The winner of 10 Academy Awards, this 1961 musical by choreographer Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play updating Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile delinquency, the film stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star-crossed lovers from different neighborhoods--and ethnicities.
In this riveting, behind-the-scenes look at big business in the 1980s, an ambitious stockbroker (Charlie Sheen) is lured into the illegal, lucrative world of corporate espionage when he is seduced by the power, status and financial wizardry of Wall Street legend Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). But he soon discovers that the pursuit of overnight riches comes at a price that's too high to pay. Daryl Hannah and Martin Sheen costar in Oliver Stone's gripping morality tale about the American dream gone wrong.
Rain Man is the kind of touching drama that Oscars are made for--and, sure enough, the film took Academy honors for best picture, director, screenplay, and actor (Dustin Hoffman) in 1988. Hoffman plays Raymond, an autistic savant whose late father has left him $3 million in a trust. This gets the attention of his materialistic younger brother, a hot-shot LA car dealer named Charlie (Tom Cruise) who wasn't even aware of Raymond's existence until he read his estranged father's will.
For Norman and Ethel Thayer, this summer On Golden Pond is filled with conflict and resolution. When their daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) arrives, the family is forced to renew the bonds of love and overcome the generational friction that has existed for years. Norman (Henry Fonda) must find his way through his anger and fear of growing old, while Chelsea struggles to rebuild their relationship. Ethel's (Katharine Hepburn) consistent support of her "knight in shining armor" is inspirational in its simplicity. This is a movie to ponder and always keep in your heart.
A free-thinking rebel goes hand-to-hand with a tough chief nurse and the bureaucratic mental hospital she represents. His inflammatory energy and lust for life transform the other patients and shake the system to its foundations. Winner of all five top Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay. Special Edition includes 48 minute documentary featuring actors, moviemakers and writer Ken Kesey recounting the history of the original novel to its Stage and Movie adaptations.
Winner of the prestigious Golden Palm award at the 2002 Cannes film festival, The Pianist is the film that Roman Polanski was born to direct. A childhood survivor of Nazi-occupied Poland, Polanski was uniquely suited to tell the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew and concert pianist (played by Adrien Brody) who witnessed the Nazi invasion of Warsaw, miraculously eluded the Nazi death camps, and survived throughout World War II by hiding among the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto.
By George, they've got it! Newly transferred from elements painstakingly restored in 1994, the film version of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady is lavish, loverly and the acclaimed recipient of eight 1964 Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Director (Cukor). Best Actor Oscar winner Rex Harrison reprises his signature stage role of Henry Higgins, the supremely assured phoneticist who wagers that under his tutelage, Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle can pass for a duchess at the Embassy Ball. In one of her best-loved roles, Audrey Hepburn plays Eliza.
uperior acting, writing, and direction are on impressive display in the critically acclaimed Mystic River, Clint Eastwood's 24th directorial outing and one of the finest films of 2003. Sharply adapted by L.A. Confidential Oscar-winner Brian Helgeland from the novel by Dennis Lehane, this chilling mystery revolves around three boyhood friends in working-class Boston--played as adults by Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, and Kevin Bacon--drawn together by a crime from the past and a murder (of the Penn character's 19-year-old daughter) in the present.
Heaven Can Wait is a romantic fantasy about Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty), a Los Angeles Rams quarterback who is accidentally summoned to heaven by an overly zealous celestial escort. Pendleton is returned to earth in the body of another man, who is a corporate giant. While practicing to once again play for the Rams, Pendleton must escape attempts on his life while romantically pursuing a beautiful Englishwoman (Julie Christie) who protests the destruction caused to her village by one of his many corporations.
The heart-stopping story of the first black regiment to fight for the North in the Civil War. Glory stars Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes and Morgan Freeman. Broderick and Elwes are the idealistic young Bostonians who lead the regiment; Freeman is the inspirational sergeant who unites the troops; and Denzel Washington, in an Oscar-winning performance (1989, Supporting Actor), is the runaway slave who embodies the indomitable spirit of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts.
