Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 multiple-Oscar winner (including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Ben Kingsley) is an engrossing, reverential look at the life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who introduced the doctrine of nonviolent resistance to the colonized people of India and who ultimately gained the nation its independence. Kingsley is magnificent as Gandhi as he changes over the course of the three-hour film from an insignificant lawyer to an international leader and symbol.
Half of the characters in this 1988 John Landis potboiler seem to be played either by Eddie Murphy or costar Arsenio Hall, swaddled in elaborate Rick Baker makeup appliances that render them unrecognizable but also weirdly immobile. As a pampered African prince who journeys incognito to Queens, New York, to find a bride who will love him just for himself, Murphy manages to look smug and naive at the same time.
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.
Nothing on earth can rival the epic spectacle and breathtaking grandeur of Titanic, the sweeping love story that sailed into the hearts of moviegoers around the world, ultimately emerging as the most popular motion picture of all time. Leonardo DiCaprio and Oscar nominee Kate Winslet light up the screen as Jack and Rose, the young lovers who find one another on the maiden voyage of the "unsinkable" R.M.S. Titanic. But when the doomed luxury liner collides with an iceberg in the frigid North Atlantic, their passionate love affair becomes a thrilling race for survival.
While the 1960 version of The Time Machine remains a science fiction classic, this adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel benefits from a dazzling CGI facelift. Digital wizardry shows us the awesome splendor of eons passing in an eye blink, while Wells's heroic time traveler--played with appealing conviction by Memento's Guy Pearce--is given a stronger motivation for piloting his time machine 800,000 years into the future.
Captain Jean Luc-Picard leads the crew of the newly commisioned Enterprise E in a battle against the Borg, an insidious race of half-machine, half-organic aliens, to restore the rightful future of Earth. While on a routine patrol, Capt. Picard gets word from Starfleet Headquarters that the Borg have entered federation space and are on a direct course for Earth. Violating direct orders to remain uninvolved, Picard leads the Enterprise into Star Fleet's massive assault against their deadliest foe.
The Enterprise leads a battle for peace in the most spectacular Star Trek adventure ever! After years at war, the Federation and the Klingon empire prepare for a peace summit. But the prospect of intergalactic glasnost with sworn enemies is an alarming one to Admiral Kirk (William Shatner). "They're animals!" he warns. When a Klingon ship is attacked and the Enterprise is held accountable, the dogs of war are unleashed again, as both worlds brace for what may be their final, deadly encounter.
When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the almost insurmountable odds.
One of the most endearing and intelligent romantic comedies of the '90s, the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love is filled with such good will, sunny romance, snappy one-liners, and devilish cleverness that it's absolutely irresistible. With tongue placed firmly in cheek, at its outset the film tracks young Will Shakespeare's overwrought battle with writer's block and the efforts of theater owner Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush, in rare form) to stage Will's latest comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter.
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.
