiet on the home front until Chris is called upon to rescue her best friend (Penelope Ann Miller, also doing good-girl duty) from the seedy downtown bus station. She can't leave the kids, and she can't leave her friend alone in the big bad city, so she packs everyone in the station wagon and heads into Chicago. Screwball craziness begins as they encounter car thieves, knife-wielding gangs, gun-toting truck drivers, and, worst of all, Chris's duplicitous boyfriend. It's hardly mature entertainment, but Shue makes it work; when she wins over the audience at a blues club with her improv singing, you'll be won over, too. In his directorial debut, Chris Columbus (who later went on to helm the sap-fests Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) gently skewers the suburbia white-bread mindset of the main characters, and plays up the comedy over the schmaltz with a subtlety of which he now seems incapable; the near romance between Shue and Coogan is played lightly and adorably. Look for brief appearances by art-house faves Lolita Davidovich as a college party girl and Vincent D'Onofrio as an unlikely savior. —Mark Englehart

John Glen Timothy Dalton's second and last shot at playing James Bond isn't nearly as much fun as his debut, two years earlier, in the 1987 film The Living Daylights. This time Bond gets mad after a close friend (David Hedison) from the intelligence sector is assassinated on his wedding day, and 007 goes undercover to link the murder to an international drug cartel. Robert Davi makes an interesting adversary, but as with most of the Bond films in the '70s, '80s, and '90s—and especially since the end of the cold war—one has to wonder why we should still care about these lesser villains and their unimaginative crimes. Still, Dalton did manage in his short time with the character to make 007 his own, which neither Roger Moore did nor Pierce Brosnan did. —Tom Keogh

Can a Kansas kid come to New York to conquer the business world and maneuver his way from the mail room to the boardroom in a matter of weeks? Michael J. Fox proves it can be done in a lampoon sort of way. Very funny. just a little raunchy. Digitally mastered Dolby Surround Sound Hi Fi Sterio. Closed Captioned for the hearing impared.

John D. Dunning, William A. Wellman Director William Wellman (The Big Heat) offered up this 1949 treatment of the Battle of the Bulge, which won Oscars for best screenplay and best cinematography. The film concentrates on the camaraderie and the divisions between the troops as they ready for the big offensive. Told in a taut narrative, the men of the 101st, led by Van Johnson, wait out the winter in the Ardennes forest to confront the German army in what would be the last major offensive of World War II. The men are demoralized and trapped, with no hope of support from the Allies as they are forced to band together and defend their position. A classically assembled war drama that nevertheless manages to be both engrossing and entertaining, Battleground is a mainstay of the genre. —Robert Lane

Phil Alden Robinson A phenomenal hit when it was released in 1989, Field of Dreams has become a modern classic and a uniquely American slice of cinema. It functions effectively as a moving drama about the power of dreams, a fantasy ode to our national pastime, and a brilliant adaptation of W.P. Kinsella's exquisite baseball novel Shoeless Joe. Kinsella himself found the film a delightful surprise, differing greatly from his novel but benefiting from its own creative variations. It is the film that cemented Kevin Costner's status as an all-American screen star, but the story resonates far beyond Costner's handsome appeal. As just about everyone knows by now, Costner stars as Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella, who hears the mysterious words "If you build it, he will come," and is compelled to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield. His wife (Amy Madigan) supports the wild idea, but a reclusive novelist (modeled after J.D. Salinger and played by James Earl Jones) is not so easily persuaded. The idealistic farmer is either a visionary or a deluded fool, but his persistence is rewarded when spirits from baseball's past begin appearing on the ball field. Past and present intermingle in the person of "Moonlight Graham" (superbly played by Burt Lancaster), an unknown player who sacrificed his dreams of baseball glory for a dignified life as a small-town physician ... but what all of this means is unclear until the film's memorably heartfelt conclusion. A meditation on family, memory, and faith, the film balances humor and magic to strike just the right chord of thoughtful emotion, affecting audiences so deeply that the baseball field created for the production has now become a mecca of sorts for dreamers around the world. —Jeff Shannon

Christian Nyby, Arthur Rosson, Howard Hawks Talk about epic grandeur! This magnificently photographed account of the first cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail has everything you could ever want in a western: gunfights, stampedes, Indian attacks, hangings, betrayal, revenge, romance, glorious scenery, and a towering performance by John Wayne that prefigured his definitive portrayal of the bitter Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers eight years later. Tom Dunson (Wayne) adopts a young boy, Matt (brilliantly played as an adult by Montgomery Clift), whose family has been massacred by Indians. Years later, after Dunson has become a successful rancher, mentor and protege have an acrimonious falling out during a grueling cattle drive and go their separate ways, with Dunson vowing to kill Matt. Red River is a true classic and unquestionably one of the greatest Westerns of all time. —Jim Emerson

James Stewart, Donna Reed, Frank Capra Colorized Version

Ferris Webster, John Sturges In 1943, the Germans opened Stalag Luft North, a maximum-security prisoner-of-war camp, designed tohold even the craftiest escape artists. In doing so, however, the Nazis unwittingly assembled the finest escape team in military historybrilliantly portrayed here by Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson and James Coburnwho worked on what became the largest prison breakout ever attempted. One of the most ingenious and suspenseful adventure films of all time, The Great Escape is a masterful collaboration between director John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven), screenwriters James Clavell (Shogun) and W.R. Burnett (Little Caesar), and composer Elmer Bernstein. Based on a true story, The Great Escape is epic entertainment that "entertains,captivates, thrills and stirs" (Variety).

John McTiernan

Robert Parrish, Walter Thompson, John Ford Even though he was the subject of some 158 films, this movie perhaps defines Lincoln on screen—despite the fact that Young Mr. Lincoln was released in what was perhaps film's finest year, 1939. It certainly endured stiff competition: Destry Rides Again, Gone with the Wind, Gunga Din, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Of Mice and Men, and Wizard of Oz. Young Mr. Lincoln explores Lincoln's budding interest in politics (he accepts a law book as payment at his grocery store), a bittersweet relationship with a girl to whom he shares his dreams, his first law office, and as he meets Mary Todd. The film's highlight is the court trial. Even in his earliest performances, Fonda easily switched between comedic and dramatic. It's remarkable this was actually one of his earlier films—what an onus of responsibility to play the country's most revered president! Fonda succeeds, and performs valiantly and credibly. His portrayal is kindly, respectful, admirable, and brilliant. No president could ask for more. —N.F. Mendoza

Arthur Hiller

Steven Spielberg 第2次世界大戦前夜の1936年ドイツのヒトラー総統は、エジプトの砂漠の中に眠る黄金の聖櫃（アーク）を我が物とすべく暗躍していた。それを手に入れた者には不思議な力が宿るという。世界じゅうをかけめぐるアメリカの考古学者インディアナ・ジョーンズ（ハリソン・フォード）は、彼らの野望を阻止すべく危機また危機の大冒険を開始する。
   ジョージ・ルーカスが製作総指揮、スティーヴン・スピルバーグが監督という超魅力的布陣で送る冒険ファンタジー活劇シリーズの第1作。文字どおり手に汗握るスリリングな要素が矢継ぎ早に飛び出して、息つく間もないほどのおもしろさ。いわゆるジェットコースター・ムービーのはしりともいえる作品だろう。『スター・ウォーズ』で人気の出たH・フォードは、本作で大スターの地位を不動のものとした。（的田也寸志）

Rob Reiner

Billy Wilder Maybe "nobody's perfect," as one character in this masterpiece suggests. But some movies are perfect, and Some Like It Hot is one of them. In Chicago, during the Prohibition era, two skirt-chasing musicians, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon), inadvertently witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. In order to escape the wrath of gangland chief Spats Colombo (George Raft), the boys, in drag, join an all-woman band headed for Florida. They vie for the attention of the lead singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), a much-disappointed songbird who warbles "I'm Through with Love" but remains vulnerable to yet another unreliable saxophone player. (When Curtis courts her without his dress, he adopts the voice of Cary Grant—a spot-on impersonation.) The script by director Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is beautifully measured; everything works, like a flawless clock. Aspiring screenwriters would be well advised to throw away the how-to books and simply study this film. The bulk of the slapstick is handled by an unhinged Lemmon and the razor-sharp Joe E. Brown, who plays a horny retiree smitten by Jerry's feminine charms. For all the gags, the film is also wonderfully romantic, as Wilder indulges in just the right amounts of moonlight and the lilting melody of "Park Avenue Fantasy." Some Like It Hot is so delightfully fizzy, it's hard to believe the shooting of the film was a headache, with an unhappy Monroe on her worst behavior. The results, however, are sublime. —Robert Horton

Sean Connery From the opening bomb blast outside a steamy nightclub to a last-minute escape from the president's personal jet, James Bond's third screen adventure is an exhilarating, pulse-pounding thrill-ride! Sean Connery takes command as Agent 007 and faces off wit

Leonard Nimoy

Oliver Stone

James L. Brooks

Mike Nichols

ロバート・ワイズ ニューヨークの下町ウエスト・サイドでは、2つの不良グループ、ジェット団とシャーク団が対立していた。元ジェット団リーダーのトニーは、マリアという女性に恋をする。だがマリアは、シャーク団リーダーの妹だった。
   冒頭、70ミリカメラがニューヨークの上空から、裏町ウエスト・サイドへ降りたつ。その高度な緊迫感と迫力、高揚する生気と感動が、全世界の若者の心をとらえた。61年のアカデミー作品賞ほか、全11部門を受賞。レナード・バーンスタインによる音楽、ジェローム・ロビンズによる踊り、名匠ロバート・ワイズによる映像の、すべてが巧みに一体化している。
   名曲『トゥナイト』と『アメリカ』、そして体育館での圧倒的なダンス。これぞ、映画史上空前のミュージカルといえるだろう。（アルジオン北村）

Tony Scott

Tay Garnett

William Dieterle, William Keighley

Brian De Palma

King Vidor, Mervyn LeRoy, Richard Thorpe, Victor Fleming

Wolfgang Petersen Wolfgang Petersen (In the Line of Fire) made his first English-language film with this 1984 fantasy about a boy (Barret Oliver) visualising the stories of a book he's reading. The imagined tale involves another boy, a warrior (Noah Hathaway), and his efforts to save the empire of Fantasia from a nemesis called the Nothing. Whether or not the scenario sticks in the memory, what does linger are the unique effects, which are not quite like anything else. Plenty of good fairy-tale characters and memorable scenes, and the film even encourages kids to read. —Tom Keogh

Stanley Kramer

Joshua Logan

Alfred Hitchcock

Lewis Teague

Bernardo Bertolucci

Walter Lang, William A. Seiter

John Huston

Alfred Hitchcock

Sylvester Stallone

Ronald Neame

William Dieterle

Ken Kwapis

Martin Scorsese

Fred Zinnemann

Carol Reed

John Ford

Sheen, Dafoe, Berenger, Quinn, Whi

Robert Benton

Ivan Reitman

Bartholomew, Barrymore

Mervyn LeRoy

John Ford

Sam Wood, Sidney Franklin

Joe Dante

Frank Capra

Richard Thorpe

Gable, Leigh, Howard

David Lean

Norman Jewison

John Wayne

Gary David Goldberg

Kevin Sullivan

William Wyler

Ridley Scott

Michael Curtiz

Mike Nichols

Wilfred Jackson, Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske

Michael Anderson

David Hand

Ulu Grosbard

James Cameron

Steven Spielberg

Randa Haines

Richard Attenborough

Sydney Pollack

Richard Marquand 帝国軍が第3デス・スターの建設を進めていることを知った同盟軍は、そのバリア・シールドを張る惑星エンドアと、デス・スター破壊の二手に分かれ、総攻撃を開始する。そしてルークは、ついに銀河帝国皇帝との対決を迎えた…。
   エピソード6にして『SW』サーガの完結作で、監督はリチャード・マーカンド。ルークとダース・ベイダーの関係など、すべての問題にピリオドが打たれ、壮大なドラマはついに大団円を迎える。かくして本作からおよそ15年の歳月を経て、『SW』サーガは前半部分へとさかのぼっての3部作製作を新たにスタートさせることになるが、その前にJ・ルーカスは、惑星エンドアに住むイウォーク族のキャラクターが大いに気に入ったようで、彼らを主人公としたTVムービーを製作している。（的田也寸志）

Irvin Kershner 帝国軍の攻撃から逃れたルークは、ジェダイ・マスターのヨーダ（フランク・オズ）の下で修行することに。一方、ハン・ソロとレイアは旧友のカルリジアン（ビリー・ディ・ウィリアムス）を訪ねるが、そこにも既に帝国の魔手が…。
   シリーズ1のおもしろさを誇るエピソード5。J・ルーカスは製作に専念し、名職人アーヴィン・カーシュナーが手練手管のストーリーテラーぶりを発揮。愛らしいヨーダの登場や、ソロとレイアの恋模様、そしてルークと宿敵ダース・ベイダーとの秘められた真実など、多彩な見どころを過不足なく描ききっている。『リオ・ブラボー』など、往年のハリウッド活劇映画の名脚本家リー・ブラケットによる遺作シナリオ（共同）の功績も大きい。（的田也寸志）

小津安二郎 富豪・戸田家の当主が死去し、残されたものは借金の山。やむなく未亡人（葛城文子）は屋敷を売り払い、末娘（高峰美枝子）とともに子どもたちの世話になろうとするが、なかなかしっくりいかない。そんな折り、次男（佐分利信）が満州から帰還してきて…。
   日中戦争たけなわで太平洋戦争勃発直前という緊迫した時期、小津安二郎監督がほぼ5年ぶりに手掛けた作品。松竹オールスター・キャストを迎えているが、後の『東京物語』などにも通じる故郷の喪失と家族の崩壊という小津映画ならではのモチーフが、ここで確と描かれている。またドラマとしては次男が母と妹を満州に連れていくというハッピーエンドなのだが、その後の日中の歴史と照らし合わせると、非常に哀しいものがあるのであった。（的田也寸志）

木下恵介

小津安二郎

小津安二郎 戦後、焼け野原となった東京下町に建てられたバラック長屋に住む住人たちは、長屋に迷い込んできた子どもをやっかいもの扱いするが、やがてわが子のような情を感じ始めていく…。
   1946年にシンガポールから帰還した小津安二郎監督が、帰国早々に撮り上げた長屋コメディ。戦前から小津が好んで描いて来た、喜八という下町庶民を主人公にした“喜八もの”の流れに属する作品だが、ここで主軸となるのは喜八（坂本武）の妻“かあやん”ことおたね（飯田蝶子）である。敗戦で荒廃した日本の中、貧しく苦しくとも決して人情を忘れず暮らす人々の姿は、当時の小津が夢見るユートピアだったのかもしれない。笠智衆扮する易者が、はやしたてながら覗きからくりの説明を語り唄うシーンは絶品のおかしさ。（的田也寸志）

小津安二郎 妻を失い、男手ひとつで息子を育てている信州の中学教師（笠智衆）。しかし修学旅行で生徒が事故死してしまったことから教職を辞し、息子を寄宿舎へ預けて上京。やがて息子（佐野周二）は仙台で教師となり、父と温泉で落ち合うようになるが…。
   小津安二郎監督が父と子の愛情を淡々とつづった名編。笠智衆は本作が小津映画初主演であった。戦時中の製作にもかかわらず、戦意昂揚的色合いはうかがえず、ひたすらに一般庶民の人生の機微と生活にこそ向け続ける頑ななカメラ・アイが見事である。なお本作完成後の1943年、小津は軍報道部員としてシンガポールへ出征。そこで彼は米軍から没収した『風と共に去りぬ』『市民ケーン』などあまたのアメリカ映画を観まくり、そのゴージャスな面白さに驚嘆すると共に、日本はアメリカに負けると直感したという。（的田也寸志）

黒澤明 1944（昭和19）年、太平洋戦争も末期に近づいてきたころ、女子挺身隊として軍需工場に配属されたうら若き女性たちの青春、その日常をセミ・ドキュメンタリー・タッチでとらえた黒澤明監督の第2作。
   そもそも戦意昂揚映画の一環として企画されたものだが、表面的にはお国のために滅私奉公する乙女たちの姿を描きつつも、その実は個々が団結してチームとなり、みんながひとつの目標に向かって突き進んでいくことの美しさや尊さこそを、黒澤監督は実に愛らしく描いているのだ。監督自身「自作で一番可愛らしい作品」と語っているが、それもそのはず、本作のヒロインであり、乙女たちのリーダーとして気丈に、そして健気にふるまう渡辺つる役の矢口陽子は、後の黒澤夫人であり、夫を終生支え続けた賢妻として皆から親しまれた人物でもあった。（的田也寸志）

北野武 北野 武監督98年公開の7作目。不治の病に侵された妻を気にかけながらも職務に追われる刑事が、同情した仲間の好意で張り込み捜査の合間を縫って見舞いにいく。だが、そのわずかな時間に発砲事件が発生、1人が殉職し、快く送り出してくれた部下も半身不随の身になってしまう。犯人を殺して警察を辞めた彼は、治療費や遺族へ渡す金を工面するためヤクザにまで借金を重ね、やがて首が回らない状況へと陥っていく…。
   あたかも夢の情景のような暗く青みがかった映像のなか、挿入される監督自作のシュールな絵の色彩が鮮烈である。同様に乾いた暴力シーンに対して、例えば置き忘れられた三輪車を主人公がそっと横にどける、といったささやかな行為の描写も目に焼きつく。北野作品には多い不器用な男の自己表現を、透徹した視線で描いた静かな傑作である。（武内 誠）

アネット・チゾン, タラス・テーラー

アネット・チゾン, タラス・テーラー

高畑勲 宅地開発で自然がどんどん失われていく東京の多摩丘陵を舞台に、そこに棲むタヌキたちが人間に反旗をひるがえすべく、人間に化けたりする訓練を始めていく。人間がいないところでは彼らは2本足で歩けば言葉もしゃべる。やがては、他所からも助っ人タヌキが現れて妖怪に化けるなど、設定がとにかくユニーク。日本古来の民族伝承なども巧みに取り入れており、おもしろさの中に文化人類学的興味も見出せよう。

   ただし、社会派・高畑勲監督らしく、演出の視点はどこかシニカルで、かつての学生運動などを彷彿させるおもむきもある。意外にも、タヌキが人間に殺される箇所など、結構残酷な描写もあり。声の出演は古今亭志ん朝や柳家小さん、石田ゆり子、泉谷しげるなど実に多彩。（的田也寸志）

宮崎駿 1920年代のイタリア、アドリア海には空賊相手の賞金稼ぎをしている豚がいた。「飛ばねぇ豚はただの豚だ」とのたまう彼の名はポルコ・ロッソ。紅の翼の飛行艇を乗りこなすこの豚の活躍を小気味よく描いた航空活劇である。

 『となりのトトロ』などを手がけた宮崎駿監督作品だが、一連の宮崎作品に比べるとカジュアルで軽快な出来に仕上がっているのが特徴。中年男（いや、豚）が主人公というのもめずらしい。歌手の加藤登紀子が主題歌のみならず声優として参加したことでも話題になった。

   荒々しくもいとおしい飛行艇乗りたちの姿や、クライマックスの空上の対決シーンなど世代を越えて楽しめることは間違いないが、豚なのに、いや豚だからこそ自由に生きるポルコを見れば、「飛ぶこと」を忘れてしまった大人ほど感じるところは多いかもしれない。（安川正吾）

角野栄子, 宮崎駿 1989年の宮崎駿監督による劇場用長編アニメーション作品。13歳になり、魔女の修業のために黒猫ジジと共に街を出る少女キキ。新たに住まいとして選んだ街で配達屋として暮らす中で、居候先のパン屋のオソノさん、空を飛ぶことに憧れる少年トンボ等々、さまざまな人との出会いをとおし、落ち込んだりしながらも魔女として、人として成長していく姿を描く。

   修業に旅立つところから物語が始まるのだが、そのやや長めの場面で早速こちらを映画に引き込ませる。そしてほうきで飛び立ちスイッチを入れたラジオから荒井由実の「ルージュの伝言」が流れ、やっとタイトルが現れる。そのタイミングの見事さ。物語も演出も細部に至るまで実に丁寧に作られており、何度も繰り返し観たい作品になっている。（田中 元）

宮崎駿 空から少女が落ちてくる―！ 少年パズーがその少女を助けたことで物語は幕を開ける。少女の名はシータ。空の海賊一味となぞの黒眼鏡の男達に追われていた。シータが持っていた「飛行石」の神秘的な輝きに導かれ、2人はやがて、天に浮かぶ伝説の城「ラピュタ」に足を踏み入れることになる…。

 『未来少年コナン』や『ルパン3世カリオストロの城』など、「マンガ映画」と形容するにふさわしい、いきいきとした作品を手がけてきた宮崎駿が、またしてもその天性を発揮したのがこの作品。彼の作品にしばしば登場する「空を飛ぶ」というモチーフを物語の中心に据え、昔ながらの胸躍る冒険活劇に仕立てあげた。まっすぐで行動力あふれる少年、可憐（かれん）でしんの強い少女、一見怖そうだが愛すべき悪党たち、など宮崎アニメでおなじみの要素がほかにも盛りだくさんの娯楽作品だ。（安川正吾）