French

The miracle about Miracle is that it gets so many details right in telling its 24-year-old story about the historic victory of the U.S. hockey team at the 1980 Olympic Games.

Tom Hanks and Shelley Long star in this offbeat, slapstick comedy about a young couple duped into buying a large mansion only to find that the problems and rennovations needed may be more than they can handle... in both their pocketbooks and relationship. The unfinished domicile becomes a metaphor for their troubled relationship, as evidenced by Long's character's attraction to a madman violinist (Alexander Godunov).

Emmy Award winner Tom Selleck stars as a major league ballplayer who is reluctantly traded to the Chunichi Dragons in Nagoya, Japan, in this fish-out-of-water sports comedy. Replaced by a rookie, the resentful Jack Eliot (Selleck) feels superior to the other Dragons, but he has a lot to learn about Japanese baseball, which is more about teamwork than about being an arrogant hotshot. Japanese superstar Ken Takahura is their hard-headed manager, Uchimaya, whom Jack treats with disrespect, while the beautiful Hiroko (Takanashi) helps him learn to live in - and love - his new home.

Overworked and overscheduled, contractor Doug Kinney never has enough time for his wife and family. So when a helpful geneticist offers to "Xerox" Doug, it seems like the perfect solution - until the clones begin to take over his home, his job, and his bed. Keaton takes on four hilariously distinct roles as the comic possibilities quickly multiply in this genuinely funny, touching romantic comedy.

The Net, the first of Hollywood's big cyberthrillers of the mid-1990s, was also the most successful, thanks in large part to the natural appeal of star Sandra Bullock. Still riding high from Speed and While You Were Sleeping, Bullock plays a computer expert victimized by sinister cyberforces who steal her identity for reasons unknown. It's a clever combination of high-tech paranoia and Hitchcockian references (including Jeremy Northam as a romantic stranger named Devlin, after Cary Grant in Notorious).

There's A Mighty Wind a-blowin', along with the gales of laughter you'll get from Christopher Guest's third exercise in brilliant "mockumentary." After tackling small-town theatricals in Waiting for Guffman and obsessive dog-show contestants in Best in Show, Guest and his reliable stable of repertory players (including Fred Willard, Parker Posey, and Bob Balaban) apply their improvisational genius to a latter-day reunion of fictional '60s-era folk singers, a comedic goldmine that Guest first explored 30 years earlier on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.

Hammer Studios' greatest nemeses, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, once again square off in this reworking of Universal's The Mummy (with elements of The Mummy's Tomb and The Mummy's Ghost thrown in for good measure). Cushing stars as archeologist John Banning, whose dig for a lost tomb results in untold treasures but leaves his father a mumbling madman and marks the rest of the company for death.

Boyhood dreams, a bat made from a tree struck by lightning and most importantly, a never-ending passion for the game. Nothing was going to stop Roy Hobbs from fulfilling his boyhood dream of baseball superstardom. Robert Redford stars in this inspiring fable that begins when 14-year-old Hobbs (Redford) fashions a powerful bat from a fallen oak tree. He soon impresses major league scouts with his ability, fixing his extraordinary talent in the mind of sportswriter Max Mercy (Duvall), who eventually becomes instrumental in Hobbs' career.

The Griswolds have planned all year for a great summer vacation. From their suburban Chicago home, across America, to the wonders of the Walley World fun park in California, every step of the way has been carefully plotted. So what if they lose all their money when their new car gets wrecked. And it's not too bad when Cousin Eddie deposits sour Aunt Edna in their back seat for a lift to Phoenix. But what really keeps Clark's eyes on the road is a flirtation with a mysterious blonde in a red Ferrari.

Europe won't suvive Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo and their Griswold offspring when a whirlwing trip across the continent wreaks hilarious havoc. After winning a tour package in a game show, the bickering Griswald family carve a trail of destruction through England (where they knock over Stonehenge), France, Germany, and Italy. Somehow Ellen (Bevery D'Angelo), the mom, gets kidnapped by gangsters, leading to a car chase that reunites the family, despite their differences.