Drama

The most surreal aspect of this adaptation of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is how faithful Surrealist director Luis Bunuel is to the original book! Which is not to say it's sluggish or literary — Bunuel recreates the story with lush scenery and vivid images, as if he himself were discovering the tropical island along with the Englishman shipwrecked in 1659. Crusoe (Daniel O'Herlihy, later to appear in RoboCop) spends 28 years building a home and struggling to maintain his sanity; only a friendship formed with a former cannibal whom he dubs Friday (Jaime Fernandez) breaks his isolation.

John Schlesinger's solid adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel sees three rival suitors vying for the affections of the beautiful Bathsheba Everdene (Julie Christie decked out in a variety of bonnets and frilly dresses), who has just inherited a farm. The men in her life are stout, whiskered yeoman Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates), an impoverished local farmer; neurotic, repressed squire William Boldwood (Peter Finch); and handsome rascal Sgt. Troy (Terence Stamp), who breaks women's hearts for a hobby.

Ranked 34 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Films, To Kill a Mockingbird is quite simply one of the finest family-oriented dramas ever made. A beautiful and deeply affecting adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee, the film retains a timeless quality that transcends its historically dated subject matter (racism in the Depression-era South) and remains powerfully resonant in present-day America with its advocacy of tolerance, justice, integrity, and loving, responsible parenthood.

Among the finest Western-made movies about the East, Bernardo Bertolucci's epic traces the emergence of modern China through the life of one man. After taking on Italian history in The Conformist and 1900, the director was well placed to tackle the story of Pu Yi (played by John Lone as an adult). The narrative proceeds along two tracks: the emperor's post-Forbidden City existence and his cloistered upbringing. Educated by Scotland's Reginald Johnston (Peter O'Toole, in a role slated for Sean Connery), the monarch develops into a sophisticated, if powerless figure.

Kenneth Branagh's 1993 production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is a vigorous and imaginative work, cheerful and accessible for everyone. Largely the story of Benedick (Branagh) and Beatrice (Emma Thompson)--adversaries who come to believe each is trying to woo the other--the film veers from arched wit to ironic romps, and the two leads don't mind looking a little silly at times. But the plot is also layered with darker matters that concern the ease with which men and women fall into mutual distrust.

Clint Eastwood directs Oscar winner Angelina Jolie and Oscar nominee John Malkovich in a riveting and unforgettable true story. Los Angeles, 1928. When single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) leaves for work, her son vanishes without a trace. Five months later, the police reunite mother and son; but he isn't her boy. Driven by one woman's relentless quest for the truth, the case exposes a world of corruption, captivates the public and changes Los Angeles forever.

An energized and passionate, if selective, telling of the story of Chess Records, Cadillac Records is a worthy entry in the niche genre of movies about rock and roll roots. Adrien Brody plays Leonard Chess, who started Chess Records in Chicago in 1947 and turned the label into an important force for blues, rhythm and blues, gospel and, in time, early rock and roll.

Hailed as "one of the year's most intriguing dramas" (Claudia Puig, USA Today), The Visitor stars Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) in a "perfect performance" (Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly) as Walter, a disaffected college professor who has been drifting aimlessly through his life. When, in a chance encounter on a trip into New York, Walter discovers a couple has taken up residence in his apartment in the city, he develops an unexpected and profound connection to them that will change his life forever.

The idea of pairing two of the hottest contemporary actresses with a Golden Age Hollywood director--in a remake of an old Bette Davis vehicle, no less--makes Rich and Famous a curiosity straddling two ages. Jacqueline Bisset, then at the height of her sex-symbol status, stars with Candice Bergen, who was morphing from glamourpuss to comedienne in the wake of her hilarious Starting Over turn. They play the roles first essayed by Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins in the 1943 Old Acquaintance: Bisset is the serious writer, Bergen the flighty married pal whose trashy novels become bestsellers.

Promote someone else to the rank of lieutenant? Over lago's dead body! And more pointedly, over the dead bodies of nearly everyone ensnared in lago's plot of revenge. Jealousy, passion, misplaced trust: the themes of Shakespeare's towering tragedy permeate this fresh Othello from writer/director Oliver Parker (An Ideal Husband), Kenneth Branagh (Lago), Irene Jacob (Desdemona) and Lawrence Fishburne as the title-role warrior who ruled armies but not his own heart play the principals in this tale set in Renaissance Venice - yet belonging to the ages.