1. "A Raisin in the Sun"(1961)
Sidney Poitier became our first prominent black leading man in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement. So, why haven't you seen any of his movies? The struggles of his downtrodden family to achieve the American Dream makes "Sun" as relevant and relatable today as it was in '61.
2. "The Days of Wine and Roses"(1962)
Director Blake Edwards made a better movie than "Breakfast at Tiffany's", and it came out the following year. Jack Lemmon was often a joy to watch, and that's never been truer than in this grueling drama about the heavy tolls of alcoholism. Lee Remick is his partner in pain.
3. "Mutiny on the Bounty"(1962)
Marlon Brando was still standing tall as the seafaring captain of this handsome epic that gets unfairly lumped in with his 1960s failures. A closer inspection reveals a compelling conflict aboard the HMAV Bounty. This expensive "Mutiny" did lose money, but everyone forgets it got seven Academy Award nominations.
4. "Charade"(1963)
Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn avoid bad guys in Paris, which includes Walter Matthua(in his first major role), James Coburn, and George Kennedy. It doesn't have to make sense. This is a breezy showcase for two great movie stars.
5. "The Sand Pebbles"(1966)
Speaking of movie stars, Steve McQueen fit the criteria, and I prefer his three-hour stint in the U.S. Navy in 1920s China over "Bullitt". Director Robert Wise("The Sound of Music") knew his way around a large, lengthy production, and Richard Attenborough(pictured here on the right) had to have been taking notes.
6. "Barefoot in the Park"(1967)
Jane Fonda and Robert Redford were both on the verge of superstardom in this amiable May/December romance from celebrated screenwriter Neil Simon. They just don't make clean-cut comedy like this anymore. You have to dive into the archives for this sort of thing.
7. "Rachel, Rachel"(1968)
Paul Newman's five-film stint as a director is a little-known movie factoid. His finest job behind the camera was for his real-life wife Joanne Woodward as a timid woman that comes to loathe her drab small-town existence. Her often-futile efforts to change should speak to more than one plain-Jane.
8. "Anne of a Thousand Days"(1969)
Richard Burton barnstorms around this regal costume drama as King Henry VIII. French-Canadian cutie Genevieve Bujold should have found greater fame with her fiery portrayal of his scorned second wife Anne Boleyn(mother of Elizabeth I). "Days" rewarded my patience after a slow start. Ignore that 42% on RT.
9. "The Candidate"(1972)
A prime Robert Redford is a Democratic candidate for a California Senate seat that doesn't know what to do if he gets elected. Sound familiar? The inherent hypocrisies at the heart of big-time politics are deftly explored by an Oscar-winning screenplay in Michael Ritchie's never-more relevant satire.
10. "Hard Times"(1975)
Charles Bronson, cinema's most underrated tough guy, kicks ass as a 1930s bare-knuckle boxer in this hyper-masculine drama that gave Walter Hill("48 Hrs.") a directing career. You won't have a hard time watching this.
11. "The Elephant Man"(1980)
David Lynch's most straightforward and accessible film may also be his best. The late John Hurt is strangely moving under heavy prosthetic make-up as our severely deformed protagonist John Merrick. A pre-Hannibal Anthony Hopkins is the kindly doctor looking after him in 19th Century London.
12. "Mommie Dearest"(1981)
Guardians of Joan Crawford's legacy(Roger Ebert, I'm looking at you) saw fit to sully Faye Dunaway's, with scathing reviews that would have you believing this was one of the decade's worst films. Time has been much kinder to Faye's ferocious take on the erratic Oscar winner, as evidenced by it's long life on basic cable. Just try looking away when those wire hangers come into play.
13. "The Thing"(1982)
This dark sci-fi thriller is the most satisfying of Kurt Russell and John Carpenter's four collaborations(sorry, Snake). Audiences chose "E.T." in the summer of '82, but "The Thing" has picked up plenty of supporters in the thirty-five years since.
14. "Into the Night"(1985)
Michelle Pfeiffer(one year after her eye-catching role in "Scarface") proved she was definitely here to stay as an ex-model-turned-jewel thief that shows Jeff Goldblum's sad-sack insomniac the time of his life. Their midnight misadventures are absurd. It doesn't matter. John Landis' zany comic thriller is worth losing two hours of sleep.
15. "Come and See"(1985)
I normally consider the championing of foreign films to be the height of snobbery and pretentiousness. However, an exception must be made in the case of this powerful and brutal Russian WWII drama. Adventurous viewers are spared little as the Nazis set out to torch 628 villages in 1943. This should be mandatory junior high school viewing.
16. "Ironweed"(1987)
Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep were both nominated for playing a Depression-era couple in this somber, low-key drama that nobody on Earth remembers. Funny how that happens.
17. "Bird"(1988)
Forest Whitaker shines in his first starring role as fallen 1950s jazz great Charlie Parker, while director Clint Eastwood proves to be a much deeper, more diverse filmmaker than anyone could have predicted when he debuted behind the camera for 1971's "Play Misty For Me".
18. "Great Balls of Fire"(1989)
Dennis Quaid lights up this rocking biopic of another controversial music legend, 'The Killer' Jerry Lee Lewis. The manic piano man married his 13 year old first cousin(Winona Ryder) at his peak in the late '50s. Even that wasn't enough to steal viewers away from Tim Burton's "Batman".
19. "Joe Versus the Volcano"(1990)
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan worked extremely well together(until "Ithaca", that is). This quirky comic romance set the stage for "Sleepless in Seattle" and is better than you might remember if you ever saw it to begin with.
20. "Alien 3"(1992)
I think it's time we stopped hating on this much-maligned threequel. A bald Sigourney Weaver is pretty bad-ass, David Fincher turned out alright and tonally, "3" is closer to the spirit of Ridley Scott's original with it's 'haunted house in space' motif than James Cameron's '80s era gun-blazing. Now, as for "Alien: Resurrection"...
21. "Secrets & Lies"(1996)
The indie film movement was fully underway with Mike Leigh's moving family drama. Give your lame Netflix TV shows a break this week and enjoy the performances of Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
22. "A Simple Plan"(1998)
Bill Paxton(get used to the name) and Best Supporting Actor nominee Billy Bob Thornton are middle-aged brothers in rural Minnesota that stumble upon an airline crash and $4 million in cash. Will their lives be irreparably altered by greed? Sam Raimi's snow-covered morality tale held my interest till it's tragic conclusion.
23. "Eyes Wide Shut"(1999)
Stanley Kubrick's haunting farewell is aging surprisingly well, which may have been the plan all along. Tom and Nicole's marriage was doomed the moment they submitted to a legendary perfectionist out to expose the futility of monogamy and the myth of marital bliss. My eyes were wide open.
24. "Man on the Moon"(1999)
Jim Carrey impresses as oddball comic Andy Kaufman whose early '80s antics were largely misunderstood by a confused public. I can imagine Carrey having a very different career in an alternate reality where "Moon" was successful. Director Milos Forman("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Amadeus") should have worked a helluva lot more.
25. "The Contender"(2000)
In these politically-charged times, dumbfounded Democrats can take comfort in Jeff Bridges' American President. The first female VP(Joan Allen) is under intense scrutiny from Gary Oldman's Republican villain in writer-director Rod Lurie's engaging, well-acted drama.
26. "Frailty"(2001)
First-time director Bill Paxton shows as much skill behind the camera as he did in front of it in this tense, underappreciated chiller. If it wasn't for 9/11, I think more people would have been down to watch Bill kill sinners with an axe in the name of God.
27. "In the Bedroom"(2001)
Respected character actor Tom Wilkinson made the most of a rare but well-deserved starring role in this stark drama about an aging, anguished father dealing with the shocking murder of his son(Nick Stahl). Can revenge ease the pain? Sissy Spacek and Marisa Tomei aid director Todd Field in his tremendous film debut.
28. "Unfaithful"(2002)
A 37 year old Diane Lane landed the best role of her career(better late than never) in "Fatal Attraction" director Adrian Lyne's sexy conversation starter. She cheats on Richard Gere for no particular reason. This is why I'm not married.
29. "The Rookie"(2002)
A resurgent Dennis Quaid came out of his '90s slump as a small-town baseball coach that realized his dream of pitching in the major leagues at age 35. You're not too old to do something great, and speaking of feel-good Disney sports films...
30. "The Greatest Game Ever Played"(2005)
Shia Labeouf was still sane when he played 1913 U.S. Open winner Frances Ouimet. Bill Paxton directed this pleasingly old-fashioned story that you can gather the whole family in front of on a Saturday night. We need more of those.
31. "Little Children"(2006)
Kate Winslet commits adultery in Todd Field's sordid slice of suburbia. That would normally be enough to pique my interest, but Jackie Earl Haley's sympathetic child molester is why "Children" lingers in the memory, and is the standout of an ensemble that includes Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Wilson.
32. "A Mighty Heart"(2007)
If Angelina Jolie had spent as much time displaying her undeniable acting skills as she did giving the tabloids something to talk about, she'd be one of the great actresses. Instead, I have to remind my readers of her affecting turn as the wife of slain journalist David Pearl.
33. "The Hunger"(2008)
Michael Fassbender starves to death in Steve McQueen's grim account of the 1981 Irish hunger strike. "The Hunger" could have been an '08 Oscar contender if it hadn't been denied a wide release in the U.S. At least we made it up to the dynamic duo with "12 Years a Slave".
34. "Doubt"(2008)
Meryl Streep leaves little doubt that she's one of the finest actresses to ever step foot on a film set in this sobering indictment of the Catholic Church circa 1964. Philip Seymour Hoffman(R.I.P.) may not have been missed in that Brooklyn parish, but his classy presence is surely missed on movie screens. Amy Adams and Voila Davis only add to the prestige factor.
35. "Frost/Nixon"(2008)
Director Ron Howard brings his trademark reliability to this diverting fact-based drama. Millennials might not have known that Richard Nixon had a series of tense televised interviews in 1977. They do now, and Frank Langella turns in a career-best performance as our disgraced 37th President.
36. "The Conspirator"(2010)
Director Robert Redford looks into the Lincoln assassination and reveals that an innocent woman(Robin Wright) was hanged for her loose connection to John Wilkes Booth. James McAvoy stars in this stagy but arresting historical document.
37. "Warrior"(2011)
The explosion of mixed martial arts has been one of the biggest sports stories of the early 21st Century. Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton left it all on the mat as battling brothers, while Nick Nolte offers his colorfully crusty support. To my knowledge, MMA has one good movie(so far), and "Warrior" is it.
38. "J. Edgar"(2011)
How did a Clint Eastwood-Leonardo DiCaprio collaboration NOT result in multiple Academy Award nominations? I'm not saying that this is either man's best work, but the rise of the FBI's intensely-focused founder is infinitely more interesting than at least half the films that crowd your local multiplex.
39. "Sessions"(2012)
This indie triumph never found a large audience, and I'd like to change that. I sure could have used a sex surrogate at one point in my life, and I'm not even paralyzed. The plight of poet Mark O'Brien is quietly affecting, and Helen Hunt is better here than in her Best Actress Oscar-winning role in 1997's "As Good As It Gets".
40. "Flight"(2012)
Denzel Washington delivers one of his best performances as a boozy pilot, and that's really saying something. Director Robert Zemeckis("Forrest Gump") displays his technical mastery in a plane crash that rivals "Cast Away". What follows is a tough story about addiction that makes a strong argument in favor of clean living.
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