Notwithstanding some explicit anti-Japanese sentiment, crew rough-housing and longings for home that feel a touch sappy in today's unsentimental world, "Destination" stands as a first-rate propaganda picture, released ...

Contagious western comedy features Stewart at his most appealing, and Dietrich's also in her element, singing the famous "The Boys In The Back Room". You cannot top Donlevy as a villain, and the forgotten Mischa Auer is ...

Before "Homicide" or "Hill Street Blues" came this gritty, hard-hitting cop drama based on Sidney Kingsley's play. Honed to tense perfection by Wyler, the film is a showcase for fine, colorful ensemble acting by William ...

Made by a Poverty Row studio in just six days, this cynical, acid-tongued noir exemplified what a skilled director like Ulmer could do on a shoestring budget. Narrated by Neal, whose weary voice is that of a man ...

Snatched from Alfred Hitchcock, who lost the film rights to Clouzot, "Diabolique" is one of the finest thrillers ever made--in any language. Macabre, mysterious, and haunting, it keeps you on the edge of your chair with ...

Re-made several times, (most recently as "A Perfect Murder" with Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow), Hitchcock’s original has never been surpassed. The casting is inspired, with Milland the essence of oily smugness as ...

Adapted first by Jean Renoir in 1946, Octave Mirbeau's scandalous novel provided excellent fodder for Bunuel's continuing exploration of social, sexual, and political perversions, this time in fascist-era France. Moreau ...

Bresson's exquisite, quietly affecting study of a young priest's spiritual travails remains one of the great achievements of world cinema. Adapted from the novel by George Bernanos, "Priest" is decidedly minimalist in ...

Pabst's final silent feature wagged a big finger at the decadence of the Weimar Republic, turning the story of a badly used young girl into an arch condemnation of moral corruption at the heart of the German soul. ...

McTiernan's "Die Hard" not only retooled the conventions of the modern action-thriller with its wisecracking lone-wolf cop, it also boosted "Moonlighting" star Bruce Willis from smug TV gumshoe to A-list actor. Willis ...

Seven years in the making, Ondi Timoner's absorbing, eye-opening two-band portrait pillories the excesses of record-industry imagemaking and greed, but it achieves real fascination in its intimate glimpses of unhinged ...

Levinson's vivid, heartfelt ensemble comedy provided an outstanding showcase for up-and-comers Rourke, Stern, Guttenberg, Barkin, and Bacon. The script is funny and knowing, and the natural, often overlapping flow of ...

Sharp ensemble piece (scripted by Edna Ferber and Herman J. Mankiewicz) gets the full MGM treatment, with peerless direction by Cukor and uniformly fine work from the stars. Both Barrymores are particularly good, along ...

Tight, graphic and brutal, after "Dirty Harry", TV's "Dragnet" would seem forever quaint. Director Don Siegel's gritty realism works to reincarnate the classic John Wayne hero image - a tough, independent, two-fisted ...

Director Frears (The Queen, My Beautiful Laundrette), has long been a chronicler of the stratification of British society, and he here uses screenwriter Stephen Knight’s dark, twisty, Academy Award-nominated script to ...

Even with state-of-the-art effects creating a most convincing race of aliens, Blomkamp’s disarming feature succeeds mainly on the fundamentals of story and script. (The film, which netted four Oscar nods, including Best ...

This breathless, breakneck French flick dances along the cutting edge of real-life action, rejecting big-budget CGI for daredevil stunt work. Bell, who helped popularize a death-defying European street sport named ...

In his debut feature, Beineix creates the kind of lush, hybrid film it takes some directors an entire career to concoct. Part love story, part '80s New Wave thriller, "Diva" is a rapturous, stylish film ...

Germi's wry, black-comedic satire on Italy's outmoded marital laws (divorce was illegal there in the '60s) and culture of machismo was a triumph for the writer-director and his leading man, both of whom picked up Oscar ...

A brilliant, thought-provoking view of contemporary race relations, Lee's breakthrough feature powerfully articulated the kinds of sentiments that were (and still are) verboten in mainstream Hollywood movies and polite ...