|
The List
A
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
| Adventures of Robin Hood, The |
1938 |
1995 |
Adventure
History |
Michael Curtiz |
Errol
Flynn
Olivia de
Havilland
Claude Rains
Basil Rathbone |
|
| In this, the definitive
swashbuckler, Robin Hood steals from the rich to feed the poor,
upholds the true king’s claim to the throne, and woos his lady
love, Maid Marian. |
| Affair to Remember, An |
1957 |
|
Romance
"Tearjerker" |
Leo McCarey |
Cary
Grant
Deborah Kerr |
|
| This is the classic
weeper in which a man and a woman meet on a transatlantic ocean
liner and fall in love and are separated; their planned reunion atop
the Empire State Building never takes place due to a tragic
accident, and they are ultimately reunited by a series of unlikely
coincidences. |
| African Queen, The |
1951 |
1994 |
Drama |
John Huston |
Humphrey
Bogart
Katherine Hepburn
Robert Morley |
Best Actor (Bogart) |
| As World War I begins,
Rose Sayer, a missionary stationed in Africa, and Charlie Allnut, a
coarse, hard-drinking steamboat captain, take his boat downriver,
battling the elements, the German navy, and each other.
"Nature, Mr.
Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above."
|
| Alien |
1979 |
|
Science Fiction
Action
Horror |
Ridley Scott |
Sigourney
Weaver
Tom Skerritt
John Hurt
Ian Holm
Harry Dean Stanton |
|
| The Nostromo, a commercial space
vehicle, responds to an SOS signal and falls victim to a hive colony of
unknown creatures. When one of its eggs is disturbed, the crew slowly
begins to realize the danger they’re in.
"In space, no one can hear you
scream."
|
| All About Eve |
1950 |
|
Drama |
Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
Bette
Davis
George Sanders
Anne Baxter
Celeste Holm
Gary Merrill |
6 including
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor (Sanders) |
| Aspiring actress Eve Harrington maneuvers
her way into the lives of Broadway star Margo Channing and her friends.
Marilyn Monroe has a bit part in this sophisticated yet cynical story of
ambition, betrayal, and life in the theater.
"Fasten your seatbelts. It’s
going to be a bumpy night."
|
| All Quiet on the Western Front |
1930 |
1990 |
War
Drama |
Lewis Milestone |
Lew
Ayres
Louis Wolheim |
Best
Picture
Best
Director |
| This vivid and moving adaptation of the
classic novel follows a squad of German soldiers in World War I from the
day they enthusiastically volunteer for service until the death of the
squad’s last member on an otherwise quiet, lovely day. |
| All
the President's Men |
1976 |
|
Drama
History |
Alan J. Pakula |
Dustin
Hoffman
Robert Redford
Jason Robards |
4 including
Best
Supporting Actor (Robards) |
| Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
uncover the dirty tricks and cover-up of the Nixon White House’s
involvement in the Watergate scandal. Based on the book written by
Woodward and Bernstein, the movie suspensefully details their real-life
investigation.
"Follow the money."
|
| American Graffiti |
1973 |
1995 |
Coming of
Age |
George Lucas |
Richard Dreyfuss
Ron Howard
Paul
Le Mat
Charles Martin Smith
Cindy Williams
Mackenzie Phillips
Harrison
Ford |
|
| An entertaining and insightful mosaic in
which two boys who are scheduled to leave their small California city for
college in the East the next morning spend the night probing their doubts
as they "cruise the strip" and have a variety of adventures. |
| American in Paris, An |
1951 |
1993 |
Musical
Romance
Dance |
Vincente Minnelli |
Gene
Kelly
Leslie Caron
Oscar
Levant |
8 including Best Picture |
| A struggling American painter living in
Paris must choose between an heiress interested in more than his art and a
young French girl. Gene Kelly's trademark choreography highlights this
original musical built around a Gershwin score. |
| Annie Hall |
1977 |
|
Comedy
Romance |
Woody Allen |
Woody
Allen
Diane Keaton
Tony Roberts
Carol Kane |
4 including
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actress (Keaton) |
| The autobiographical romantic adventures
of neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer and his equally neurotic
girlfriend Annie Hall, tracing the course of their relationship from their
first meeting. This serves as an interesting historical document about
love in the 1970s. |
| Apocalypse Now |
1979 |
|
War
History |
Francis Ford
Coppola |
Marlon Brando
Martin Sheen
Robert Duvall |
|
| Based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness, this controversial film follows Captain Willard on his
mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade Green Beret who has set
himself up as a God among a local tribe.
"I love the smell of napalm in
the morning. It smells like victory."
Re-edited and re-released by Francis Ford
Coppola in 2001. |
| Awful Truth, The |
1937 |
1996 |
Comedy
Romance |
Leo McCarey |
Irene
Dunne
Cary Grant |
Best Director |
| A newly divorced husband and wife do
their best to ruin each other’s plans for remarriage in this classic
"screwball comedy" of the 1930s. |
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B
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
| Back to the Future |
1985 |
|
Science Fiction
Comedy |
Robert Zemeckis |
Michael J.
Fox
Christopher Lloyd |
|
| A teenager of the 1980s travels back in
time to the 1950s, where he must arrange for his mismatched parents to
meet in order to continue his own existence. |
| Bambi |
1942 |
|
Animation
Children |
Produced by
Walt Disney Productions |
|
Song (Love Is a Song) |
| A moving and exquisitely detailed
animated feature about a deer and how the phases of his life parallel the
cycle of seasons in the forest. |
| Bank Dick, The |
1940 |
|
Comedy |
Eddie Cline |
W.C. Fields |
|
| A classic of insane humor, loosely
plotted about a no-account who becomes a bank guard. |
| Batman |
1989 |
|
Action
Comedy
Crime
Drama
Fantasy |
Tim Burton |
Michael Keaton
Jack Nicholson
Kim Basinger |
|
| A dark, intense adaptation of the
adventures of the comic-book hero and his battles with his arch-nemesis,
the Joker. |
|
Ben-Hur |
1959 |
|
Drama
Action
Epic
Historical |
William Wyler |
Charlton Heston,
Hugh Griffith,
Jack Hawkins,
Stephen Boyd |
11 (the record) including
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Heston), Best Supporting Actor
(Griffith) |
|
Boyhood friends Ben-Hur and Messala are
turned into bitter enemies, separated in part by Messala’s blind
allegiance to Rome, in this classic set in the first century. Don’t miss
the chariot race, a spectacular achievement in special effects in its day. |
| Best Years of Our Lives
|
1946 |
1989 |
Drama |
William Wyler |
Myrna Loy, Frederic March, Dana
Andrews, Teresa Wright, Harold Russell |
7 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Actor (March), Best Supporting Actor (Russell) |
|
Three World War II veterans return to
small town America to discover that they and their families have been
changed forever, and that they must adjust to the world as it has become. |
Birth of a Nation, The
Also known as The Clansman
|
1915 |
|
War
History
Epic |
D.W. Griffith |
Lillian Gish |
|
|
The consequences of the Civil War in the
lives of two families, one Northern and one Southern, are shown as they
are affected by major historical events of the time. The birth of the Ku
Klux Klan is featured, and the film has been sharply criticized in more
recent times for its racial stereotypes and justification of the Klan. |
|
Bonnie and Clyde |
1967 |
|
Drama
History Gangster |
Arthur Penn |
Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons |
2 including Best
Supporting Actress (Parsons) |
|
A trend-setting film, vivid and stylish,
in which a pair of small-time bank robbers are turned into folk heroes in
Depression-era America. This take on the legendary (yet real-life) crime
spree of these lovers on the run is known for its attention to gory
detail. |
|
Boys Town |
1938 |
|
Drama |
Norman Taurog |
Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney |
2 includiing Best Actor
(Tracy) |
|
Father Flanagan opens a school for
delinquent boys, and young Whitey Marsh is his toughest enrollee in this
heartwarming classic. |
|
Breakfast Club, The |
1985 |
|
Coming of Age Comedy Drama |
John Hughes |
Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael
Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy |
|
|
Five stereotyped teenagers (a jock, a
geek, a ‘wastoid’, a Prom Queen, a psycho) are thrown together when
they are all assigned to Saturday detention in the school library. |
|
Bridge on the River Kwai, The |
1957 |
|
War
Drama |
Sir David Lean |
Sir Alec Guinness, William Holden,
Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa |
7 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Actor (Guinness) |
|
British soldiers in a Japanese
prisoner-of-war camp during World War II build a bridge as an exercise in
morale, even as an Allied demolition team plans to destroy it. |
|
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid |
1969 |
|
Western Comedy |
George Roy Hill |
Robert Redford, Paul Newman,
Katharine Ross |
|
|
Outlaws Butch and Sundance are pursued
throughout the West (and ultimately to South America) by a relentless
posse in this "buddy" picture/character study based on
historical characters. |
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C
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
|
Caine Mutiny, The |
1954 |
|
Drama
War
Courtroom |
Edward Dmytryk |
Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, Jose Ferrer |
|
|
Two naval officers aboard the U.S.S.
Caine mutiny against Queeg, their paranoid and unpopular new captain, and
are court-martialed. Bogart’s Queeg is not to be missed. |
|
Casablanca |
1943 |
1989 |
Drama
Romance
|
Michael Curtiz
|
Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid
Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains,
Dooley Wilson
|
3 including Best Picture, Best Director
|
|
The World
War II classic of war-torn Casablanca, in which an elusive
nightclub owner, (Rick), finds his old flame (Ilsa), her husband
(the Czech freedom fighter Victor Laszlo), and his own long-lost
ideals.
Casablanca
is frequently described as the best movie ever made by Hollywood; it is
almost certainly the most quoted movie of all time. But neither Bogey or
Bergman ever said "Play it again, Sam."
Rick, after first seeing Ilsa:
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in
all the world, she walks into mine.
Rick, to Ilsa, as she and Laszlo prepare
to leave Casablanca: If you don't get in that plane you'll regret
it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the
rest of your life. We both know you belong with Victor.
You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If
that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him,
you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon
and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa:
But what about us?
Rick:
We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last
night.
Ilsa:
When I said I would never leave you.
Rick:
And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm
going, you can't follow. What I've got to
do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being
noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of
three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this
crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now,
now... Here's looking at you kid.
|
| Chariots of Fire |
1981 |
|
Drama
Sports |
Hugh Hudson |
Ben Cross, Ian
Charleson, Ian
Holm, John Gielgud |
4 including Best Picture |
|
Two very different men compete for
England in the 1924 Paris Olympics, each motivated by his own background
and for his own reasons.
|
|
Chinatown |
1974 |
|
Film Noir Thriller Mystery |
Roman Polanski |
Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John
Huston |
|
|
In this bizarre yet fascinating mystery
set in the 1930s, Los Angeles private detective Jake Gittes is led into a
complex, volatile case by a femme fatale. |
|
Citizen Kane |
1941 |
1989 |
Drama |
Orson Welles |
Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Agnes
Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Everett Sloane |
|
|
Director Welles’ first movie
"broke all the rules and invented some new ones" in this
fascinating story of a newspaper tycoon’s rise to power, based on the
real life of publisher William Randolph Hearst. Often cited as the best
American movie ever made.
"Rosebud!"
|
|
City Lights |
1931 |
1991 |
Silent
Comedy |
Charles Chaplin |
Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill |
|
|
A tramp falls in love with a beautiful
blind girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be
the girl's benefactor and suitor. |
|
Clockwork Orange, A |
1971 |
|
Fantasy |
Stanley Kubrick |
Malcolm MacDowell, Patrick Magee,
Adrienne Corri |
|
|
In a futuristic Britain, a gang of
teenagers go on a rampage every night, beating and raping helpless
victims. Caught, one of the gang agrees to try "aversion
therapy". |
|
Close Encounters of the Third Kind |
1977 |
|
Science Fiction |
Steven Spielberg |
Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr,
Melinda Dillon |
|
|
A mystery leads to an ordinary man’s
contact with alien beings in this powerful and intelligent film. |
|
Cool Hand Luke
|
1967
|
|
Drama
|
Stuart Rosenberg
|
Paul Newman, George Kennedy,
Strother Martin, J.D. Cannon
|
Best Supporting Actor
(Kennedy)
|
|
In a southern prison camp, Luke gets a
reputation as a hard man, and resists all efforts of the "boss"
to break him.
"What we have here … is a
failure to communicate."
|
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D
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
Day for Night
Original
title: La Nuit Americaine |
1973 |
|
Foreign |
Francois Truffaut |
Jacqueline
Bisset, Jean-Pierre
Aumont |
|
| This light look at the problems of a film
director in trying to film a silly love story offers a loving look into
the intricacies of film making. |
|
Day the Earth Stood Still, The |
1951 |
|
Science Fiction |
Robert Wise |
Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal,
Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe |
|
|
This is the landmark scifi drama in which
a dignified alien comes to earth and issues a warning about the dangers of
nuclear weapons. |
|
Deer Hunter, The |
1978 |
|
War
Drama |
Michael Cimino |
Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken,
Meryl Streep, John Cazale, John Savage |
5 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Walken) |
|
A stunning film about a group of young
Pennsylvania steelworkers, and their lives before, during, and after Viet
Nam. |
|
Destry Rides Again |
1939 |
1996 |
Western Comedy |
George Marshall |
James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich |
|
|
In this action-packed Western satire, Stewart as the new deputy tames a
wild town without resorting to violence, and tangles with a boisterous
dance-hall girl. |
|
Dirty Harry |
1971 |
|
Action
Detective |
Don Siegel |
Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino,
Reni Santoni, John Vernon |
|
|
A riveting action film in which an
iconoclastic cop tries to bring in a serial killer.
"I know what you're thinking...
Did I fire six shots or only five? To tell you the truth, I forgot it myself
in all this excitement. This here's a .44 Magnum, the most
powerful handgun in the world, and it can blow your head
clean off. Now, you must ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'
Well, do you, punk?"
The character Harry Callahan appeared in
several movies, and is also known for saying "Go ahead ... make my
day" in the film Sudden Impact (1983).
|
|
Doctor Zhivago |
1965 |
|
Romance
Epic
Drama |
Sir David Lean |
Omar
Sharif, Geraldine Chaplin,
Julie Christie, Alec Guinness, Rod Steiger |
|
|
Poet/doctor Yuri Zhivago marries an
aristocrat just before the Russian Revolution, and then has an affair with
the beautiful nurse Lara. In this epic of a world turned upside down, his
life and freedom are torn from him by the demands of a new society. |
|
Double Indemnity |
1944 |
|
Film Noir
Drama |
Billy Wilder |
Barbara
Stanwyck, Fred Mac Murray,
Edward G. Robinson |
|
|
An insurance salesman is coerced into a
plot by an alluring woman who has cooked up a scheme to murder her husband
for his insurance money. |
|
Dr. Strangelove, or, How I learned to
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb |
1963 |
1989 |
Cold War Satire |
Stanley Kubrick |
George C. Scott, Peter Sellers |
|
| A fanatical general launches a nuclear
attack against the Soviet Union, leaving the President to contend with his
own political and military leaders as well as "the enemy" in
this black comedy. |
|
Duck Soup |
1933 |
1990 |
Comedy
Satire |
Leo McCarey |
The Marx Brothers, Margaret Dumont |
|
|
Prime Minister Rufus T. Firefly of the
miniature country of Fredonia declares war on neighboring Sylvania just
because he feels like it. The spies Chicolini and Pinky are sent to obtain
top secret information, creating even more chaos. This is considered a
parody of the dictatorships of Europe, including the rising Nazi regime in
Germany, and contains Harpo Marx’ classic mirror sequence. |
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E
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
|
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial |
1982
|
1994
|
Science Fiction
|
Steven Spielberg
|
Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Dee
Wallace-Stone
|
|
|
A ten-year old boy befriends an alien who’s
been accidentally stranded on Earth in this insightful story of childhood
innocence, frustration, courage, and love.
"E.T. phone home!"
Re-edited by
Steven Spielberg and re-released in 2002.
|
|
Easy Rider |
1969 |
|
Drama |
Dennis Hopper |
Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack
Nicholson |
|
| Two long-haired bikers from Los Angeles
take off on a cross-country trip, meeting several unusual characters
along the way, especially a small-town lawyer played by Jack Nicholson,
who gained national attention for the role. |
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F
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
| Fantasia |
1940 |
1990 |
Animated
Musical |
Produced by the Walt Disney Productions |
|
|
|
Various classical music works are
illustrated, some abstractly, some humorously, and some dramatically,
using a wide range of artistic styles is used.
A second film, Fantasia
2000, was
released, in accordance with the original plan to make a series of
animated films based on classical music.
|
| Field of Dreams |
1989 |
|
Drama
Baseball |
Phil Alden Robinson |
Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones,
Ray Liotta |
|
|
An Iowa farmer hears a voice in his cornfield which inspires him to
build a baseball diamond in the field in the hopes that Shoeless Joe
Jackson, thrown out of baseball after the "Black Sox" scandal of
1919, will appear there, in this fantasy of hope and redemption.
"If you build it, he will
come."
|
|
Forrest Gump |
1994
|
|
Drama
History
|
Robert Zemeckis
|
Tom Hanks, Sally Fields, Robin
Wright
|
6 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Actor (Hanks)
|
|
A slow-witted boy grows to adulthood,
floating through life, only vaguely understanding the tumultuous times in
which he lives, even though he manages to be present for virtually every
important event in the second half of the twentieth century.
"Life is like a box of
chocolates ... you never know what you’re gonna get."
|
|
Frankenstein |
1931 |
|
Horror |
James Whale |
Colin
Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, John Boles |
|
| The definitive monster movie, with the
ultimate mad scientist creating a man-made being, but accidentally giving
him a criminal brain. This film made Boris Karloff, as The Creature, a
star. |
| French Connection, The |
1971 |
|
Action
Drama
Police |
William Friedkin |
Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider,
Fernando Rey |
5 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Actor (Hackman) |
|
This gritty police action details an
attempt to smuggle heroin into the U.S. and the maverick police detective
determined to stop it. This film includes one of the most gripping and
memorable car chase sequences ever filmed.
"Do you pick your feet in
Poughkeepsie?"
|
| From Here to Eternity |
1953 |
|
War
History Romance |
Fred Zinneman |
Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr,
Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed |
Best Picture, Best
Director, Best Supporting Actor (Sinatra), Best Supporting Best Actress
(Reed) |
|
This powerful adaptation of James Jones’
novel of Army life in Hawaii just before the Pearl Harbor attack is
brilliantly acted by the entire cast, and combines unforgettable action
scenes with real combat footage. The love scene on the beach featuring
Lancaster and Kerr is featured in many film-clip anthologies.
"When you love something, it don’t
got to love you back."
|
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G
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
|
Gandhi |
1982 |
|
Drama
History
Foreign (British-Indian) |
Sir Richard Attenborough |
Ben Kingsley, Candace Bergen, John
Gielgud |
8 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Actor (Kingsley) |
|
Sweeping account of the life of Mohandas
K. Gandhi, who rose from the position of a simple lawyer to become a
nation’s leader and a worldwide symbol of peace and understanding. |
|
Gentleman’s Agreement |
1947 |
|
Drama |
Elia Kazan |
Gregory Peck, Celeste Holm,
Dorothy Maguire, John Garfield |
3 including Best
Director, Best Supporting Actress (Holm) |
|
A writer, pretending to be Jewish,
experiences anti-Semitism firsthand in what was at the time a daring look
at a subject that was not discussed in polite society. |
|
Gigi |
1958 |
1991 |
Musical |
Vincente Minnelli |
Leslie Caron, Louis Jourdan,
Hermione Gingold, Maurice Chevalier |
9 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Song (Gigi) |
| This charming musical about a
turn-of-the-century French girl groomed to become an elegant courtesan who
would prefer to become a wife is known for its exquisite filming, perfect
cast, and memorable Lerner and Loewe score. |
| Godfather, The |
1972 |
1990 |
Drama
Gangster |
Francis Ford Coppola |
Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Talia Shire, John Cazale |
3 including Best Picture,
Best Actor (Brando) |
|
Based on Mario Puzo’s bestseller of the
violent life and times of Don Corleone, a Mafia patriarch, and his family.
"I’m gonna make him an offer
he can’t refuse."
|
|
Godfather, Part II, The |
1974 |
1993 |
Drama
Gangster |
Francis Ford Coppola |
Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Talia
Shire, John Cazale |
6 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (De Niro) |
|
The rare sequel that is as compelling and
as well done as its predecessor, this compares the life of Don Corleone’s
son Michael, now running "the family", to his father’s early
days. |
|
Godzilla, King of the Monsters |
1956 |
|
Science
Fiction Foreign (Japanese) |
Terry Morse |
Raymond Burr,
Inoshiro
Honda |
|
|
A fire-breathing giant lizard threatens
civilization in this masterwork of special effects. |
|
Going My Way |
1944
|
|
Drama
|
Leo McCarey
|
Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald
|
6 including Best
Director, Best Picture, Best Actor (Crosby), Best Supporting Actor
(Fitzgerald), Best Song (Swinging on a Star).
|
|
Director McCarey also
wrote the screenplay, which also received an Academy Award. This is a sentimental story in which a
young priest wins over his elderly superior, a gang of tough kids, and the
entire neighborhood.
"Do you know ... ‘Toora Loora
Loora’?"
|
|
Gone With the Wind |
1939
|
1989
|
Drama
History
Epic
|
Victor Fleming
|
Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie
Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Hattie McDaniel, Thomas Mitchell
|
9 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Actress (Leigh), Best Supporting Actress (McDaniel)
|
| GWTW
stands as one of the great romantic movies, based on a runaway
best-selling book, and set against the historical backdrop of the
American Civil War and Reconstruction Period. Often criticized today
for its sentimental view of slavery, it was nonetheless the first
film for which an Oscar was won by an African-American performer
(Hattie McDaniel.) |
| Graduate, The |
1967 |
1996 |
Coming of Age |
Mike Nichols |
Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft,
Katherine Ross |
Best Director |
|
This landmark film of the late 1960s
focuses on a naive recent college graduate who’s seduced by an older
woman, and then falls in love with her daughter. This was the debut role
for Dustin Hoffman.
"Plastics!"
|
|
Grand Hotel |
1932 |
|
Drama |
Edmund Goulding |
Greta
Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan
Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore |
Best Picture |
|
Simply, the story of the Grand Hotel,
where "nothing ever happens." |
|
Grapes of Wrath, The |
1940 |
1989 |
Drama
History |
John Ford |
Henry Fonda, John Carradine, Jane
Darwell |
Best Director, Best
Supporting Actress (Darwell) |
|
Classic Americana of the Okies moving
west to California during the Great Depression, this film features a young
Henry Fonda in the role of a lifetime. Based on John Steinbeck’s novel. |
|
Great Dictator, The |
1940 |
|
Silent
Comedy
Satire |
Charles Chaplin |
Charlie Chaplin |
|
|
This was Chaplin’s first
"talkie", a slapstick/satire/social commentary featuring a
dictator named "Adenoid Hynkel" of the country "Tomania." |
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H
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
|
High Noon |
1952 |
1989 |
Western
Drama |
Fred Zinneman |
Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly |
4 including Best Actor
(Cooper), Best Song (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’) |
|
This legendary Western drama about a
crisis of conscience focuses on a lawman who must decide, on the day he is
both to marry and to retire, whether or not to face a gunman who is coming
to town to seek revenge. |
|
Holiday Inn |
1942 |
|
Musical
Comedy |
Mark Sandrich |
Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire,
Marjorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale |
Song (White Christmas) |
|
An entertaining musical with a thin plot
about a Connecticut country inn open only on holidays, this is really an
excuse for Astaire to dance (don’t miss the Fourth of July) and Crosby
to sing a string of tunes by Irving Berlin, most notably, "White
Christmas", which was introduced here. |
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I
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
|
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang |
1932 |
1991 |
Drama |
Mervyn LeRoy |
Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell |
|
|
In this still-powerful story, an innocent
man is brutally victimized by the criminal justice system. |
|
Invasion of the Body-Snatchers |
1956 |
1994 |
Science Fiction |
Don Siegel |
Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry
Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones |
|
|
An influential and still scary piece of
science fiction in which small-town residents are slowly being replaced by
duplicates hatched from alien "pods." |
|
It Happened One Night |
1934 |
1993 |
Comedy |
Frank Capra |
Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert |
Best Picture, Best
Director, Best Actor (Gable), Best Actress (Colbert), Best Screenplay |
|
This was the first film to win all five of the major awards. In this legendary romantic comedy,
reporter Gable and runaway heiress Colbert fall in love as they make their
way across the country by bus and by thumb (don’t miss Colbert showing
Gable the right way to hitchhike). The most memorable scene may be when
"the Walls of Jericho" come tumbling down. |
| It’s a Wonderful Life |
1946 |
1990 |
Drama |
Frank Capra |
James Stewart, Donna Reed, Thomas
Mitchell, Lionel Barrymore |
|
|
In this sentimental and beloved film, a
small town man who works hard all his life to make good thinks he’s failed
and tries to end his life, only to be shown by his guardian angel just how
great a difference he’s made in the lives of others.
"Every time a bell rings, an
angel gets his wings."
Note that George’s two friends, the
cabdriver and the cop, are named Bert and Ernie.
|
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J
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
|
Jaws |
1975 |
|
Action
Drama |
Steven Spielberg |
Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss,
Robert Shaw |
|
|
In this modern monster movie, a New
England shore community is terrorized by shark attacks, and hires a salty
shark expert to take care of the menace. The music alone is enough to
trigger a panic attack. Generally recognized as the first "summer
blockbuster" movie. |
|
Jazz Singer, The |
1927 |
1996 |
Special
Effects
Drama |
Alan Crossland |
Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner
Oland |
|
|
This legendary "first talkie"
is actually silent, except for a few sequences, notably Al Jolson’s
rendition of "My Mammy," which he sings in blackface. The plot,
such as it is, centers on Jolson going into show business against the
wishes of his father, a cantor. |
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K
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
| King Kong |
1933 |
1991 |
Science Fiction
Special Effects |
Merian C. Cooper |
Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce
Cabot |
|
|
This special effects extravaganza
contains the must-see giant ape climbing the Empire State Building and
then giving it all up for love.
"It was beauty killed the
beast."
|
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L
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
|
Lion King, The |
1994 |
|
Animated
Children |
Produced by the Walt Disney Studios |
The voices of James Earl Jones,
Matthew Broderick, Robert Guillaume, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Madge
Sinclair, Moira Kelly |
|
|
A lion cub raised to take his father’s
place as King of the Jungle is sabotaged by his evil uncle, and lives in
exile until he can resume his rightful place in the Circle of Life. With
overtones of Hamlet everywhere, this animated feature is filled with
memorable characters and award-winning music. |
| Little Big Man |
1970 |
|
Drama
History
Satire |
Arthur Penn |
Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway,
Martin Balsam, Chief Dan George |
|
|
Jack Crabb, 121 years old, reminisces
about his life as a young pioneer, among other things, and ultimately, as
the only white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Tragedy and
comedy blend beautifully in this view that is different from most previous
Westerns.
"It is a good day to die."
|
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M
| Title |
Year |
Registry |
Categories |
Director |
Stars |
Academy Awards |
| M |
1931 |
|
Mystery
Suspense
(German) |
Fritz Lang |
Peter Lorre |
|
| This cinematically dazzling early talkie
tells the tale of a psychotic child murderer finally brought to justice by
the Berlin underworld. This is the film that brought Peter Lorre to the
attention of Hollywood. |
| Maltese Falcon, The |
1941 |
1989 |
Detective
Drama |
John Huston |
Humphrey Bogart, Sidney
Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor |
|
| Anti-hero Sam Spade is a detective out to
discover the murderer of his partner; he stumbles onto a complex plot to
smuggle a valuable figurine into the country and becomes involved with a
variety of unique characters involved in it. |
| Manchurian Candidate, The |
1962 |
1994 |
Cold War
Suspense
Drama |
John Frankenheimer |
Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra,
Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh |
|
| A tingling thriller filled with political
paranoia about the aftermath of a Korean war hero’s decoration and his
mother’s machinations to promote the career of her husband, a Joseph
McCarthy-like senator. |
| Marty |
1955 |
1994 |
Drama |
Delbert Mann |
Ernest Borgnine |
4 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Actor (Borgnine) |
|
In this low-key, moving film, a plain
Bronx butcher doesn’t plan to find love, but does.
"What do you want to do
tonight, Ange?"
|
| Mary Poppins |
1964 |
|
Children
Special Effects |
Robert Stevenson |
Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke |
5 including Best Actress
(Andrews), Song (Chim-Chim-Cheree) |
|
Charm, wit, music, and movie magic fill
this adaptation of the classic book about a nanny who is "practically
perfect in every way" and who brings profound change into the lives
of the Banks family of London, circa 1910. This was Andrews’ film debut,
and includes a cameo by Oscar-winner Jane Darwell in her last performance.
"Supercalilfragilisticexpealidocious!"
|
| Midnight Cowboy |
1969 |
|
Drama |
John Schlesinger |
Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight |
3 including Best Picture,
Best Director |
| An emotionally shattering dramatization
of a young man from a small town who comes to New York City, becomes a male prostitute, and
develops an unusual and deep friendship with seedy Ratso Rizzo (Hoffman in
his second film). Rated X when originally released, it shows the seamier
side of New York and of life, but is memorable for its characterizations
of two losers who find hope in each other. |
| Mildred Pierce |
1945 |
|
Drama
"Tearjerker" |
Michael Curtiz |
Joan Crawford, Jack Carson,
Zachary Scott, Eve Arden |
Best Actress (Crawford) |
| A housewife turned waitress finds success
in business but loses control of her ungrateful daughter, especially when
they compete for the same man. Joan Crawford at her tough-as-nails best. |
| Miracle on 34th Street |
1947 |
|
Children Comedy Fantasy
Christmas |
George Seaton |
Maureen O’Hara,
John Payne, Natalie Wood, Edmund Gwenn |
Academy Awards: Best
Supporting Actor (Gwenn) |
| In this classic fable, Kris Kringle
gets the job as Macy’s department store Santa, where he
encounters a disbelieving child, and ultimately goes on trial to
prove that he is the real Santa Claus. |
| Modern Times |
1936 |
1989 |
Silent
Comedy |
Charles Chaplin |
Charlie Chaplin |
|
| Chaplin’s attack on the machine
age is his last silent film, and contains unforgettable scenes, one of
which later appears as an homage in Woody Allen’s Sleeper. |
| Mr. Smith Goes to Washington |
1939 |
1989 |
Drama |
Frank Capra |
James Stewart, Claude Rains, Jean
Arthur |
|
| A young idealist finds nothing but
corruption in the U.S. Senate. Stewart’s performance, especially his
filibuster before the Senate, is memorable, and is supported by Jean
Arthur as the hard-boiled dame who loves him. This is Frank Capra’s
Americana at its finest. |
| Mrs. Miniver |
1942 |
|
Drama
War |
William Wyler |
Greer Garson, Teresa Wright |
6 including Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Actress (Garson), Best Supporting Actress (Wright) |
| This is a moving drama about a
middle-class English family learning to cope with the presence of World
War II in their lives. This film did much to rally American support for
the British war effort in the early days of the war. |
| Mutiny on the Bounty |
1935 |
|
Adventure Drama |
Frank Lloyd |
Charles Laughton, Clark Gable,
Franchot Tone |
|
| First and best of three film adaptations
of the classic book in which 18th century British sailors mutiny against a
tyrannical captain on a voyage to the South Seas. Laughton as Captain
Bligh is unforgettable.
"Mistah Christian!!!"
This was famously remade in the 1960s
with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard, and again in 1984 as The Bounty,
with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins.
|
| My Darling Clementine |
1946 |
|
Western
Drama |
John Ford |
Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor
Mature, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt |
|
| This low-key western about Wyatt Earp and
Doc Holliday leads to the inevitable gunfight at the O.K. Corral. This
American classic is filled with wonderful details and was exquisitely
photographed, and is considered one of director Ford’s finest works. |
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