Oscar Nominee: Best Director

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Oscar Nominee

Deliverance

Four ordinary men in two canoes navigate a river they only know as a line on a map, taking on a wilderness they only think they understand. Deliverance, based on James Dickey's novel, surges with the urgency of masterful storytelling, like Georgia's Chattooga River along which it was shot. Equally masterful is the portrayal of each man's change of character under stress, harrowingly enacted by award winners Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Hong Kong wuxia films, or martial arts fantasies, traditionally squeeze poor acting, slapstick humor, and silly story lines between elaborate fight scenes in which characters can literally fly. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has no shortage of breathtaking battles, but it also has the dramatic soul of a Greek tragedy and the sweep of an epic romance. This is the work of director Ang Lee, who fell in love with movies while watching wuxia films as a youngster and made Crouching Tiger as a tribute to the form.

Crimes And Misdemeanors

American auteur Woody Allen explores themes of good and evil in this masterful modern-day morality play. When opthamologist Judah Rosenthal (Oscar-nominated Martin Landau) is threatened with ruin by his mistress if he doesn't marry her, he considers the ultimate solution to his problem: murder. Meanwhile, documentary filmmaker Clifford Stern is faced with an equally heinous moral dilemma: selling out. Allen compares the choices both men make, using a double storyline to brilliantly pair sharp comedy with harrowing drama.

Chicago

Winner of six Academy Awards and a Golden Globe, Chicago is a dazzling spectacle cheered by audiences and critics alike! At a time when crimes of passion result in celebrity headlines, nightclub sensation Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones) and spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart (Rene Zellweger) both find themselves sharing space on Chicago's famed Murderess Row! They also share Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), the town's slickest lawyer with a talent for turning notorious defendants into local legends. But in Chicago, there's only room for one legend!

Citizen Kane

Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles's 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26, still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions, and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist.

Chariots Of Fire

England's finest athletes have begun their quest for glory in the 1924 Olympic Games. Success brings honor to their nation. For two runners, the honor at stake is a personal honor... and their challenge one from within. Winner of four 1981 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Chariots Of Fire is the inspiring true story of Harold Abrahams, Eric Liddell and the team that brought Britain one of its greatest sports victories.

Chinatown

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.

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

One of the most popular screen Westerns ever made, this Academy Award-winning classic blends adventure, romance and comedy to tell the true story of the West's most likeable outlaws. No one is quicker than Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) when it comes to get-rich-quick schemes, and his sidekick Sundance (Robert Redford) is a wizard with a gun. When these two bungling train robbers tire of running from the law, they set out for Bolivia with Sundance's girlfriend (Katharine Ross).

Being John Malkovich

Ever want to be someone else? Now you can - as long as it's Being John Malkovich! Craig, a struggling puppeteer, accidentally discovers a portal leading into the brain of John Malkovich. For 15 minutes, he experiences the ultimate head trip-HE is being John Malkovich! Then he's dumped onto the New Jersey turnpike!

Broadway Danny Rose

Often overlooked, Broadway Danny Rose has developed a cult following among select Woody Allen fans; Chris Rock, of all people, says it's one of his favorite films. Allen plays a devoted talent agent for acts whose talent is, shall we say, marginal. But one of his clients, a faded singer named Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte), suddenly has a chance to perform for a record executive. Nervous, Canova insists that Rose bring his girlfriend to the show--unfortunately, his girlfriend is Tina Vitale (Mia Farrow), the wife of a big-time mobster.

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