Delicately constructed and deliberately leisurely, TOKYO STORY allows its dramatic content and thematic concerns to envelop an audience the way social mores envelop the films' characters.

The Godfather is a generational saga; it's also an action film; but above all, it catches the imagination of audiences because it suggests that the career of a gangster is not so very different from the career of a businessman or a politician.

It is the epitome of filmmaking, a masterpiece for which Welles, one of the greatest practitioners of the cinematic art, will be forever remembered.

A superb example of suspense filmmaking, especially when one considers the technical limitations of its single set.

This is a gorgeous, fascinating account of the interplay between the personal and the social, directed with the kind of insight that only an aristocrat turned Marxist like Visconti could afford. (Review of Original Release)

More an icon than a work of art, CASABLANCA is still thoroughly entertaining romantic melodrama, flawlessly directed, subtly played, lovingly evoking our collective daydreams about lost chances and lost loves and love versus honor; everything about CASABLANCA is just right--it seems to have been filmed under a lucky star.

One of Bertolucci's best films, The Conformist makes a provocative connection between repressed sexual desires and fascist politics. It's an intriguing, elegantly photographed study of the twisted Italian character of the 1930s. (Review of Original Release)

This brilliant Hitchcock offering combines romance, suspense, and international intrigue with unforgettable performances from Grant and Bergman.

VERTIGO is also a masterpiece of filmmaking which includes one of the most important technical discoveries since the dawn of cinema--the dolly-out, zoom-in shot, which visually represents the dizzying sensation of vertigo. The result is a shot unique to Hitchcock, unlike any other before in film, one which will always bear his stamp.

Captures the sleazy allure of Manhattan like no other film.

The results are quite frightening and far superior to the lengthy gloom and doom that fill many earlier Bergman films. A magical movie, Fanny and Alexander is likely to be the achievement for which Bergman will be most remembered. (Review of Original Release)

Very likely the greatest musical MGM or anyone else ever produced, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN has everything--great songs, great dances, a wonderful, nostalgic story, and a dependable cast, although we're beginning to find Kelly and O'Connor a trifle overanimated in scenes they needn't be (butthen whenever we see the talented yet obsequious Mr. Kelly play modest, we get a strange olfactory sensation--that of ham baking)

This nightmarish descent into dark entertainment has so much weirdness going on it's amazing.

One of the cinema's greatest and most durable masterpieces.

One of cinema's most monumental achievements, Renoir's RULES OF THE GAME passionately tackles the pre-WWII French class system, and succeeds in bringing forth the complexities and frailties underlying bourgeois civility.

This was Disney's second full-length animated feature and it may well the greatest of the studio's cartoon classics.

Much imitated, still unsurpassed. By critical consensus one of the best movies ever made, The Seven Samurai covers so much emotional, historical, and cinematic ground that that it demands to be viewed over and over again.

An extraordinarily well-made film about anachronistic outlaws in the early 20th century, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch feels like it should have been the final western.

This great film, made with uncompromising honesty and devastating reality, is, according to Jean-Luc Godard, "the world in an hour and a half."

This is one of Hitchcock's finest British films, a classic mystery that manages to combine humor with a genuine sense of menace--not to mention the kinds of characters that everyone dreams of meeting on a Central European train journey.

Arguably John Huston's greatest film, this powerful study of masculinity under pressure retains its power.

Del Toro's film ranks with the best examinations of children's inner lives, but be warned: Its haunting insights are best left to adults.

SOME LIKE IT HOT expands a one-joke premise with hysterical results, due in no small part to the contributions of the near-perfect ensemble, with each of the major characters shining like a perfect jewel. Lemmon and Curtis are marvelous as the men-turned-women, creating believable characters and generally eschewing the lower forms of camp.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST has everything--thrills, suspense, mystery, and black humor, as well as dark undertones of sexual exploitation and covert political machination.

One of the most brilliantly constructed films of all time, RASHOMON is a monument to Akira Kurosawa's greatness, combining his well-known humanism with an experimental narrative style that has become a hallmark of film history.

THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC is one of the all-time masterpieces of pure cinema, not only for its unparalleled use of camera movement, composition, and editing, but for its transcendent spirituality and intense emotional impact.

ALL ABOUT EVE is the consummate backstage story, a film that holds a magnifying glass up to theatrical environs and exposes all the egos, tempers, conspiracies and backstage back-biting that make up the world of make-believe on Broadway.

What ultimately saves the film from both silliness and ponderousness is not its simplistic social message, not its now-stale theme, nor its disappointing characterizations, but rather the dazzling cinematic (and theatrical) bag of tricks which Lang and company employed to keep things moving.

Francois Truffaut's greatest achievement, Jules and Jim is a shrine to lovers who have known obsession and been destroyed by it.

A rich cinematic experience, this uplifting British production will leave you in awe of the extraordinary Christy Brown.

Beautiful, haunting, poetic, and intensely personal, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is a unique, terrifying masterpiece.

Stands separate from the rest, in a pantheon, a true cinematic masterwork of sight, sound, intelligence, and most importantly--passion.

To quote Olivia de Havilland, "Everytime I see it, I find something fresh, some shade of meaning I hadn't noticed before."

A gripping, beautifully structured picture and a tour de force from British director Carol Reed...It's hard to choose just one scene to sum up this poetic thriller, but the legendary scene on the ferris wheel may best represent its perfect blend of great writing, acting, and directing. The fadeout, too, is unforgettable.

The film is a model of barely controlled hysteria in which the absurdity of hypermasculine Cold War posturing becomes devastatingly funny--and at the same time nightmarishly frightening in its accuracy.

Manages to inject more than a little humor into this tension-filled genre classic.

It's got a jet black sense of humor that becomes increasingly apparent upon repeated viewings and there's no doubt that it is masterful filmmaking. Hitchcock himself approached it almost as a technical joke...The film is a textbook example of audience manipulation, as Hitchcock shifts our identification from character to character with the alacrity of a magician.

The film is bold stroke that hopes to push Romanian society forward by staring into the dismal failures of its recent past.

Only a spirited and extravagant production could do justice to the Robin Hood legend; this film is more than equal to the task. Korngold's score won a well-deserved Oscar, as did the editing and art direction.

A vibrant, cinematically radical, and extremely accomplished work which went on to become one of the most celebrated movies ever made.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE features some of the finest ensemble acting ever offered on the screen, speaking some Williams's most vivid dialogue. Kazan's direction, however, sometimes verges on the pedestrian, as though he's struggling to recreate his Broadway staging in a much more visually demanding medium.

A stunning directorial debut from screenwriter John Huston.

In a series of touching and telling vignettes, American Graffiti follows a memorable crew of small-town teenagers through one momentous night in 1962. Based on George Lucas' own teenage hot-rodding days in Modesto, California, the appeal of American Graffiti is in its fragmentary scenes; the nervous camera jumps from character to character to present a powerful collage of American youth on the brink of maturity and the complex experiences of the coming decade.

A masterpiece of visual story-telling.

It's a startlingly avant-garde cross-examination of modern life, as well as a lesson in the power of filmmaking and an autopsy of its methods.

Serenely stunning.

Clever, fast-moving and unobtrusively self-conscious.

Brilliantly conceived, imaginatively structured, superbly written, stylishly composed and photographed, and very often wryly funny, Killer of Sheep lives up to its official designation as a national treasure.

This may be the best romantic comedy ever made. The great Ernst Lubitsch handles his "small" theme brilliantly, bringing the lives of everyday people to the screen as he had never done before.

What Stravinsky's "La Sacre du Printemps" is to 20th-century music or Joyce's Ulysses is to the 20th-century novel, Godard's first feature, BREATHLESS, is to film.

What makes the movie's power creditable is Pontecorvo's ability to present combatants on both sides as multidimensional, nonheroic human beings, even though it's obvious where the director's own sentiments lie. (Review of original release)

Refreshing, innovative and immensely funny.

Sprawling over two and one-half hours and never flagging, it successfully introduces and exposes 24 different characters, brilliantly critiquing the country music industry as a microcosm of American society.

There have been many classic westerns but this Hawks masterpiece certainly ranks among the best of the genre.

Truly frightening because so much of it is so plausible, ROSEMARY'S BABY is one of the finest examples of modern horror, a milestone in the evolution of the genre. Although the subject matter is ultimately supernatural, the treatment is very realistic.

With such a stellar cast, a fine director working in the type of picture he did best, and some genuinely witty dialogue, this film has all the ingredients for a great comedy. And it is great, though there have been many funnier comedies. The film has an unfortunate tendency to take itself too seriously for long stretches.

Perhaps Kenji Mizoguchi's greatest achievement, SANSHO THE BAILIFF is a visually mesmerizing picture that pays great and careful attention to the smallest details of nature and environment, highlighted by Mizoguchi's use of the long take and deep-focus shots.

A clever, ingeniously animated film filled with many shining moments.

Ford's visualization of Steinbeck's novel is so emotionally gripping that viewers have little time to collect themselves from one powerful scene to the next.

This is animation as it had never before been experienced. Disney wisely realized the film could only work if it was full of believable characters, and each personality is distinct, from the purity of Snow White to the absolute evil of the queen. This film classic also features some unforgettable songs, including "Whistle While You Work," "Heigh Ho" and "Some Day My Prince Will Come.

Deliberately theatrical but nevertheless greatly indebted to French poetic realism, Children of Paradise is lovingly handled by director Carne. The entire film is crammed with incident and an intoxicating eye for detail.

Mean Streets is a brilliantly made film--terrifically acted, sharply photographed and crisply edited.

Chic, sly little masterpiece of comic seduction.

Mel Brooks's first and funniest, a spoof of Broadway theater that has earned a deservedly devoted cult following.

The most ambitious animated feature ever to come out of the Disney studios, Fantasia integrates famous works of classical music with wildly uneven but extraordinarily imaginative visuals that run the gamut from dancing hippos to the purely abstract. It's like a feature-length compilation of elaborate Silly Symphonies

Beauty And The Beast is a nostalgic feast, drawing shamelessly on the best traditions of screen animation and American musical theater and film. Thoroughly derivative but thoroughly charming.

One of the seminal achievements of Hollywood cinema, this brilliant sequel to the original Frankenstein is one of the greatest films of its genre and remains a lasting tribute to the unique genius of director Whale.

A film which more than gets by on its directorial style, unforgettable imagery, and striking music alone, DON'T LOOK NOW also manages to be a haunting meditation on fear, death and the beyond.

My Fair Lady, for all its kudos, often seems bloodless and never achieves the heights of the production that ran on the Mark Hellinger Theater stage eight times each week from 1956 through 1962.

If the 1960s political thrust of the movie is somewhat blunted by the passage of time, the historical, even archival, import of Wadleigh's accomplishment is all the more striking. This is a documentary in the purest sense of that word, in that it "documents" a social and cultural benchmark, the coming together of more than 400,000 young people in the meadows of a dairy farm in upstate New York for what was billed as "three days of peace and music"--but turned out to be much more. [Director's Cut]

Courtroom histrionics given sizzle and sex by Otto Preminger and Duke Ellington's jazz.

Without its commitment to an idea of salvation, Pulp Fiction would be little more than a terrific parlor trick; with it, it's something far richer and more haunting.

Both a starkly realistic and a carefully stylized masterpiece of murder.

An undisputed masterpiece, and that rarest of films that achieves absolute perfection in every area.

After nearly three hours Fellini's relentlessly enigmatic, non-committal approach leaves you wishing for something more than poignant imagery and moody, self-obsessed characters. (Review of original release)

Director Steven Spielberg has achieved something close to the impossible--a morally serious, aesthetically stunning historical epic that is nonetheless readily accessible to a mass audience.

It can hardly be called a children's film, but a masterpiece of feature-film animation for all ages.

The movie is certainly above average, thanks to the performances by Stewart and Wayne, but Marvin is so flamboyant a badman that he is simply a caricature, even more so than in his outlandish Oscar-winning turn in Cat Ballou.

A deeply emotional experience that is also a grand entertainment, The Searchers is a true American masterpiece.

An undeniably brilliant, nightmarish portrait of one man's personal hell.

Builds so gradually you probably won't realize it's a near-masterpiece until it's over, but there are hints along the way.

But it is Angela Lansbury's incestuous, power-mad mother who makes your blood run cold. This was the peak of the first part of her career, which depended upon these hardbitten kind of characters. Forget Hitchcock--here's the monster mother of all time.

It's not a brisk 201 minutes but it is engrossing and rewarding, a painstakingly realistic account (oozing verisimiltude out of every frame, and there are a lot of frames) of three days in the life of the female protagonist of the title, portrayed by Delphine Seyrig.

Based on Akiyuki Nosaka's semi-autobiographical novel, Takahata's alternately sweeping and intimate animated feature is a moving depiction of the fates of cast-off children who become casualties of war.

The film satisfies on both visceral and emotional levels.

Probably the director's most ambitious film, The Wild Child spins a modern myth with resonances for parents and children, teachers and students, and even filmmakers, actors and audiences.

By common consensus, Stop Making Sense is the best concert film ever made.

The sly Hitchcock made this chiller all the more frightening by having his crafty homicidal maniac intrude into the tranquility of a warm, middle-class family living in a small town, deeply developing his characters and drawing from the soft-spoken Joseph Cotten one of the actor's most remarkable and fascinating performances.

This is easily Payne's funniest film to date, yet the comedy never undercuts the difficult emotions with which the characters are dealing.

Minnelli proves his eye for detail and captures the era and its values in richly colored, gentle images, displaying a startling balance of emotions from scene to scene, song to song.

No other motion picture about Hollywood comes near Billy Wilder's searing, uncompromising and utterly fascinating portrait of the film community.

The Apartment captured one of the singular images of early '60s America; the immense office (designed by Alexander Trauner) in which the human workers, seated behind endless, perfectly aligned rows of identical desks, appear completely subordinate to the dehumanizing mechanisms of conformity and efficiency.

An arresting, superbly produced and downbeat Western photographed in stark black and white, The Gunfighter presents an unglorified view of the Old West as a grim, dirty and decidedly desperate place.

Director Malick endows this simple, timeless story with the enormous scope and resonance of myth through a clear vision unclouded by sentimentality and by a deft juxtaposition of image, music, and character.

Although the film downplays the comic aspects of the Falstaff-Hal relationship, the two lead performances are splendid, with Baxter alternately playful, cunning, icy, and commanding and Welles giving the performance of his career in a part he deeply understands.

Despite its length, the film only starts feeling as long at the end -- or, more correctly, ends. Serious fans of the novels will be prepared for the serial codicils, but the uninitiated are likely to think the film is over several times before it actually is.

Director Malick neither romanticizes nor condemns his subjects, maintaining a low-key approach to the story that results in a fascinating character study.

This tough, brilliant crime film features Hackman as the indefatigable Popeye Doyle, who passionately hates drug pushers.