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... read more

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. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made. --Tom Keogh (hide)

When you consider that old-fashioned tearjerkers are an endangered species in Hollywood, a movie like The Notebook can be embraced without apology. Yes, it's syrupy sweet and clogged... read more

When you consider that old-fashioned tearjerkers are an endangered species in Hollywood, a movie like The Notebook can be embraced without apology. Yes, it's syrupy sweet and clogged with clichés, and one can only marvel at the irony of Nick Cassavetes directing a weeper that his late father John--whose own films were devoid of saccharine sentiment--would have sneered at. Still, this touchingly impassioned and great-looking adaptation of the popular Nicholas Sparks novel has much to recommend, including appealing young costars (Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams) and appealing old costars (James Garner and Gena Rowlands, the director's mother) playing the same loving couple in (respectively) early 1940s and present-day North Carolina. He was poor, she was rich, and you can guess the rest; decades later, he's unabashedly devoted, and she's drifting into the memory-loss of senile dementia. How their love endured is the story preserved in the titular notebook that he reads to her in their twilight years. The movie's open to ridicule, but as a delicate tearjerker it works just fine. Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember were also based on Sparks novels, suggesting a triple-feature that hopeless romantics will cherish. --Jeff Shannon (hide)

Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him... read more

Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him a unique and much-needed cinematic presence. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy decides to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased after she's had him erased from her own memory--but midway through the procedure, he changes his mind and struggles to hang on to their experiences together. In other hands, the premise of memory-erasing would become a trashy science-fiction thriller; Kaufman, along with director Michel Gondry, spins this idea into a funny, sad, structurally complex, and simply enthralling love story that juggles morality, identity, and heartbreak with confident skill. The entire cast--Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, and more--give superb performances, carefully pitched so that cleverness never trumps feeling. A great movie. --Bret Fetzer (hide)

Sidney Lumet's directorial debut remains a tense, atmospheric (though slightly manipulative and stagy) courtroom thriller, in which the viewer never sees a trial and the only action is... read more

Sidney Lumet's directorial debut remains a tense, atmospheric (though slightly manipulative and stagy) courtroom thriller, in which the viewer never sees a trial and the only action is verbal. As he does in his later corruption commentaries such as Serpico or Q & A, Lumet focuses on the lonely one-man battles of a protagonist whose ethics alienate him from the rest of jaded society. As the film opens, the seemingly open-and-shut trial of a young Puerto Rican accused of murdering his father with a knife has just concluded and the 12-man jury retires to their microscopic, sweltering quarters to decide the verdict. When the votes are counted, 11 men rule guilty, while one--played by Henry Fonda, again typecast as another liberal, truth-seeking hero--doubts the obvious. Stressing the idea of "reasonable doubt," Fonda slowly chips away at the jury, who represent a microcosm of white, male society--exposing the prejudices and preconceptions that directly influence the other jurors' snap judgments. The tight script by Reginald Rose (based on his own teleplay) presents each juror vividly using detailed soliloquies, all which are expertly performed by the film's flawless cast. Still, it's Lumet's claustrophobic direction--all sweaty close-ups and cramped compositions within a one-room setting--that really transforms this contrived story into an explosive and compelling nail-biter. --Dave McCoy (hide)

Now perhaps the most beloved American film, It's a Wonderful Life was largely forgotten for years, due to a copyright quirk. Only in the late 1970s did it... read more

Now perhaps the most beloved American film, It's a Wonderful Life was largely forgotten for years, due to a copyright quirk. Only in the late 1970s did it find its audience through repeated TV showings. Frank Capra's masterwork deserves its status as a feel-good communal event, but it is also one of the most fascinating films in the American cinema, a multilayered work of Dickensian density. George Bailey (played superbly by James Stewart) grows up in the small town of Bedford Falls, dreaming dreams of adventure and travel, but circumstances conspire to keep him enslaved to his home turf. Frustrated by his life, and haunted by an impending scandal, George prepares to commit suicide on Christmas Eve. A heavenly messenger (Henry Travers) arrives to show him a vision: what the world would have been like if George had never been born. The sequence is a vivid depiction of the American Dream gone bad, and probably the wildest thing Capra ever shot (the director's optimistic vision may have darkened during his experiences making military films in World War II). Capra's triumph is to acknowledge the difficulties and disappointments of life, while affirming--in the teary-eyed final reel--his cherished values of friendship and individual achievement. It's a Wonderful Life was not a big hit on its initial release, and it won no Oscars (Capra and Stewart were nominated); but it continues to weave a special magic. --Robert Horton (hide)

Take away the Fairy Godmother, and what have you got left from the Cinderella fable? The story of a girl for whom a bad stroke of luck is... read more

Take away the Fairy Godmother, and what have you got left from the Cinderella fable? The story of a girl for whom a bad stroke of luck is no match for her internal strength and purity of heart. Drew Barrymore plays Cinderella's alleged inspiration, Danielle, in this romantic drama that purports to tell the "facts" behind the Grimm brothers' story. One of three daughters of a man (Jeroen Krabbé) who dies and leaves her fate in the hands of a conniving stepmother (Anjelica Huston), Danielle is cast into the lowly role of a servant. Meanwhile, her sisters are evaluated as possible mates for a French prince (Dougray Scott), but he's far more intrigued with Danielle's intelligence and beauty--not to mention her way with a sword and fist. Directed by Andy Tennant (who directed Barrymore in TV's The Amy Fisher Story), Ever After has that rare ability to win the heart and mind of a viewer simply by being committed to its own innocence, particularly where Barrymore's luminous performance is concerned. A contemporary take on an old, virtually forgotten Hollywood convention--the costume adventure with middling artistic ambition but real audience appeal--Ever After is a surprisingly delightful film. --Tom Keogh (hide)

The French magician and director Georges Méliès was arguably the first master of special effects, filling the silent movie houses of the early 20th century with camera trickery... read more

The French magician and director Georges Méliès was arguably the first master of special effects, filling the silent movie houses of the early 20th century with camera trickery that stunned and delighted audiences. A century later, Michel Gondry works very much in the spirit of his artistic predecessor and countryman, creating films and music videos that feel just as hand-crafted and visually fantastical. The Science of Sleep concerns the flirtations and misunderstandings of Stéphane (Gael García Bernal, Babel), an aspiring visual artist, and Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg, 21 Grams), his Parisian neighbor who creates whimsical sculptures from cotton balls and felt. As Stéphane toils in a caustic office for a company that makes calendars, he retreats into his dreams and finds them increasingly hard to distinguish from reality, and vice-versa. The Science of Sleep is a trilingual film, with dialogue spoken in French, English, and Spanish by characters who are very much global citizens, crossing boundaries of consciousness as easily as they cross boundaries of culture. Gondry decorates his love story with deliberately low-tech special effects, including cellophane made to look like bath water and a subconscious television studio constructed largely of corrugated cardboard. This is filmmaking with all the seams and stitches exposed, an appreciation for the patent falseness of films that nonetheless transport and enchant us. It's dreamy. --Ryan Boudinot (hide)

In this high-concept legal thriller, directed by Michael Apted, Gene Hackman plays a flamboyant lawyer who specializes in civil-liberties and consumer-advocacy cases, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays his... read more

In this high-concept legal thriller, directed by Michael Apted, Gene Hackman plays a flamboyant lawyer who specializes in civil-liberties and consumer-advocacy cases, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays his daughter, an ambitious associate in a slick corporate-law firm. The script-by Carolyn Shelby, Christopher Ames, and Samantha Shad-contrives to pit the father and the daughter against each other in a negligence suit against an auto manufacturer. Sparks, both personal and professional, are meant to fly, but the Hollywood engineers who designed this piece of product have cut a few too many corners: the thriller plotting is predictable, the family drama is broad and sentimental, and the connections between them are facile. Yet Hackman and Mastrantonio somehow manage to impart lifelike rhythms to their scenes together: their skill keeps this rickety contraption from stalling completely. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker (hide)

A prominent banker unjustly convicted of murder spends many years in the Shawshank prison. He is befriended by a convict who knows the ropes and helps him to... read more

A prominent banker unjustly convicted of murder spends many years in the Shawshank prison. He is befriended by a convict who knows the ropes and helps him to cope with the frightning realities of prison life. (hide)

The combined charisma of Diane Lane and John Cusack gives a lift to Must Love Dogs, a romantic comedy built on the comic potential of internet dating. Sarah... read more

The combined charisma of Diane Lane and John Cusack gives a lift to Must Love Dogs, a romantic comedy built on the comic potential of internet dating. Sarah (Lane, Under the Tuscan Sun), a preschool teacher and recent divorcee, has her entire family bugging her to get back in the dating pool. Finally her sister (dependable second banana Elizabeth Perkins, Big) puts an ad for Sarah online; a host of questionable prospects respond, but Sarah meets one guy--a boat builder named Jake (John Cusack, High Fidelity, Say Anything)--who shows promise, though he himself is recently divorced and a little tender. Unfortunately, Sarah also feels sparks with the father (Dermot Mulroney, My Best Friend's Wedding) of one of her students, and when paths cross, trouble follows. Must Love Dogs has some amusing scenes, but the tone and quality is wildly erratic--it's as if the movie was broken into a dozen parts and randomly assigned to different writers and directors, some of whom were making a bad sitcom, some of whom were making a good sitcom, and some of whom were making a movie that blended wry comedy with some deft psychological insight. The great cast (in addition to solid work from those mentioned above, there's also Stockard Channing and Christopher Plummer) keep the story moving, but for every amusing moment there are two that are plastic, forced, or wince-inducing. --Bret Fetzer (hide)

Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra star in this visually stunning metaphysical tale of life after death. Neurologist Chris and artist Annie had the perfect life until they lost... read more

Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra star in this visually stunning metaphysical tale of life after death. Neurologist Chris and artist Annie had the perfect life until they lost their children in an auto accident; they're just starting to recover when Chris meets an untimely death himself. He's met by a messenger named Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and taken to his own personal afterlife--a freshly drawn world reminiscent of Annie's own artwork, still dripping and wet with paint. Meanwhile a depressed Annie takes her own life, compelling Chris to traverse heaven and hell to save Annie from an eternity of despair.

The multitextured visuals seem to have been created from a lost fairy tale. Heaven recalls the landscape paintings of Thomas Cole and Renaissance architecture complete with floating cherubs, while hell is a massive shipwreck, an upside-down cathedral overgrown with thorns and a sea of groaning faces popping out of the ground (one of those faces is German director Werner Herzog). Williams is the perfect actor to play against the imaginative computer-generated imagery--he himself is a human special effect. But the lack of chemistry between Williams and Sciorra is painfully apparent, and the flashback plot structure flattens the story's impact despite its deeply felt examinations of the heart and the spirit. Still, there's no denying Eugenio Zanetti's triumphant production design and the Oscar-winning special effects, which create a fully formed universe that is at once beautiful, eerie, and a unique example of movie magic. --Shannon Gee (hide)

Leave it to the wildly inventive Coen brothers (Joel directs, Ethan produces, they both write) to concoct a fiendishly clever kidnap caper that's simultaneously a comedy of errors,... read more

Leave it to the wildly inventive Coen brothers (Joel directs, Ethan produces, they both write) to concoct a fiendishly clever kidnap caper that's simultaneously a comedy of errors, a Midwestern satire, a taut suspense thriller, and a violent tale of criminal misfortune. It all begins when a hapless car salesman (played to perfection by William H. Macy) ineptly orchestrates the kidnapping of his own wife. The plan goes horribly awry in the hands of bumbling bad guys Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare (one of them being described by a local girl as "kinda funny lookin'" and "not circumcised"), and the pregnant sheriff of Brainerd, Minnesota, (played exquisitely by Frances McDormand in an Oscar-winning role) is suddenly faced with a case of multiple murders. Her investigation is laced with offbeat observations about life in the rural hinterland of Minnesota and North Dakota, and Fargo embraces its local yokels with affectionate humor. At times shocking and hilarious, Fargo is utterly unique and distinctly American, bearing the unmistakable stamp of its inspired creators. --Jeff Shannon (hide)

This absolutely charming, wholly engaging romantic comedy is the hidden gem of the four collaborations of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Most everyone's seen The Philadelphia Story, but... read more

This absolutely charming, wholly engaging romantic comedy is the hidden gem of the four collaborations of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Most everyone's seen The Philadelphia Story, but few know of this unorthodox, hilarious comedy of life among the rich and privileged, though both were Broadway hits by playwright Philip Barry. Grant plays the happy-go-lucky Johnny Case, a self-made man with a dream in his heart of making just enough money to retire on and then traveling around the world. Johnny proposes to the lovely Julia (Doris Nolan) in Lake Placid, but it isn't until he comes to pay her a visit in New York that he discovers she's the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Although his nonconformity ruffles the feathers of Julia's stuffy father, he's soon won over the whole family--most notably, Julia's rebellious sister Linda (Hepburn), who in becoming Johnny's greatest advocate finds herself irresistibly drawn to him. There's more going on here than a spiffy, surface romance, with Johnny's free-spirit determination going up against rock-hard establishment values, and director George Cukor plays up the social politics of the story just as well as the wonderful, exquisite romance. Hepburn and Grant, as always, are perfectly paired, and given able support by Lew Ayres as the black sheep of Hepburn's family, and Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon as Grant's longtime pals. Filmed previously in 1930; Hepburn understudied the role of Linda on Broadway and used a scene from the play in her first screen test. --Mark Englehart

Stills from Holiday (click for larger image)

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Perhaps the most charming movie of all time, Amélie is certainly one of the top 10. The title character (the bashful and impish Audrey Tautou) is a single... read more

Perhaps the most charming movie of all time, Amélie is certainly one of the top 10. The title character (the bashful and impish Audrey Tautou) is a single waitress who decides to help other lonely people fix their lives. Her widowed father yearns to travel but won't, so to inspire the old man she sends his garden gnome on a tour of the world; with whispered gossip, she brings together two cranky regulars at her café; she reverses the doorknobs and reprograms the speed dial of a grocer who's mean to his assistant. Gradually she realizes her own life needs fixing, and a chance meeting leads to her most elaborate stratagem of all. This is a deeply wonderful movie, an illuminating mix of magic and pragmatism. Fans of the director's previous films (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children) will not be disappointed; newcomers will be delighted. --Bret Fetzer (hide)

When the theatrical release of James Cameron's Titanic was delayed from July to December of 1997, media pundits speculated that Cameron's $200-million disaster epic would cause the director's... read more

When the theatrical release of James Cameron's Titanic was delayed from July to December of 1997, media pundits speculated that Cameron's $200-million disaster epic would cause the director's downfall, signal the end of the blockbuster era, and sink Paramount Pictures as quickly as the ill-fated luxury liner had sunk on that fateful