Oscar Winner: Best Director

A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband.

Mel Gibson stars on both sides of the camera, playing the lead role plus directing and producing this brawling, richly detailed saga of fierce combat, tender love and the will to risk all that's precious: freedom. In an emotionally charged performance, Gibson is William Wallace, a bold Scotsman who used the steel of his blade and the fire of his intellect to rally his countrymen to liberation.

Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre. The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge.

Adrift in the Depression-era Southwest, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker embark on a life of crime. They mean no harm. They crave adventure - and each other. Soon we start to love them too. But nothing in film history has prepared us for the cascading violence to follow. Bonnie And Clyde turns brutal. We learn that they can be hurt - and dread they can be killed. Bonnie And Clyde balances itself on a knife-edge of laughter and terror, thanks to vivid title-role performances by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway and superb support from Michael J.

A coliseum-sized event! A Jewish nobleman is enslaved but survives to triumph over his Roman tormentors in a furious chariot race. Charlton Heston heads the cast of this winner of 11 Academy Awards, seen in a breathtaking new digital transfer in refurbished digital stereo, now at its lowest-ever and making its long-awaited DVD debut!

Annie Hall is one of the truest, most bittersweet romances on film. In it, Allen plays a thinly disguised version of himself: Alvy Singer, a successful--if neurotic--television comedian living in Manhattan. Annie (the wholesomely luminous Dianne Keaton) is a Midwestern transplant who dabbles in photography and sings in small clubs. When the two meet, the sparks are immediate--if repressed. Alone in her apartment for the first time, Alvy and Annie navigate a minefield of self-conscious "is-this-person-someone-I'd-want-to-get-involved-with?" conversation.

On his deathbed, Court Composer Antonio Salieri confesses to having killed Mozart, the Genius composer. Flashback to Mozart's arrival in Vienna. His brash and vulgar manner is the antithesis of his divine musical gift. Salieri cannot reconcile that God would endow such genius on this coarse boy. The story unfolds as Mozart becomes more and more popular and Salieri becomes more obsessed with destroying him and getting his revenge on God. Using his influence, Salieri drives his rival to poverty.

A Beautiful Mind manages to twist enough pathos out of John Nash's incredible life story to redeem an at-times goofy portrayal of schizophrenia. Russell Crowe tackles the role with characteristic fervor, playing the Nobel prize-winning mathematician from his days at Princeton, where he developed a groundbreaking economic theory, to his meteoric rise to the cover of Forbes magazine and an MIT professorship, and on through to his eventual dismissal due to schizophrenic delusions. Of course, it is the delusions that fascinate director Ron Howard and, predictably, go astray.