Posted on 01/15/2009 6:53:12 PM PST by SeekAndFind
John J. Miller at The Corner asks the question:
What are the best conservative movies of the last 25 years? This cinema epoch begins roughly with the release of Red Dawn in 1984.
I might be happy if I could find 25 bona-fide conservative movies at all in the past 25 years. I’m afraid that most of what Miller will get in response will be of the Red Dawn variety, since the only place safe for conservative themes in Hollywood has been action films. Red Dawn itself had that in spades, but it was also a rather dreadful movie with more scenery-chewing than one might imagine without William Shatner. I watched it again recently and found it rather embarrassing, except for the brief appearance by Powers Booth. “AVENGE MEEEEEEEE!”
There have to be better examples of conservative movies that we can suggest to Miller. I have a few, and will add those suggested in the comments in updates, or at least the ones that make some sense. Here are my starters:
* The Great Raid (2005) - Based on a true story and managed to mostly stick to it, this film also committed the apparently unpardonable sin of telling the truth about the brutal Japanese occupation of the Philippines and their treatment of POWs. It exemplifies honor, courage, resistance to evil, and risking lives to save others.
* Saving Private Ryan (1998) - For many of the same reasons as The Great Raid, made even more clear by the highly realistic battle scenes, which make clear the sacrifice asked and made.
* Requiem for a Dream (2000) - Harrowing depiction of the destruction of lives from drug addiction, even from prescription drugs. Definitely not for everyone, but brilliant in every aspect of production. In the end, the main characters lose their souls, their freedom, and their minds. Perhaps Ellen Burstyn’s best performance.
* United 93 (2006) - Harrowing and heartrending depiction of the 9/11 flight that didn’t hit its intended target, thanks to the heroism of the passengers on the flight. Facing certain death, they fought back against the Islamist terrorists, becoming the first Americans to do so on that awful day.
* Glory (1989) - The true story of the Massachusetts 54th in the Civil War, which led an ill-starred assault on a fortified position for the Union and suffered massive casualties. The all-black regiment fought for freedom, dignity, and honor, and gave their lives gladly for those causes. Great performances by Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman make this highly compelling.
* Shattered Glass (2003) - The story of the first round of fabrication at The New Republic, with an unexpectedly excellent performance from Hayden Christenson as Stephen Glass, the serial fabulist who succeeded by telling lies about the right people — conservatives. The film does a good job of pointing that fact out.
* Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) - The trilogy should occupy one spot, but it’s an important one. In the fantasy realm, it speaks to true evil and the need to fight it, even to the death. The final battle, in which Aragorn attempts to sacrifice his entire army so that Frodo can complete the quest, has one of the most stirring battle speeches in film history. No one in this film argues for moral equivalency or the idea that Sauron might just be misunderstood.
I know I’m missing a few, so let’s hear from Hot Air readers. Be sure to explain your suggestions in the comments.
Update: The best film you never saw: The Stoning of Soraya M (2008). Read my review here. Unfortunately, it’s never made it into wide release, but it should be required viewing for those interested in human freedom. Made even better by the surprisingly subtle performances of the entire cast.
Update II: The comments section has some great suggestions. Let me add a few that deserve mention:
* The Incredibles (2004) - Can’t believe I missed this one. It focuses on the strength of a family that works together as well as rips the notion that talented people somehow pose a threat to everyone else. And it’s also flat-out fun for all ages.
* Gettysburg (1993) - Excellent, fact-based depiction of the bravery and courage on both sides of this battle.
* 300 (2006) - I’m not normally a big fan of the graphic-novel approach to storytelling, but it works in the story of the Greeks at Thermopylae. Self-sacrifice for a greater good gets a boost from highly stylized filmmaking. Not for all tastes, but for its genre, excellent.
* Braveheart (1995) - Worthy, I think, for its emphasis on resistance to tyranny and defense of homeland against foreign rule. Historical inaccuracies mar this somewhat, especially the disappearance of the bridge from the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Still excellent, though, but The Patriot is hobbled badly by its anti-British smears.
* Juno (2007) - Interesting view of teen pregnancy and the choice to give birth rather than abort. Not really ideological, but it has much more authenticity than most teen dramedies, and really a beautiful little movie.
* Team America: World Police (2004) - A twisted satire of conservative values on defense that winds up being itself a defense of conservative values. Profane as it possibly can get and with one really disturbing scene that got it an NC-17 rating until it was cut, Team America winds up providing one of the best explanations of why we need people willing to fight terrorists and tyrants … which I can’t quote here.
* The Chronicles of Narnia (2005) - I’ve only seen the first movie, which made C. S. Lewis’ allegory on Christianity rather explicit. Good movie.
* Rudy (1993) - Hard work, not feeling sorry for yourself, faith, and love all make for one of the best movies ever — and another one I can’t believe I didn’t recall in the initial post.
* Cinderella Man (2005) - Definitely a worthy entry. James J. Braddock goes back to boxing to rescue his family from poverty, and winds up winning the championship.
* An American Carol (2008) - I thought it was OK, but many others in the comments think it was better.
I’ll keep checking back, but remember that we’re looking at 1984 forward. We’re getting some excellent suggestions for earlier movies, but we want to focus on this particular time period.
Update III: Definitely on the list: Serenity (2005), which attacks Utopianism as the excuse for totalitarianism that it is. Shockingly good sci-fi movie on its own, perhaps the best in the last 25 years, it’s even better as the follow-up to the doomed Firefly television series.
Update IV: I can see that I’ll not get much other work done today. Two more worthy of consideration, both true stories:
* Amistad (1997) - Recounts the true story of how John Quincy Adams defended captured Africans for their rebellion on board a slave ship, and how he won their freedom.
* Amazing Grace (2006) - A biography of William Wilberforce, who led the fight in Great Britain to end the slave trade.
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| 12 Angry Men | Life Is In Their Hands -- Death Is On Their Minds! ...it explodes like twelve sticks of dynamite! They have twelve scraps of paper... twelve chances to kill! |
| 300 | Spartans, tonight, we dine in hell! Thirsty for Spartan blood! Pledged to crush! Based on Frank Miller's Graphic Novel This is where we fight, this is where they die!! What does it mean to turn one of the great graphic novels of our time into a major motion picture? Spartans, prepare for glory! |
| 3:10 to Yuma | A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher. |
| A Big Hand For a Little Lady | A naive couple and a child arrive to the town on the way to California to buy there a farm. There is a poker play between the richest men in the region. The man cannot resist it and though he is a very bad poker player, enters the game betting all the money of his family. In the climax of the game he suffers a heart-attack. His wife then takes his place in the table. That's the only way of recovering their savings. But there is a little problem. Can anybody explain her how to play poker? |
| A Canterbury Tale | A 'Land Girl', an American GI, and a British soldier find themselves together in a small Kent town on the road to Canterbury. The town is being plagued by a mysterious "glue-man", who pours glue on the hair of girls dating soldiers after dark. The three attempt to track him down, and begin to have suspicions of the local magistrate, an eccentric figure with a strange, mystical vision of the history of England in general and Canterbury in particular. |
| A Few Good Men | Neo military lawyer Kaffee defends Marines accused of murder; they contend they were acting under orders. |
| A Man for All Seasons | The story of Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarriage |
| A Tale of Two Cities (1935) | An elaborate adaptation of Dickens' classic tale of the French Revolution. Dissipated lawyer Sydney Carton defends emigre Charles Darnay from charges of spying against England. He becomes enamored of Darnay's fiancée, Lucie Manette, and agrees to help her save Darnay from the guillotine when he is captured by Revolutionaries in Paris. |
| A Tale of Two Cities (1958) | British barrister Sydney Carton lives an insubstantial and unhappy life. He falls under the spell of Lucie Manette, but Lucie marries Charles Darnay. When Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned family retainer, he becomes entangled in the snares of the brutal French Revolution and is himself jailed and condemned to the guillotine. But Sydney Carton, in love with a woman he cannot have, comes up with a daring plan to save her husband. |
| A Tale of Two Cities (1980) | Dissolute barrister Sydney Carton becomes enchanted and then hopelessly in love with the beautiful Lucie Manette. But Lucie loves and marries Charles Darnay, and remains oblivious to Carton's undimmed devotion to her. When Darnay is ensnared in the deadly web of the French Revolution and condemned to die by the guillotine, Sydney Carton concocts a dangerous plot to free the husband of the woman he loves |
| A Tale of Two Cities (1989) | No commentary |
| A Town Called Alice (1956) | n 1941, The advancing Japanese army captures a lot of British territory very quickly. The men are sent off to labor camps, but they have no plan on what to do with the women and children of the British. A group is sent on a forced march from place to place searching for a Women's Camp. Told from the point of view of one of the women, she meets an Australian soldier who sneaks food for them from his labor camp. After the war, she goes to Australia to see the town he was from and settles there, finding a different problem there from being a woman. |
| A Town Called Alice (1981) | Set against the brutal chaos of World War II, a love story begins that will take two lovers through a living nightmare of captivity, across three continents and two decades. From the steamy jungles of Malaya to the dusty and desolate outback of Australia Based on Nevil Shute' international bestselling novel A TOWN LIKE ALICE follows the lives of Jean Paget and Joe Harman. Meeting in Malaya--sh an attractive young English captive and he a cheerful Australian POW tortured for a simple act of kindness. Separated first by their captors then by the distance of passing years, the two are finally reunited in the rugged outback of Australia-to face a challenge every bit as demanding as their wartime trials. |
| A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) | n Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together. |
| A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1974) | The story of a family living in a New York City slum in 1912, headed by a loving but alcoholic father and a strong-willed mother. |
| Air Force One | The President of the United States is on a journey home after making a speech in Moscow. But on the journey, Russian hi-jakers take over the plane, disguising themselves as newspaper reporters. They want the President to ring Moscow and release General Redek. But they think that the President has escaped in the pod. But the president is really still on board air force One attempting to regain control of the plane and to rescue his wife and daughter. |
| Amazing Grace | In 1797, William Wilberforce, the great crusader for the British abolition of slavery, is taking a vacation for his health even while he is sicker at heart for his frustrated cause. However, meeting the charming Barbara Spooner, Wilberforce finds a soulmate to share the story of his struggle. With few allies such as his mentor, John Newton, a slave ship captain turned repentant priest who penned the great hymn, "Amazing Grace," Prime William Pitt, and Olaudah Equiano, the erudite former slave turned author, Wilberforce fruitlessly fights both public indifference and moneyed opposition determined to keep their exploitation safe. Nevertheless, Wilberforce finds the inspiration in newfound love to rejuvenate the fight with new ideas that would lead to a great victory for social justice. |
| Amistad | AMISTAD is about a 1839 mutiny onboard a slave ship that is traveling towards the Northeast Coast of America. Much of the story involves a court-room drama about the slave who led the revolt. |
| An American Carol | In An American Carol a cynical, Anti-American Hollywood filmmaker sets out on a crusade to abolish the 4th of July holiday. He is visited by three spirits who take him on a hilarious journey in an attempt to show him the true meaning of America. |
| Angels with Dirty Faces | Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connolly were tough kids who grew up together in the toughest part of New York --- Hell's Kitchen. Early on, Rocky gets sent to reform school, where he learns how to be a first class criminal. Jerry, who had escaped from the law, goes straight and becomes a priest. As adults, they reunite in the old neighborhood: Jerry works with the kids who, like he and Rocky, could end up on either side of the law. Rocky has returned looking for a safe place to stay till he can get back into his old racketeering organization -- something that his old partner isn't anxious to have happen. Lots of rapid fire wisecracks, roughhousing and gunfire ensues. |
| Animal Farm (1954) | Britain's first animated feature, which, despite the title and Disney-esque animal animation, is in fact a no-holds-barred adaptation of George Orwell's classic satire on Stalinism, with the animals taking over their farm by means of a revolutionary coup, but then discovering that although all animals are supposed to be equal, some are more equal than others. |
| Animal Farm (1999) | A satire of Stalinist Russia, Animal Farm tells of the revolt of the animals of Manor Farm against their human masters. Led by the pigs Snowball (Lenin) and Napoleon (Stalin), the animals attempt to create a utopian society. Soon, however, Napoleon gets a taste for power, drives out Snowball, and establishes a totalitarian regime as brutal and corrupt as any human society. Manor Farm becomes a world where all animals are equal--but some are more equal than others. |
| Antz | In an anthill with millions of inhabitants, Z 4195 is a worker ant. Feeling insignificant in a conformity system, he accidentally meets beautiful Princess Bala, who has a similar problem on the other end of the social scale. In order to meet her again, Z switches sides with his soldier friend Weaver - only to become a hero in the course of events. By this he unwillingly crosses the sinister plans of ambitious General Mandible (Bala's fiancé, by the way), who wants to divide the ant society into a superior, strong race (soldiers) and an inferior, to-be-eliminated race (the workers). But Z and Bala, both unaware of the dangerous situation, try to leave the oppressive system by heading for Insectopia, a place where food paves the streets. |
| Apollo 13 | Based off of real events of one of the worst NASA tragedy's. In 1971, NASA plans to send out people to the Moon for a lunar mission. They have chosen astronauts Jim Lovell, Frad Haise, and Jack Swigert. They have launched into outer space successfully, however, a slight fault from inside the space module caused an explosion that turned the exploration into a test for survival for the crew of Apollo 13. While Loveel, Haise, and Swigert try to survive in space. The workers at NASA (including Ken Mattingly) try to figure out a way to get the astronauts home safely. |
| Are We There Yet | The fledgling romance between Nick, a playboy bachelor, and Suzanne, a divorced mother of two, is threatened by a particularly harrowing New Year's Eve. When Suzanne's work keeps her in Vancouver for the holiday, Nick offers to bring her kids to the city from Portland, Oregon. The kids, who have never liked any of the men their mom has dated, are determined to turn the trip into a nightmare for Nick. |
| Babette's Feast - aka Babette's Gaestebud | n 19th century Denmark, two adult sisters live in an isolated village with their father, who is the honored pastor of a small Protestant church that is almost a sect unto itself. Although they each are presented with a real opportunity to leave the village, the sisters choose to stay with their father, to serve to him and their church. After some years, a French woman refugee, Babette, arrives at their door, begs them to take her in, and commits herself to work for them as maid/housekeeper/cook. Sometime after their father dies, the sisters decide to hold a dinner to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Babette experiences unexpected good fortune and implores the sisters to allow her to take charge of the preparation of the meal. Although they are secretly concerned about what Babette, a Catholic and a foreigner, might do, the sisters allow her to go ahead. Babette then prepares the feast of a lifetime for the members of the tiny church and an important gentleman related to one of them. |
| Baby Boom | J.C. Wiatt is a successful New York business woman known around town as the "tiger lady." She gets news of an inheritance from a relative from another country and off the bat she suspects it's money. Well it's not money, it's a baby girl. At first she doesn't accept until the lady that gives the baby to her has to catch her flight. J.C. is now stuck with an annoying baby girl. Her boyfriend doesn't like the idea of a baby living with them and he leaves her. J.C. has enough of it and takes her to meet a family ready to adopt her. She leaves but hears the baby cry while walking away and has to go back. The baby is too attached to her now and won't let her go. Later, her baby gets into mischief which causes her to get fired. Now, she sets her eyes on an old two story cottage in Vermont to get out of the New York life. When she arrives, the house needs more help than originally thought. She gets bored one snowy day and decides to make apple sauce. Her baby loves it and she decides to sell it. Pretty soon everyone wants some of the baby apple sauce. J.C. hits it big and falls in love with a local veterinarian. Was this fate or destiny? |
| Bamboozled | Dark, biting satire of the television industry, focusing on an Ivy-League educated black writer at a major network. Frustrated that his ideas for a "Cosby Show"-esque take on the black family has been rejected by network brass, he devises an outlandish scheme: reviving the minstrel show. The hook: instead of white actors in black face, the show stars black actors in even blacker face. The show becomes an instant smash, but with the success also comes repercussions for all involved. |
| Barbershop | A day in the life of a barbershop on the south side of Chicago. Calvin, who inherited the struggling business from his deceased father, views the shop as nothing but a burden and waste of his time. After selling the shop to a local loan shark, Calvin slowly begins to see his father's vision and legacy and struggles with the notion that he just sold it out. The barbershop is filled with characters who share their stories, jokes, trials and tribulations. In the shop we find Eddie, an old barber with strong opinions and no customers. Jimmy is a highly educated barber with a superiority complex who can't stand Isaac, the new, white barber who just wants a shot at cutting some hair. Ricky is an ex-con with two strikes against him and is desperately trying to stay straight. Terri is a hard-edged woman who can't seem to leave her two-timing boyfriend. And lastly there's Dinka, a fellow barber who is madly in love with Terri but doesn't get the time of day. |
| Bella | An international soccer star is on his way to sign a multi-million dollar contract when a series of events unfold that bring his career to an abrupt end. A beautiful waitress, struggling to make it in New York City, discovers something about herself that she's unprepared for. In one irreversible moment, their lives are turned upside down... until a simple gesture of kindness brings them both together, turning an ordinary day to an unforgettable experience. |
| Big Red One | A veteran sergeant (Lee Marvin) of the World War I leads a squad in World War II, always in the company of the survivors Pvt. Griff (Mark Hamill), the writer Pvt. Zab (Robert Carradine), the Sicilian Pvt. Vinci and Pvt. Johnson (Kelly Ward) in Vichy French Africa, Sicily, D-Day at Omaha Beach, Belgium and France, ending in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia where they face the true horror of the war. |
| Black Hawk Down | Action/war drama based on the best-selling book detailing a near-disastrous mission in Somalia on October 3, 1993 where nearly 100 U.S. Army Rangers, commanded by Capt. Mike Steele, were dropped by helicopter deep into the capital city of Mogadishu to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord which lead to a large and drawn-out firefight between the Rangers and hundreds of Somali gunmen which led to the destruction of two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu, and the heroic efforts by various Rangers to get to them, centering on Sgt. Eversmann, commanding one Ranger unit named Chalk Four, leading Rangers to the first black hawk crash site, to Warrant Officer Durant who was only survivor of the second black hawk crash site and whom was captured, to Col. McKnight who leads a rescue convoy for the Rangers only to get lost within the hostile city, to Sgt. Sanderson desperately trying to get to the first crash site, to Staff Sgt. Yurek who leads two fellow Rangers, Nelson and Twombly to meet with up their squad, Chalk Four, at the first crash site, to many others involved who where either killed or survived. |
| Blade Runner | In a cyberpunk vision of the future, man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed lifespans. In Los Angeles, 2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in terminating replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when six replicants escape from an offworld colony to Earth. |
| Blast From the Past | Brandon Fraser is Adam Weber, the child of an eccentric inventor and his wife. Following a bomb scare in the 1960s that locked the Webers in their bomb shelter for 35 years, Adam Weber must venture out into Los Angeles and obtain food and supplies for his family, and a non-mutant wife for himself. He meets Eve (Alicia Silverstone), who reluctantly agrees to help him out. |
| Born Yesterday | A million dollar Tycoon hires a tutor to teach his lover proper etiquette. |
| Boundin' | Not too long ago, there was a sheep who proudly danced in his lush wool until he had his first sheering which left him humiliated. However, in his despair, a jackalope passes by and shows the forlornly shorn sheep he can still dance even his present state to maintain his own sense of self worth during difficult times. |
| Braveheart | William Wallace is a Scottish rebel who leads an uprising against the cruel English ruler Edward the Longshanks, who wishes to inherit the crown of Scotland for himself. When he was a young boy, William Wallace's father and brother, along with many others, lost their lives trying to free Scotland. Once he loses another of his loved ones, William Wallace begins his long quest to make Scotland free once and for all, along with the assistance of Robert the Bruce. |
| 'Breaker' Morant | During the Boer War, three Australian lieutenants are on trial for shooting Boer prisoners. Though they acted under orders, they are being used as scapegoats by the General Staff, who hopes to distance themselves from the irregular practices of the war. The trial does not progress as smoothly as expected by the General Staff, as the defence puts up a strong fight in the courtroom. |
| Carnal Knowledge | The film traces the sexual and emotional confusion of two men from their Amherst College days in the fifties through the Kennedy sixties, up to the Vietnam era. Jonathan, a successful tax attorney and Sandy, a physician, personify two extremes of self-delusion and self-aggrandizement: Jonathan makes the mistake of thinking sex is love, and embarks on a lifetime of sexual conquest; Sandy dedicates himself to the pursuit on an idealized woman and the dreamy spiritual completeness to be found therein. In Bobbie Jonathan finds a partner whose masochism compliments his selfishness and emotional ambivalence. Jonathan does not want her to hold a job, but neither does he like the fact that she spends all day in bed sleeping, or watching TV. Sandy falls in love with his first collage romance, Susan; they marry and have children. But Sandy is haunted by the fear that he was too hasty, even though he and Susan lead a happy domestic life and strive to reinvigorate their sex life by making love "in all seven rooms" of their apartment. With Jonathan's help, he enters into an affair with Cindy, a tough professional woman who turns Sandy off because she is too overbearing. |
| Chariots of Fire | The story, told in flashback, of two young British sprinters competing for fame in the 1924 Olympics. Eric, a devout Scottish missionary runs because he knows it must please God. Harold, the son of a newly rich Jew runs to prove his place in Cambridge society. In a warmup 100 meter race, Eric defeats Harold, who hires a pro trainer to prepare him. Eric, whose qualifying heat is scheduled for a Sunday, refuses to run despite pressure from the Olympic committee. A compromise is reached when a nobleman allows Eric to compete in his 400 meter slot. Eric and Harold win their respective races and go on to achieve fame as missionary and businessman/athletic advocate, respectively. |
| Children of Men | In 2027, as humankind faces the likelihood of its own extinction, a disillusioned government agent agrees to help transport and protect a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea where her child's birth may help scientists to save the future of mankind. |
| Cinderella Man | During the Great Depression, a common-man hero, James J. Braddock--a.k.a. the Cinderella Man--was to become one of the most surprising sports legends in history. By the early 1930s, the impoverished ex-prizefighter was seemingly as broken-down, beaten-up and out-of-luck as much of the rest of the American populace who had hit rock bottom. His career appeared to be finished, he was unable to pay the bills, the only thing that mattered to him--his family--was in danger, and he was even forced to go on Public Relief. But deep inside, Jim Braddock never relinquished his determination. Driven by love, honor and an incredible dose of grit, he willed an impossible dream to come true. In a last-chance bid to help his family, Braddock returned to the ring. No one thought he had a shot. However Braddock, fueled by something beyond mere competition, kept winning. Suddenly, the ordinary working man became the mythic athlete. Carrying the hopes and dreams of the disenfranchised on his shoulders, Braddock rocketed through the ranks, until this underdog chose to do the unthinkable: take on the heavyweight champ of the world, the unstoppable Max Baer, renowned for having killed two men in the ring. |
| Clear and Present Danger | Based upon the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst, is thrust right in the middle of a power struggle within the Colombian drug cartel after one of the President's "life long" friends is murdered, apparently in retaliation for stealing money as part of a money laundering scheme for the cartel. Jack is then appointed acting Deputy Director of Intelligence, CIA, upon the terminal illness of Admiral James Greer, former DDI, and quickly gets in over his head due to his political naivete. The situation rapidly deteriorates when some of the presidents men convince the President to conduct covert actions against the cartel, in direct violation of congress. Felix Cortez, the security chief of Ernesto Escobeda, the "victim" of the missing money, is one of the cartel boss's. Cortez tries to play both sides, appearing to inform Escobeda about the CIA's involvement in the covert operations against him, while trying to orchestrate a coup to take over the cartel, with Cortez as it's sole boss. James Cutter, the President's National Security Advisor, makes his own deal with Cortez, with the Presidents knowledge, and halts communications to the covert troops still in Colombia, through the Deputy Director of Operations, CIA, Robert Ritter. Ryan ends up going to Colombia to rescue the covet ops troops with the help of field agent John Clark, but not before some fence mending between the two, being that Ritter blamed Ryan for the comm outage, with Clark's men subsequently being captured by Cortez's mercenaries. |
| Dances with Wolves | Lt. John Dunbar is dubbed a hero after he accidentally leads Union troops to a victory during the Civil War. He requests a position on the western frontier, but finds it deserted. He soon finds out he is not alone, but meets a wolf he dubs "Two-socks" and a curious Indian tribe. Dunbar quickly makes friends with the tribe, and discovers a white woman who was raised by the Indians. He gradually earns the respect of these native people, and sheds his white-man's ways. |
| Das Boot | It is 1942 and the German submarine fleet is heavily engaged in the so called "Battle of the Atlantic" to harass and destroy English shipping. With better escorts of the Destroyer Class, however, German U-Boats have begun to take heavy losses. "Das Boot" is the story of one such U-Boat crew, with the film examining how these submariners maintained their professionalism as soldiers, attempted to accomplish impossible missions, while all the time attempting to understand and obey the ideology of the government under which they served. |
| Defiance | Director Zwick has said. "You have these chapters of history that get lost," he says. "Sometimes that's down to political agendas or because mythologies are created. Ideas and events that are contradictory to those myths often disappear. "That's what's happened here. The image of European Jews going passively to their deaths is inaccurate. We hope this film corrects that view, while also exploring the specifics of the Bielski story. You have to consider how they felt. Where is God when they are hiding and scratching out this existence in the forests? Where is love in the forest? What is it like to be a child in the forest? All these things were important." |
| Demolition Man | Frozen in 1996, Phoenix, a convicted killer is "thawed" out for parole well into the 21st century. Revived into a crime free society, Phoenix resumes his murderous rampage, and no one can stop him. Spartan, the cop who captured Phoenix in 1996 has also been cryogenically frozen, this time for a crime he didn't commit. In desperation they turn to Spartan to help recapture Phoenix. |
| Desperate Hours | After escaping from prison, Glenn Griffin, his brother Hal and a third inmate Sam Kobish randomly select a house in a well-to-do suburb of Indianapolis in which to hide out. The home belongs to the Hilliard family, Dan and Ellie who live there with their 19-year old daughter Cindy and their young son Ralph. They plan on staying only until midnight as Griffin is awaiting his girlfriend who will meet them with some money he had stashed away. When she doesn't arrive, their stay stretches out to several days. Dan Hilliard plays their game knowing that if he makes any attempt to contact the police, his family could be caught in the crossfire. |
| Dirty Dancing | It is the summer of 1963 and Baby and her family are to attend the holiday resort in America's beautiful Catskill Mountains. But when they arrive Baby is almost immediatly swept off her feet by the sexy and talented Johnny Castle. When her father forbids her to have anything to do with the hunky resort dance instructer and his pals, she finds herself falling madly in love with him and learning how to dance the passionate latin dances that Johnny loves. Like the beginning of the 60's signalled the ending of an area of innocence for U.S.A., it also signals the ending of Baby's innocence and the awakening of her feelings as a young woman. |
| Dr. Zhivago | Lara inspires lechery in Komarovsky (her mother's lover who is a master at surviving whoever runs Russia) and can't compete with passion for the revolution of the man she marries, Pasha. Her true love is Zhivago who also loves his wife. Lara is the one who inspires poetry. The story is narrated by Zhivago's half brother Yevgraf, who has made his career in the Soviet Army. At the beginning of the film he is about to meet a young woman he believes may be the long lost daughter of Lara and Zhivago. |
| Drums Along the Mohawk | Gilbert 'Gil' Martin, a civilized man from the East coast colonies, finds himself a loving bride, Magdelana 'Lana', and takes her West to start a homestead in the Mohawk Valley (in Upstate New York). Gil joins the minutemen, but when the Indians it's named after attack the rebellious colonists, instigated by the British, their home and belongings go up in flames, Lana looses their baby. Destitute they move and find a wealthy old widow, who is happy to put them up in her fine estate in exchange for help from both of them, but the horrors of war catch up, even the fort isn't guaranteed safe. |
| Dumbo | The stork delivers a baby elephant to Mrs Jumbo, veteran of the circus, but the newborn is ridiculed because of his truly enormous ears and dubbed "Dumbo". Dumbo is relegated to the circus' clown acts; it is up to his only friend, a mouse, to assist Dumbo to achieve his full potential. |
| Eleni | Nick is a writer in New York when he gets posted to a bureau in Greece. He has waited 30 years for this. He wants to know why his mother was killed in the civil war years earlier. In a parallel plot line we see Nick as a young boy and his family as they struggle to survive in the occupied Greek hillside. The plot lines converge as Nick's investigations bring him closer to the answers. |
| Enchanted | A classic Disney fairytale collides with modern-day New York City in a story about a fairytale princess who is sent to our world by an evil queen. Soon after her arrival, Princess Giselle begins to change her views on life and love after meeting a handsome lawyer. Can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world? |
| End of the Spear | End of the Spear" is the story of Mincayani, a Waodani tribesman from the jungles of Ecuador. When five young missionaries, among them Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, are speared to death by the Waodani in 1956, a series of events unfold to change the lives of not only the slain missionaries' families, but also Mincayani and his people. |
| Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | A couple undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories when their relationship turns sour, but it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with. |
| Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed | Ben Stein stars in this satirical documentary which examines the criticisms and hostilities that exist in today's scientific field (both academic and professional) towards peers and journalists who subscribe to or even entertain the perspective of Intelligent Design in science. |
| Eyes Wide Shut | A New York City doctor, who is married to an art curator, pushes himself on a harrowing and dangerous night-long odyssey of sexual and moral discovery after his wife admits that she once almost cheated on him. |
| Family Man | A fast-lane investment broker, offered the opportunity to see how the other half lives, wakes up to find that his sports car and girlfriend have become a mini-van and wife. |
| Fandango | Five college buddies from the University of Texas circa 1971 embark on a final road trip odyssey across the Mexican border before facing up to uncertain futures, in Vietnam and otherwise. |
| Father of the Bride (1950) | A father of a young woman deals with the emotional pain of her getting married, and the financial and organizational pain of arranging her wedding. |
| Father of the Bride (1991) | In this remake of the Spencer Tracy classic, George and Nina Banks are the parents of young soon-to-be-wed Annie. George is a nervous father unready to face the fact that his little girl is now a woman. The preparations for the extravagant wedding provide additional comic moments. |
| Father's Little Dividend | In this sequel to Father of the Bride (1950), newly married Kay Dunstan announces that she and her husband are going to have a baby, leaving her father having to come to grips with the fact that he will soon be a granddad. |
| Fiddle on the Roof | In pre-revolutionary Russia, a poor Jewish peasant must contend with marrying off his three daughters while antisemitic sentiment threatens his home. |
| Field of Dreams | An Iowa corn farmer, hearing voices, interprets them as a command to build a baseball diamond in his fields; he does, and the Chicago Black Sox come. |
| Firefly (TV show - Movie Serenity) | Five hundred years in the future, a renegade crew aboard a small, mobile, spacecraft tries to survive as they travel the unknown parts of the galaxy and evade warring factions as well as authority agents out to get them. |
| Fireproof | Capt. Caleb Holt lives by the old firefighter's adage: Never leave your partner behind. Inside burning buildings, it's his natural instinct. In the cooling embers of his marriage, it's another story. After seven years of marriage, Caleb and Catherine Holt have drifted so far apart that they are ready to move on without each other. Yet as they prepare to enter divorce proceedings, Caleb's dad asks his son to try an experiment: The Love Dare. While hoping The Love Dare has nothing to do with his parents' newfound faith, Caleb commits to the challenge. But can he attempt to love his wife while avoiding God's love for him? Will he be able to demonstrate love over and over again to a person that's no longer receptive to his love? Or is this just another marriage destined to go up in smoke? |
| First Generation | "First Generation" is about an immigrant South Asian family in transition. The story unfolds through the actions of individual members of the Ratanji family. Asha and Ajay are in their early twenties and the cultural differences between them and their parents are reaching a peak. The secret love affair between Asha and Kevin becomes increasingly tense when pressure is exerted on Asha by her mother who wants to marry her off in the traditional manner. The father, on the other hand is more concerned about Asha's education. He has lost all hope in his son Ajay, who has a history of getting in trouble within the family and with the outside world. The father has invested all his trust in Asha until she reveals her secret affair, which leaves him feeling extremely betrayed. He is unable to control his rage. His violence and the constant persuasion by Kevin leaves Asha with no choice but to go her own separate way. Ajay is lost and confused in his enclosed world showing all signs of isolation. A final tragic situation has a humbling effect on the family, which ironically brings them all together...briefly |
| Flags of our Fathers | In 1945, the Marines attack twelve thousand Japaneses protecting the twenty square kilometers of the sacred Iwo Jima island in a very violent battle. When they reach the Mount Suribachi and six soldiers raise their flag on the top, the picture become a symbol in a post Great Depression America. The government brings the three survivors to America to raise funds of war, bringing hope to desolated people, and making the three men heroes of war. However, the traumatized trio has difficulties to deal with the image build by their superiors, sharing the heroism with their mates. |
| Forbidden Planet (New in 2010) | No commentary |
| Forbidden Planet | A starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet's colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has. |
| Forrest Gump | Forrest Gump, while not intelligent, has accidentally been present at many historic moments, but his true love, Jenny, eludes him. |
| Fort Apache | In John Ford's sombre exploration mythologising of American heroes, he slowly reveals the character of Owen Thursday, who sees his new posting to the desolate Fort Apache as a chance to claim the military honour which he believes is rightfully his. Arrogant, obsessed with military form and ultimately self-destructive, Thursday attempts to destroy the Apache chief Cochise after luring him across the border from Mexico, against the advice of his subordinates. |
| Frequency | An accidental cross-time radio link connects father and son across 30 years. The son tries to save his father's life, but then must fix the consequences. |
| Gallipoli | Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I. |
| Gattaca | A genetically inferior man assumes the identity of a superior one in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel. |
| Gettysburg | In 1863, the Northern and Southern forces fight at Gettysburg in the decisive battle of the American Civil War. |
| Ghostbusters | Three unemployed parapsychology professors set up shop as a unique ghost removal service. |
| Glory | Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates. |
| Gods and Generals | Gods and Generals follows the rise and fall of legendary war hero "Stonewall Jackson". The prequel to the 1993 hit Gettysburg. |
| Going My Way | A new priest shows up at the parish of a crusty old priest named Father Fitzgibbon. The new man, Father O'Malley, must ingratiate himself with both the old man and his congregation. There are various ups and downs in their relationship but on the whole, it all seems to be going rather well. Then one night, the church burns to the ground. |
| Goodbye Lenin! | In 1990, to protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma; a young man must keep her from learning that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared. |
| Gran Torino | Disgruntled Korean War vet Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, a young Hmong teenager, who tried to steal Kowalski's prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino. |
| Groundhog Day | A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting "rat" (as he calls it). This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the 'following' day he discovers that it's Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day. |
| Heartbreak Ridge | Clint Eastwood is Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway, career Marine and combat veteran. He is a man whose life has been defined by war. Korea and Vietnam taught him how to survive. He won the Congressional Medal of Honor but found public apathy and military bureaucracy. He is a hard-drinking loner but he's trying to reorganize his life and understand the woman he loves. He is a traditionalist who has to shape up his ragtag troops and he'll get the job done. His integrity is unwavering. His past is Heartbreak Ridge. He is ready for another battlefield and his finest hour. It will come. |
| Henry V | The gritty adaption of William Shakespeare's play about the English King's bloody conquest of France. |
| High Noon | A marshall, personally compelled to face a returning deadly enemy, finds that his own town refuses to help him. |
| Hollywood Shuffle | An actor limited to stereotypical roles because of his ethnicity, dreams of making it big as a highly respected performer. As he makes his rounds, the film takes a satiric look at African American actors in Hollywood. |
| Hoosiers | A coach with a checkered past and a local drunk train a small town high school basketball team to become a top contender for the championship. |
| Hotel Rwanda | The true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda. |
| How Green Was My Valley | This story of a Welsh valley's turn-of-the-century descent from pristine paradise to despoiled coal mining region, is told in flashback form by Huw Morgan, an old man who has decided to leave the valley forever. Huw is the youngest in a family of 6 brothers and 1 sister and the film centers on his struggle toward manhood amid conflicting demands of faith, economics, education and family loyalty in a Wales caught in an irreversible shift from a pastoral to an industrialized society. The story, based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, is accented by an impressive background of Welsh choral music and quaint patterns of speech. |
| I Am David | I Am David is adapted from Anne Holm's internationally acclaimed novel North to Freedom. It is the story of a 12-year-old boy, David, who escapes a Communist concentration camp with little more than a compass, a sealed letter, a loaf of bread, and instructions to carry the letter to Copenhagen, Denmark. David is thrust into the free world for the first time in his young life as he travels across Europe. It is a spiritual voyage of discovery, where David slowly loses his instinctual mistrust of humanity and begins to smile, share, trust and ultimately, love. I Am David addresses the cruelties, politics, and suffering of warfare while celebrating the resilience of youth and the unbreakable spirit of a child. |
| I Am Legend | Years after a plague kills most of humanity and transforms the rest into monsters, the sole survivor in New York City struggles valiantly to find a cure. |
| I Know Where I'm Going | Joan Webster is an ambitious and stubborn middle-class English woman determined to move forward since her childhood. She meets her father in a fancy restaurant to tell him that she will marry the wealthy middle-aged industrial Robert Bellinger in Kiloran island, in Hebricles, Scotland. She travels from Manchester to the island of Mull, where she stays trapped due to the windy weather. While in the island, she meets Torquil McNeil and along the days they fall in love for each other. |
| I Remember Mama | The life of a Norwegian immigrant family in 1910 San Francisco centers around Mama and her detailed, pennywise household budget. We follow the Hansens' small joys, sorrows, and aspirations, with the boisterous antics of Uncle Chris as counterpoint. |
| Idiocracy | Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive. |
| In Harm's Way | A naval officer reprimanded after Pearl Harbor is later promoted to rear admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese. |
| Independence Day | The aliens are coming and their goal is to invade and destroy. Fighting superior technology, Man's best weapon is the will to survive. |
| Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark | The year is 1936. A professor who studies archeology named Inidana Jones is venturing in the jungles in South America searching for a golden statue. Unfortunately, he sets off a deadly trap doing so, miraculously, he escapes. Then, Jones hears from a museum curator named Marcus Brody about a biblical artifact called The Ark of the Covenant, which can hold the key to humanly existence. Jones has to venture to vast places such as Nepal and Egypt to find this artifact. However, he will have to fight his enemy Renee Belloq and a band of Nazis in order to reach it. |
| Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | Famed archaeologist/adventurer Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones is called back into action when he becomes entangled in a Soviet plot to uncover the secret behind mysterious artifacts known as the Crystal Skulls. |
| Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade | When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. suddenly goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, eminent archaeologist Indiana Jones must follow in his father's footsteps and stop the Nazis. |
| Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom | fter arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone. He agrees, and stumbles upon a secret cult plotting a terrible plan in the catacombs of an ancient palace. |
| Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) | A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates. |
| Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) | In San Francisco, a group of people discover the human race is being replaced one by one, with clones devoid of emotion. |
| Iron Man | When wealthy industrialist Tony Stark is forced to build an armored suit after a life-threatening incident, he ultimately decides to use its technology to fight against evil. |
| It's a Wonderful Life | An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would had been like if he never existed. |
| John Adams | A miniseries on the life of John Adams and the first 50 years of the United States. |
| Johnny Belinda | In post-war Cape Breton, a doctor's efforts to tutor a deaf/mute woman are undermined when she is raped, and the resulting pregnancy causes scandal to swirl. |
| Judge Priest | Will Rogers plays the lead roll, that of Judge William "Billy" Priest in a very patriotic (Confederate) southern town. Priest plays a laid-back, widowed judge who helps uphold the law in his toughest court case yet. In the meantime, he plays matchmaker for his young nephew. |
| Juno | A tale told over four seasons, starting in autumn when Juno, a 16-year-old high-school junior in Minnesota, discovers she's pregnant after one event in a chair with her best friend, Bleeker. In the waiting room of an abortion clinic, the quirky and whip-sharp Juno decides to give birth and to place the child with an adoptive couple. She finds one in the PennySaver personals, contacts them, tells her dad and step-mother, and carries on with school. The chosen parents, upscale yuppies (one of whom is cool and laid back, the other meticulous and uptight), meet Juno, sign papers, and the year unfolds. Will Juno's plan work, can she improvise, and what about Bleeker? |
| King of Kings | When the Romans under General Pompey conquer Judea in 63 BC, an era of despair and fear begins for the Jewish people. In the trials and persecutions that the Jews suffer under the Romans and under King Herod, they take hope in the promise that the Messiah someday would come. In the reign of Augustus, when Jesus is born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph, there are some who recognize him as the future king of the Jews. Later, when Jesus reaches adulthood and begins to appear in public, there are many different responses to his message, and there are also those who wish to use him for their own purposes. |
| King's Row | The dark side and hypocrisy of provincial American life is seen through the eyes of five children as they grow to adulthood at the turn-of-the-century. |
| Knute Rockne All American | Lars Rockne and his family, including his four year old son Knute, emigrate to Chicago in 1892 from their native Norway. By his his mid-twenties Knute saves enough to attend obscure Notre Dame University, where he excels in football and chemistry. He and a teammate develop the forward pass as an offensive weapon while working as life guards on summer break and use it to upset heavily favored Army in a historic game. After graduation Rockne becomes a teacher while coaching part time but ultimately abandons academics to devote all his energies to football. During his tenure as head coach at the school, he develops such outstanding players as George Gipp, who dies prematurely from a strep infection, and the Four Horseman while introducing many innovative tactics including the backfield shift. Rockne, known for his staccato motivational speeches, devotes his life to maintaining the integrity of the sport he loves and promoting it as an integral component in the development of the American character. |
| Last of the Mohicans | British and French troops do battle in colonial America, with aid from various native American war parties. The British troops enlist the help of local colonial militia men, who are reluctant to leave their homes undefended. A budding romance between a British officer's daughter and an independent man who was reared as a Mohawk complicates things for the British officer, as the adopted Mohawk pursues his own agenda despite the wrath of different people on both sides of the conflict. |
| Lean on Me | When a school in Paterson, New Jersey, has less-than-average basic skills test scores, it faces the possibility of being taken over by the state. So the mayor asks the school superintendent for help, and he suggests that they appoint the controversial Joe Clark as the school principal. Clark begrudgingly agrees. And when he arrives, he shakes things up by reassigning teachers and calling all of them incompetent. And it isn't long before a lot of people want him out, but at the same time, he gains the respect of some of the teachers and the students. |
| Life Is Beautiful | No commentary |
| Lilies of the Field | An unemployed construction worker (Homer Smith) heading out west stops at a remote farm in the desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of East European Catholic nuns, headed by the strict mother superior (Mother Maria), who believes that Homer has been sent by God to build a much needed church in the desert. |
| Little Women (1949) | Meg, Josephine, Amy and Beth are the little women who, together with their mother, keep the home fires burning while their preacher father serves with the Union army during the Civil War. Meg, the eldest, is a second mother to the troupe while "Jo", the tomboy, takes on the role of man of the house. Amy yearns for the good things in life, and Beth, the youngest and frailest of the four, seeks comfort in gentle music. A simple tale of four young girls coming to womanhood. This is a great summary but, I wanted to mention that Beth is not the youngest March sister - Amy is. The order is Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy. |
| Little Women (1994) | With their father away fighting in the Civil War, Joe, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their squabbles and tragedies. But the bond holds even when, later, men friends start to become a part of the household. |
| Live Free or Die Hard | When someone hacks into the computers at the FBI's Cyber Crime Division; the Director decides to round up all the hackers who could have done this. When he's told that because it's the 4th of July most of their agents are not around so they might have trouble getting people to get the hackers. So he instructs them to get local PD'S to take care of it. And one of the cops they ask is John McClane who is tasked with bringing a hacker named Farrell to the FBI. But as soon as he gets there someone starts shooting at them. McClane manages to get them out but they're still being pursued. And it's just when McClane arrives in Washington that the whole system breaks down and chaos ensues. |
| Man of Marble - aka Czlowiek Z Marmuru | In 1976, a young woman in Krakow is making her diploma film, looking behind the scenes at the life of a 1950s bricklayer, Birkut, who was briefly a proletariat hero, at how that heroism was created, and what became of him. She gets hold of outtakes and censored footage and interviews the man's friends, ex-wife, and the filmmaker who made him a hero. A portrait of Birkut emerges: he believed in the workers' revolution, in building housing for all, and his very virtues were his undoing. Her hard-driving style and the content of the film unnerve her supervisor, who kills the project with the excuse she's over budget. Is there any way she can push the film to completion? |
| Marie Antoinette | The retelling of France's iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette. From her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI at 15 to her reign as queen at 19 and to the end of her reign as queen and ultimately the fall of Versailles. |
| Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World | During the Napoleonic Wars, a brash British captain pushes his ship and crew to their limits in pursuit of a formidable French war vessel around South America. |
| Meet John Doe | A man needing money agrees to impersonate a nonexistent person who said he'd be committing suicide as a protest, and a political movement begins. |
| Meet Me in St. Louis | In the year before the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York. |
| Meet the Robinsons | Lewis is a brilliant inventor who meets mysterious stranger named Wilbur Robinson, whisking Lewis away in a time machine and together they team up to track down Bowler Hat Guy in a showdown that ends with an unexpected twist of fate. |
| Million Dollar Baby | A hardened trainer/manager works with a determined woman in her attempt to establish herself as a boxer. |
| Miracle | Miracle tells the true story of Herb Brooks (Russell), the player-turned-coach who led the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to victory over the seemingly invincible Russian squad. |
| Mr. Deeds Goes to Town | Longfellow Deeds, a simple-hearted Vermont tuba player, inherits a fortune and has to contend with opportunist city slickers. |
| Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down. |
| My Darling Clementine | A Western retelling the tale of the Shoot-out at the OK Corral. |
| My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown | The story of Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy. He learned to paint and write with his only controllable limb - his left foot. |
| Mystic River | With a childhood tragedy that overshadowed their lives, three men are reunited by circumstance when one loses a daughter. |
| National Treasure | en Gates comes from a family of treasure hunters. Now his grandfather believes that the forefathers' buried a treasure somewhere in the country and have placed clues everywhere but unfortunately the clues are highly cryptic and scaterred all over the place. Now Ben thinks he has found it but it only leads him to another clue which is on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Now one of his associates Ian wants to steal it so that they could get the clue but Ben refuses to do it so he tries to kill Ben. But Ben evades him and tries to warn the authorities about Ian's plans but they don't believe him. So Ben takes it upon himself to steal it in order to protect it. And he does but Abigail Chase the curator of the National Archives, where it is kept, discovers what he has done and tries to stop him but gets caught in the crossfire between Ben and Ian, so Ben takes her with him. While she doesdn't believe him, he is determined to prove he is right about the treasure. But it won't be easy cause Ian's always a step behind him and he is being hunted by the FBI. |
| Ninotchka | Only the royal suite at the grandest hotel in Paris has a safe large enough for the jewels of the Grand Duchess Swana. So the three Russians who have come to sell the jewels settle into the suite until a higher ranking official is dispatched to find out what is delaying the sale. She is Ninotchka, a no nonsense woman who fascinates Count Leon who had been the faithful retainer of the Grand Duchess. The Grand Duchess will give up all claim to the jewels if Ninotchka will fly away from the count. But can one count on a count? |
| Nowhere in Africa | A Jewish family in Germany emigrate short before the Second World War. They move to Kenya to start running a farm, but not all members of the family come to an arrangement with their new life. Shortly after their departure, things are changing in Germany very quickly, and a turning back seems impossible. So everyone has to arrange himself with the new life in a new continent. |
| October Sky | In 1950's mining town called Coalwood, Homer Hickam is a kid with only one future in sight, to work in the local coalmine like his father. However in October 1957, everything changes when the first artificial satellite, Sputnik goes into orbit. With that event, Homer becomes inspired to learn how to build rockets. With his friends and the local nerd, Homer sets to do just that by trial and a lot of error. Unfortunately, most of the town and especially Homer's father thinks that they are wasting their time. Only one teacher in the high school understands their efforts and lets them know that they could become contenders in the national science fair with college scholarships being the prize. Now the gang must learn to perfect their craft and overcome the many problems facing them as they shoot for the stars. |
| One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich | Fly-on-the-wall treatment of an ordinary day in the life of a prisoner in Stalin's Gulag. Closely adapted from Solzhenitsyn's classic novel based on his own experiences. Shot entirely on location in northern Norway. |
| Out of Africa | In 20th century colonial Kenya, a Danish baroness/plantation owner has a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair with a free-sprited big-game hunter. |
| Outlaw Josey Wales | Josey Wales is a peaceful farmer in the days near the end of the Civil War. After his home is burned and his family murdered, he hardens into a human bullet - dedicated to destroying the renegades who took his "life." He joins a band of unreconstructed rebel guerilla fighters who continue to fight the Union - even after the official surrender of the Confederacy - an action which makes them, legally, outlaws. Josey is driven by vengeance, but after a while, that's not enough. Back before his own personal Holocaust, he had been a builder - of home, family, farm, and life. And no matter how much ice he's wrapped himself in, down inside there's still the soul of a living man. While Wales exists, he's pulled by this hidden yearning to Live. Each day offers him chances to remember, to assuage his yearning, to begin again. And the movie shows us how Josey Wales - a mere seeker of vengeance - learns to live again, rededicated to the values he chose so long ago. |
| Pale Rider | Clint Eastwood is a mysterious preacher who comes to a gold mining camp near a small town in the mountains. The miners are in grave danger as a ruthless landowner decides to take their land, with the support of the sheriff. The only one who seems brave enough to save them is this preacher who came from nowhere and nobody knows his past or his real name. Why is the sheriff afraid of him? Why is he such a good shooter? Is he really a preacher? |
| Paradise Road (1988) | No commentary |
| Paradise Road (1997) | Fact-based recounting of a group of women who are imprisoned on the island of Sumatra by the Japanese during World War II and used music as a relief to their misery. |
| Patriot Games | Jack Ryan, the hero of Tom Clancy's techno-thriller series, returns in the sequel to _The Hunt for Red October_. Ryan is on vacation in England when he spoils an assassination attempt on an important member of the Royal Family. Ryan gets drawn back into the CIA when the same splinter faction of the IRA targets him and his family. |
| Patton | "Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination. Faults which would, eventually, lead to his being relieved as Occupation Commander of Germany. |
| Penny Serenade | As Julie prepares to leave her husband Roger, she begins to play through a stack of recordings, each of which reminds her of events in their lives together. One of them is the song that was playing when she and Roger first met in a music store. Other songs remind her of their courtship, their marriage, their desire for a child, and the joys and sorrows that they have shared. A flood of memories comes back to her as she ponders their present problems and how they arose. |
| Pursuit of Happiness | Based on a true story about a man named Christopher Gardner. Gardner has invested heavily in a device known as a "Bone Density scanner". He feels like he has made these devices. However, they do not sell as they are marginally better than the current technology at a much higher price. On top of that, one of these does not work. As Gardner tries to figure out on how to fix the faulty one and sell the others, his wife leaves him, he loses his house, his bank account, and credit cards. Forced to live out in the streets with his son, Gardner is now desperate to find a steady job; he takes on a job as a stockbroker, but before he can receive pay, he needs to go through 6 months of training, and to sell his devices. |
| Quigley Down Under | Sharpshooter Matt Quigley is hired from Montana by an Australian rancher paying a very high price. But when Quigley arrives Down Under, all is not as it seems. |
| Quo Vadis (1951) | Returning to Rome after 3 years in the field, General Marcus Vinicius meets Lygia and falls in love with her. She is a Christian and doesn't want to have anything to do with a warrior. Though she grew up Roman, the adopted daughter of a retired general, Lygia is technically a hostage of Rome. Marcus gets Emperor Nero to give her to him for services rendered. Lygia resents this, but somehow falls in love with Marcus anyway. Meanwhile Nero's atrocities get more outrageous. When he burns Rome and blames the Christians, Marcus goes off to save Lygia and her family. Nero captures them and all the Christians, and throws them to the lions. |
| Quo Vadis? (2001) | Marcus Vinicius meets Lygia in Rome and falls in love. But she is Christian and doesn't want anything to do with him. Marcus decides to kidnap her but Ursus, her bodyguard, catches Marcus. After that, Lygia falls in love, but Marcus must go to meet Nero. After the meeting somebody told Marcus that Nero burnt Rome. Marcus decides to go back to Rome and find Lygia. |
| Rambo IV | In this latest Rambo installment, John Rambo has retreated to a simple life in a rural Thai village near the Burmese border, capturing snakes for local entertainers, and transporting roamers in his old PT boat. Following repeated pleas, Rambo helps ferry a group of Christian aid workers into war-torn Burma, where the local Karen villagers are regularly tortured and massacred by Major Tint's sadistic soldiers. The humanitarian mission is going well, until the village is attacked and the missionaries are kidnapped, and Rambo is once again asked to transport - but this time a group of mercenaries, assembled by the missionaries' minister on a deadly rescue mission. This time he doesn't stay behind. |
| Rambo: First Blood Part II | Former Green Beret John Rambo is serving time in a federal prison. When the US military hears of American soldiers missing in action from the Vietnam war possibly still being alive and held captive, Colonel Trautman is authorized to send Rambo in to rescue them. For Rambo, this is what he would do best. If only the pencil-pushers would stop getting in his way. |
| Ran | An elderly lord abdicates to his three sons, and the two corrupt ones turn against him. |
| Red Dawn | t is the mid-1980s. From out of the sky, Soviet & Cuban troops begin landing on the football field of a Colorado high school. In seconds, the paratroops have attacked the school & sent a group of teenagers fleeing into the mountains. Armed only with hunting rifles, pistols & bows and arrows, the teens struggles to survive the bitter winter & Soviet KGB patrols hunting for them. Eventually trouble arises when they kill a group of Soviet soldiers on patrol in the highlands. Soon, they will wage their own guerrilla warfare against the invading Soviet troops....under the banner of 'Woverines'! |
| Repentance | Father Brennan, a tortured priest, is forced to confront the demons of his past when a mysterious wanderer enters his church and forces him into a confession. |
| Requiem for a Dream | Drugs. They consume mind, body and soul. Once you're hooked, you're hooked. Four lives. Four addicts. Four failures. Doing their best to succeed in the world, but failing miserably, four people get hooked on various drugs. Despite their aspirations of greatness, they succumb to their addictions. Watching the addicts spiral out of control, we bear witness to the dirtiest, ugliest portions of the underworld addicts reside in. It is shocking and eye-opening but demands to be seen by both addicts and non-addicts alike. |
| Return of the Jedi | After rescuing Han Solo from the palace of Jabba the Hutt, the Rebels attempt to destroy the Second Death Star, while Luke Skywalker tries to bring his father back to the Light Side of the Force. |
| Rio Grande | Rio Grande takes place after the Civil War when the Union turned their attention towards the Apaches. Union officer Kirby Yorke is in charge of an outpost on the Rio Grande in which he is in charge of training of new recruits one of which is his son whom he hasn't seen in 15 years. He whips him into shape to take on the Apaches but not before his mother shows up to take him out of there.The decision to leave is left up to Trooper Yorke who decides to stay and fight. Through it all Kirby and Kathleen though separated for years fall back into love and decide that it's time to give it another try. But Yorke faces his toughest battle when his unorthodox plan to outwit the elusive Apaches leads to possible court- martial. Locked in a bloody Indian war, he must fight to redeem his honor and save the love and lives of his broken family |
| Rocky IV | When Apollo Creed is killed in a match against a powerful Soviet boxer, Rocky decides to challenge him himself. |
| Rocky | A small time boxer gets a once in a lifetime chance to fight the heavyweight champ in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect. |
| Rudy | Rudy has always been told that he was too small to play college football. But he is determined to overcome the odds and fulfill his dream of playing for Notre Dame. |
| Ruggles of Red Gap | An English valet brought to the American west assimilates into the American way of life. |
| Rules of Engagement | An attorney defends an officer on trial for ordering his troops to fire on civilians after they stormed a U.S. embassy in a third world country. |
| Saint Ralph | Set in Hamilton in 1954, Saint Ralph is the unlikely story of Ralph Walker, a ninth grader who outran everyone's expectations except his own in his bold quest to win the Boston Marathon. Ralph is a fatherless 14-year-old with a seriously ill mother, who knows he's a time bomb waiting to explode into greatness, except that he has no idea where that greatness will manifest itself. An unfortunate incident of self-abuse in the community pool inadvertently sets him on this road when, as penance, Ralph is conscripted to the cross-country team. Desperate to believe a miracle will bring his mother out of a coma, Ralph becomes a convert to the church of running, and determines to win the Boston Marathon. |
| Saving Private Ryan | Following the Normandy Landings, a group of US soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action. |
| Schindler's List | Oskar Schindler uses Jews to start a factory in Poland during the war. He witnesses the horrors endured by the Jews, and starts to save them. |
| Serenity (TV show Firefly) | In the future, when a passenger with a deadly secret. Six rebels on the run. An assassin in pursuit. When the renegade crew of Serenity agrees to hide a fugitive on their ship, they find themselves in an awesome action-packed battle between the relentless military might of a totalitarian regime who will destroy anything - or anyone - to get the girl back and the bloodthirsty creatures who roam the uncharted areas of space. But, the greatest danger of all may be on their ship. From the mind of Joss Whedon, comes a new edge-of-your-seat adventure loaded with explosive battles, gripping special effects and fantastic new worlds. |
| Sergeant York | A hillbilly sharpshooter becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI when he single-handedly attacks and captures a German position using the same strategy as in turkey shoot. |
| Shane | A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smoldering settler/rancher conflict forces him to act. |
| Shattered Glass | The true story of a young journalist who fell from grace when it was found he had fabricated over half of his articles. |
| She Wore a Yellow Ribbon | Captain Nathan Brittles, on the eve of retirement, takes out a last patrol to stop an impending massive Indian attack |
| Shenandoah | Charlie Anderson is a farmer in Shenandoah, Virginia and finds himself (and his family) in the middle of the Civil War. |
| Shiloh | An abused beagle runs away from his owner. On the road, he meets young Marty Preston and follows him home |
| Shindler's List | Oskar Schindler is a vain, glorious and greedy German businessman who becomes unlikely humanitarian amid the barbaric Nazi reign when he feels compelled to turn his factory into a refuge for Jews. Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler who managed to save about 1100 Jews from being gassed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. A testament for the good in all of us. |
| Silent Running | The loner crew member of a spaceship harbouring Earth's last nature reserves goes renegade when he is instructed to jettison his beloved forests and return home. Accompanied only by three robots, he ponders the fate of his last pocket of nature and the murders of his fellow crew members in this far-looking speculative film. |
| Since You Went Away | While husband Tim is away during World War II, Anne Hilton copes with problems on the homefront. Taking in a lodger, Colonel Smollett, to help make ends meet and dealing with shortages and rationing are minor inconveniences compared to the love affair daughter Jane and the Colonel's grandson conduct. |
| Sounder | The Morgans, a loving and strong family of Black sharecroppers in Louisiana in 1933, face a serious family crisis when the husband and father, Nathan Lee Morgan, is convicted of a petty crime and sent to a prison camp. After some weeks or months, the wife and mother, Rebecca Morgan, sends the oldest son, who is about 11 years old, to visit his father at the camp. The trip becomes something of an odyssey for the boy. During the journey he stays a little while with a dedicated Black schoolteacher. |
| Spencer's Mountain | Clay Spencer is a hard-working man who loves his wife and large family. He is respected by his neighbors and always ready to give them a helping hand. Although not a churchgoer, he even helps a newly arrived local minister regain his flock after he and Clay get into a bit of trouble. If he has one dream in life it's to build his wife Olivia a beautiful house on a piece of land he inherited on Spender's mountain. When his eldest son, Clayboy, graduates at the top of his high school class and has the opportunity to go to college, Clay has only one option left to him. |
| Spider Man | When bitten by a genetically modified spider, a nerdy, shy, and awkward high school student gains spider-like abilities that he eventually must use to fight evil as a superhero after tragedy befalls his family. |
| Stand and Deliver | Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students. |
| Stargate | A stargate found in Egypt in the 40's is put into storage until a genius figures out how to operate it. Now, there is a link between earth and an unknown galaxy millions of light years away. Colonel Jonathan "Jack" O'Neil is sent with some men to explore the unkown but there's only one problem: When they reach this earth-like planet, there is no way to re-open the stargate without the right equipment. They must fight off evil and all to get the stargate back into its "locked" position and save the earth from the deadly bomb which is going to be sent through the stargate by the evil leader. |
| Starship Troopers | Humans of a fascistic, militaristic future do battle with giant alien bugs in a fight for survival. |
| State Fair | Farm family Frake, with discontented daughter Margy, head for the Iowa State Fair. On the first day, both Margy and brother Wayne meet attractive new flames; so does father's prize hog, Blue Boy. As the fair proceeds, so do the romances; must lovers separate when the fair closes? |
| Team America: World Police | Popular Broadway actor Gary Johnston is recruited by the elite counter-terrorism organization Team America: World Police. As the world begins to crumble around him, he must battle with terrorists, celebrities and falling in love. |
| Tears of the Sun | Bruce Willis plays a Special-Ops commander who leads his team into the jungle of Nigeria to rescue a doctor played by Monica Belluci who will only go with them if they agree to rescue 70 refugees too. |
| Ten | Ten, the latest film by Iranian master filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, focuses on ten conversations between a female driver in Tehran and the passengers in her car. Her exchanges with her young son, a jilted bride, a prostitute, a women on her way to prayer and others, shed light on the lives and emotions of these women whose voices are seldom heard. |
| Tender Mercies | Alchoholic former country singer Mac Sledge makes friends with a young widow and her son. The friendship enables him to find inspiration to resume his career. |
| Tenko | Three 10x55min series. In the first series, a group of English women in 1941 Singapore are shipwrecked while they try to escape the Japanese invasion. |
| That Hamilton Woman | Sir William Hamilton, a widower of mature years, is British ambassador to the Court of Naples. Emma who comes for a visit with her mother wouldn't cut the grade with London society but she gets along well with the Queen of Naples. Emma likes being Lady Hamilton and life goes smoothly until Lord Nelson pays a visit. Sir William decides at first to let his young wife have her fling and pretends not to know what is going on. But the real life lovers, whose first screen romance was in "Fire Over England" (1937) have an even more burning passion for each other in this film. |
| The Aviator | A biopic depicting the early years of legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes' career, from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s. |
| The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette) | Antonio Ricci, unemployed for over two years, is overjoyed when he's finally given a job putting up posters. There's a catch, though - he needs a bicycle as a requirement of the job, so he pawns the family linen to get a pawned bicycle back. He goes off to his first day's work, truly happy for the first time in years - and the title of the film gives away what happens next. |
| The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | Based on the 2nd in the series of books by 'CS Lewis' , "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," the film tells the story of 4 children who go to live with an old professor during the war. One day, while playing hide and seek, Lucy, the youngest of the children, finds a wardrobe which leads to a magical land called Narnia. However Narnia is being ruled by the evil White Witch who has made it snow for 100 years and according to an old prophecy, Edmund, Lucy, Peter and Susan are the "chosen ones" who will defeat the Witch. They are assisted by the true ruler of Narnia, the lion, Aslan. With the good Narnians on their side all 4 children must now defeat the witch using all their strength and fulfill their destinies to become the new kings and queens of Narnia. |
| The Cowboys | When his cattle drivers abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his drivers in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage, however, neither Andersen nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves is stalking them. |
| The Dark Knight | Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by an anarchist mastermind known only as the Joker, as it drives each of them to their limits. |
| The Deer Hunter | Michael, Steven and Nick are young factory workers from Pennsylvania who enlist into the Army to fight in Vietnam. Before they go, Steven marries the pregnant Angela and their wedding-party is also the men's farewell party. After some time and many horrors the three friends fall in the hands of the Vietcong and are brought to a prison camp in which they are forced to play Russian roulette against each other. Michael makes it possible for them to escape, but they soon get separated again. |
| The Edge | A billionaire and two other men are stranded, unequipped, by a plane crash in a dangerous wilderness. How many will survive to be rescued? |
| The Fountainhead | Individualistic and idealistic architect Howard Roark is expelled from college because his designs fail to fit with existing architectural thinking. He seems unemployable but finally lands a job with like-minded Henry Cameron, however within a few years Cameron drinks himself to death, warning Roark that the same fate awaits unless he compromises his ideals. Roark is determined to retain his artistic integrity at all costs. |
| The Godfather | The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son. |
| The Godfather II | The early life & career of Vito Corleone in 1920's New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate stretching from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to pre-Revolution 1958 Cuba. |
| The Godfather III | In the midst of trying to legitimize his business dealings in 1979 New York and Italy, aging mafia don Michael Corleone seeks to vow for his sins while taking a young protégé under his wing. |
| The Great Escape | The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocates them to a high-security "escape-proof" camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story. |
| The Great Raid | Taking place towards the end of WWII, 500 American Soldiers have been entrapped in a camp for 3 years. Beginning to give up hope they will ever be rescued, a group of Rangers goes on a dangerous mission to try and save them. |
| The Hanoi Hilton | A drama focusing on the suffering, torture, and brutal treatment the American P.O.W.s had to deal with daily while in North Vietnam's Hoa Lo Prison. |
| The Incredibles | A family of undercover superheroes, while trying to live the quiet suburban life, are forced into action to save the world. |
| The Inner Circle | The true story of Ivan Sanchin, the KGB officer who was Stalin's private film projectionist from 1939 until the dictator's death. Told from Sanchin's view, the sympathetic but tragically flawed hero maintains unwavering faith in his "Master" despite the arrest of his neighbors and his involvement with their daughter, his wife's affair with the chilling State Security chief Lavrentii Beria and her tragic decline, and the deadly political machinations within the Kremlin he witnesses firsthand. |
| The Island | A man goes on the run after he discovers that he is actually a "harvested being", and is being kept along with others in a utopian facility. |
| The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | Portrays in warm-hearted detail the life and loves of one extraordinary man. We meet the imposingly rotund General Clive Wynne-Candy, a blustering old duffer who seems the epitome of stuffy, outmoded values. Traveling backwards 40 years we see a different man altogether: the young and dashing officer "Sugar" Candy. Through a series of relationships with three women and his lifelong friendship with a German officer, we see Candy's life unfold and come to understand how difficult it is for him to adapt his sense of military honor to modern notions of "total war." |
| The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) | In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives. |
| The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | The former Fellowship of the Ring prepare for the final battle for Middle Earth, while Frodo & Sam approach Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. |
| The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring | In a small village in the Shire a young Hobbit named Frodo has been entrusted with an ancient Ring. Now he must embark on an Epic quest to the Cracks of Doom in order to destroy it. |
| The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers | Frodo and Sam continue on to Mordor in their mission to destroy the One Ring. Whilst their former companions make new allies and launch an assault on Isengard. |
| The Lords of Flatbush | A group of kids in Brooklyn form a gang. From this moment on they do everything together. This makes things easier but at the same time they have to face new problems. |
| The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance | A senator, who became famous for killing a notorious outlaw, returns for the funeral of an old friend and tells the truth about his deed. |
| The Mission | 18th century Spanish Jesuits try to protect a remote South American Indian tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal. |
| The Next Voice You Hear | "Joe Smith, American" lives in a Los Angeles suburb and works at an aircraft plant. One night Joe hears a voice cut in on a radio program: "This is God. I'll be with you for the next few days." It turns out, everyone in the world listening to any radio heard the same thing. More messages come; some people react positively, others negatively. |
| The Painted Veil | A British medical doctor fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife. |
| The Passion Of The Christ | This film depicts the final hours of Jesus Christ, starting from His prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane and His betrayal at the hands of Judas Iscariot. It goes on to show the trials He endured under Pontius Pilate and King Herod as well as the torture and ridicule He suffered in between. Once the death sentence is pronounced, He carries a heavy wooden cross to Golgotha amidst throngs of jeering citizens and horrendous beatings, while a few citizens do what they can to help Him. Throughout this time, we are shown memories from His past with His mother and Disciples, where He gives His teachings. Finally, He is crucified, dies, and is buried, but resurrects from the dead on the third day. |
| The Patriot | The movie takes place in South Carolina in 1776. Benjamin Martin, a French-Indian war hero who is haunted by his past, is a patriot who wants no part in a war with Britian. Meanwhile, his two eldest sons, Gabriel and Thomas, can't wait to go out and kill some Redcoats. When South Carolina decides to go to war with Britain, Gabriel immediatly signs up to fight...without his father's permission. But soon, Colonel Tavington, British solder infamous for his brutal tactiks, captures Gabriel and sentences him to be hanged. As Gabriel is taken away, Thomas tries to free him, only to be killed by Tavington, in front of Benjamin. Now, seeking revenge for his son's death, Benjamin leaves behind his 5 other children to bring independence to the 13 colonies. |
| The Pianist | A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II. |
| The Postman | Post-apocalyptic America. What begins as a con game becomes one man's quest to rebuild civilization by resuming postal service. |
| The Quiet Man | Sean Thornton has returned from America to reclaim his homestead and escape his past. Sean's eye is caught by Mary Kate Danaher, a beautiful but poor maiden, and younger sister of ill-tempered "Red" Will Danaher. The riotous relationship that forms between Sean and Mary Kate, punctuated by Will's pugnacious attempts to keep them apart, form the main plot, with Sean's past as the dark undercurrent. |
| The Rapture | This is the story of a young woman (who lives in Los Angeles) with a very boring job. At night however, she and a male partner cruise the bars as swingers. After a time, she begins to believe that a conspiracy exists and decides that she must become a born-again Christian. The movie presents an interesting view of how even the most unlikely person might become born-again. |
| The Right Stuff | Tom Wolfe's book on the history of the U.S. Space program reads like a novel, and the film has that same fictional quality. It covers the breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager to the Mercury 7 astronauts, showing that no one had a clue how to run a space program or how to select people to be in it. Thrilling, funny, charming and electrifying all at once. |
| The Song of Bernadette | In 1858 France, Bernadette, an adolescent peasant girl, has a vision of "a beautiful lady" in the city dump. She never claims it to be anything other than this, but the townspeople all assume it to be the virgin Mary. The pompous government officials think she is nuts, and do their best to suppress the girl and her followers, and the church wants nothing to do with the whole matter. But as Bernadette attracts wider and wider attention, the phenomenon overtakes everyone in the the town, and transforms their lives. |
| The Sound of Music | In 1930's Austria, a young woman named Maria is failing miserably in her attempts to become a nun.When the Navy captain Georg Von Trapp writes to the convent asking for a governess that can handle his seven mischevious children,Maria is given the job.The Captain's wife is dead,and he is often away,and runs the household as strictly as he does the ships he sails on.The children are unhappy and resentful of the governesses that their father keeps hiring,and have managed to run each of them off one by one.When Maria arrives,she is initially met with the same hostility,but her kindness,understanding,and sense of fun soon draws them to her and brings some much-needed joy into all their lives--including the Captain's.Eventually he and Maria find themselves falling in love,even though Georg is already engaged to a Baroness and Maria is still a postulant.The romance makes them both start questioning the decisions they have made.Their personal conflicts soon become overshadowed,however,by world events.Austria is about to come under the control of Germany,and the Captain may soon find himself drafted into the German navy and forced to fight against his own country. |
| The Stoning of Soraya | No commentary |
| The Ten Commandments | To escape the edict of Egypt's Pharoah, Rameses I, condemning all first-born Hebrew males, the infant Moses is set adrift on the Nile in a reed basket. Saved by the pharaoh's daughter Bithiah, he is adopted by her and brought up in the court of her brother, Pharaoh Seti. Moses gains Seti's favor and the love of the throne princess Nefertiri, as well as the hatred of Seti's son, Rameses. When his Hebrew heritage is revealed, Moses is cast out of Egypt, and makes his way across the desert where he marries, has a son and is commanded by God to return to Egypt to free the Hebrews from slavery. In Egypt Moses's fiercest enemy proves to be not Rameses, but someone near to him who can 'harden his heart'. |
| The Untouchables | 1920's prohibition Chicago is corrupt from the judges downward. So in going up against Al Capone, Treasury agent Eliot Ness picks just two cops to help him and his accountant colleague. One is a sharp-shooting rookie, the other a seen-it-all beat man. The four of them are ready to battle Capone and his empire, but it could just be that guns are not the best way to get him. |
| The Yearling | After the American Civil War, a rebel soldier and his wife become pioneer farmers in Florida. Their son Jody is 11 years old; he gets along well with his warm and affectionate pa, but his ma is haunted by the death of her other children, so she's somber, even cold. The boy wants a pet: the dad is sympathetic, the mom obdurate. When a rattler bites pa, pa kills a doe to use its organs to draw out the poison. Jody begs to keep the doe's fawn as a pet. The parents agree, and the boy and the deer are soon inseparable. The fawn grows quickly, and as a yearling tramples tobacco shoots and eats the newly-sprouted corn. This is too much for ma, and Jody has to face harsh, adult realities. |
| There Was a Crooked Man | Charm, intelligence and success in criminal career doesn't prevent Paris Pitman Jr. to start doing ten years in territory prison. However, those years should pass quickly because of an enormous loot previously stashed away. New idealistic warden would only make Pitman think of getting his fortyne even sooner. |
| Therese | The life of little St. Therese of Lisieux, depicted in minimalist vignettes. Therese and her sisters are all nuns in a Carmelite convent. Her devotion to Jesus and her concept of "the little way" to God are shown clearly, using plain modern language. A sense of angelic simplicity comes across without fancy lights, choirs, or showy miracles. |
| Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo | In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland. |
| To Kill a Priest | A young priest speaks out against the Communist regime in Poland and is killed for it. |
| To Sir with Love | Idealistic engineer-trainee and his experiences in teaching a group of rambunctious white high school students from the slums of London's East End. |
| Too Hot to Handle | Chris Hunter is a sly newsreel reporter. While in Shanghai doing reports on the Chinese-Japanese war, he meets pilot Alma Harding. At first she doesn't trust him, but by a trick he manages to get her hired as his assistant. During an adventurous expedition through the jungles of South America he manages to change her view of him. |
| Transformers | An ancient struggle re-erupts on Earth between two extraterrestrial clans, the heroic Autobots and the evil Deceptions, with a clue to the ultimate power held by a young teenager. |
| Traveller | A young man, Pat, visits the clan of gypsy-like grifters (Irish Travellers) in rural North Carolina from whom he is descended. |
| True Lies | When a secret agent learns of his wife's extra-marital affair, he pursues her and uses his intelligence resources in a job he kept secret from her. |
| Tsotsi | In Johannesburg, the small time criminal Tsotsi is a teenager without feelings, hardened by his tough life. After killing a man with his gang in a robbery; hitting the gangster Boston of his gang; humiliating a crippled beggar along one night, Tsotsi hijacks a car and under the despair of a woman, he shoots her in the stomach. While driving the car, Tsotsi finds that there is a baby on the back seat and the woman was a desperate mother. He brings the baby to his house in the slum and becomes attached to him. For six days, the baby changes his behavior, arousing and developing the sense of empathy and humanity in the cold blood killer. |
| Uncommon Valor | A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese. Supported his father (a retired military man himself) and a rich businessman whose son was also a POW, the group engages in a dangerous and violent adventure trying to rescue the POWs and at the same time re-direct their lives. |
| Unforgiven | Retired Old West gunslinger William Munny reluctantly takes on one last job, with the help of his old partner and a young man. |
| United 93 | A real time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot. |
| V for Vendetta | A shadowy freedom fighter known only as "V" uses terrorist tactics to fight against his totalitarian society. Upon rescuing a girl from the secret police, he also finds his best chance at having an ally. |
| Viva Villa! | In this fictionalized biography, young Pancho Villa takes to the hills after killing an overseer in revenge for his father's death. |
| WALL-E | In the distant future, a small waste collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind. |
| Wake Island | December, 1941. With no hope of relief or re-supply, a small band of United States Marines try to keep the Japanese Navy from capturing their island base. |
| We Are Marshall | When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach (McConaughey) and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive. |
| We Were Soldiers | The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War and the soldiers on both sides that fought it |
| White Nights | An expatriate Russian dancer is on a plane forced to land on Soviet territory. He is taken to an apartment in which a black American who has married a Russian woman lives with her. He is to become a dancer for the Bolshoi again, but he wishes to escape, but can he trust the American? |
| Yankee Doodle Dandy | A film of the life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan. |
| You Can't Take It with You | The stenographer Alice Sycamore is in love with her boss Tony Kirby, who is the vice-president of the powerful company owned by his greedy father Anthony P. Kirby. Kirby Sr. is dealing a monopoly in the trade of weapons, and needs to buy one last house in a twelve block area owned by Alice's grandparent Martin Vanderhof. However, Martin is the patriarch of an anarchic and eccentric family where the members do not care for money but for having fun and making friends. When Tony proposes Alice, she states that it would be mandatory to introduce her simple and lunatic family to the snobbish Kirbys, and Tone decides to visit Alice with his parents one day before the scheduled. There is an inevitable clash of classes and lifestyles, the Kirbys spurn the Sycamores and Alice breaks with Tony, changing the lives of the Kirby family. |
Thanks for putting this list together! I don’t feel some of the movies on the list would be considered “conservative”, but a good list!
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