greatest-ever-made's - Favourites List

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An ex-con, a corrupt cop, a reformed alcoholic, a wrestler, a sharpshooter and a pair of inside men: these seven men intent on executing the perfect robbery and taking a racetrack for two million dollars. But this is the world of film noir, a tough, sour place where nothing quite goes as planned...

For his third feature Stanley Kubrick adapted Lionel White's 'Clean Break' with a little help from hard-boiled specialist Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me), and in doing so created a heist movie classic, one to rank alongside John Huston's 'The Asphalt Jungle' and Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs'. The robbery itself is one of cinema's great set-pieces, as taut a piece of filmmaking as you'll ever find, expertly controlled by Kubrick, who called 'The Killing' his first mature work . Starring Sterling Hayden, perennial fall guy Elisha Cook Jr. and Marie Windsor as his duplicitous wife, 'The Killing' is quintessential film noir, still as brutal, thrilling and audacious as it was almost six decades ago.

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Chicago Morning Post editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant) is about to lose his ace reporter and former wife Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) to Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy).

Then a late breaking story involving the impending execution of an anarchist who escapes and is hidden from the police by the former husband and wife throws the pair together once again.

The acclaimed Silent-Era classic "A Woman of Paris" is Chaplin's first drama (a genre he visited again in Limelight). Directing with keen-eyed finesse and appearing in only a bit role, Chaplin jabs at French high society while telling a tale of tragic love. The early Chaplin. The later Chaplin.

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Labour and management at the sleeptite Pajama Factory aren't sleeping much lately: a proposed 7 1/2 cent hourly wage increase is why - and a strike may result.

But negotiations here involve snappy stars, terrific tunes and dynamic dances as Doris Day, John Raitt and a Broadway-seasoned cast play The Pajama Game.

Jennifer Jones plays Hazel Woods, a beautiful young English Gypsy girl who loves animals and in particular her pet fox. She is hotly desired by Jack Reddin (David Farrar) a fox-hunting squire who vies for her affection and pursues her even after her marriage to the local pastor.

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'The End of Summer', the penultimate film by Yasujiro Ozu, examines the difficulties faced by the Kohayagawa family as they struggle to adapt their traditional values to a rapidly changing post-war Japan.

As the family's generations-old sake making business begins to fail in the face of increasingly fierce competition, Manbei, the incorrigible elderly patriarch, rekindles an affair with an old flame, much to the disapproval of his daughter Fumiko. He is further distracted by his attempts to marry off his two other daughters: Akiko, the eldest and a widow with a small son, and Noriko, the youngest who is still single.

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Yasujiro Ozu's hugely influential award-winning masterpiece, 'Late Spring', is a tender meditation on family politics, sacrifice and the status quo.

Noriko (Setsuko Hara) and her father, Professor Somiya (Chishu Ryu), live together in perfect harmony but old certainties are put at risk when an interfering aunt raises the question of marriage. Introducing Ozu's popular Noriko character, 'Late Spring' poignantly examines the gradual compromise between modernity and tradition.

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It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) is returning to a loveless marriage; Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March) is a stranger to a family that's grown up without him; and young sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) is tormented by the loss of his hands. Can these three men find the courage to rebuild their world? Or are the best years of their lives a thing of the past?

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Man-with-a-past James Stewart guides a band of pioneers from Missouri over the Oregon Trail to a new life in the Columbia River Basin in the western adventure directed by Anthony Mann.

When the settlers are cheated out of their supplies and cattle, Stewart crosses rivers, climbs mountains and out-guns greedy hijackers to ensure their survival through the first winter. Along the way, his is double-crossed by ally Arthur Kennedy and assisted by handsome San Francisco gambler Rock Hudson and beautiful farmer's daughter Julia Adams. Veteran entertainer Stepin' Fetchit is featured as the riverboat cabin boy.

A treasure trove of fun awaits when a Caribbean beauty (Judy Garland) with a mad crush on a legendary pirate meets a vagabond actor (Gene Kelly) who poses as the scoundrel. Vincente Minnelli directs, bringing his uncanny skill with color and design to this joyous romp set to Cole Porter tunes.

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Tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) half-jokingly muses about killing his wife with a stranger he meets on a train, unhinged playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), who'd prefer his father be deceased. In theory, each could murder the other's victim. Crisscross. No motive. No clues. No problem...

except: Bruno takes the idea seriously, with deadly consequences.

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Joel (Jim Carrey) is stunned to discover that his girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has had their tumultuous relationship erased from her mind. Out of desperation, he contacts the inventor of the process, Dr Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), to get the same treatment.

But as his memories of Clementine begin to fade, Joel suddenly realizes how much he still loves her.

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Experience Orson Welles' timeless masterpiece, 'Touch of Evil', complete and uncut with restored footage for the first time ever! This exceptional film noir portrait of corruption and morally-compromised obsessions stars Welles as Hank Quinlan, a crooked police chief who frames a Mexican youth as

part of an intricate criminal plot. Charlton Heston plays an honorable Mexican narcotics investigator who clashes with the bigoted Quinlan after probing into his dark past. A memorable supporting cast including Janet Leigh as Heston's inquisitive wife, Akim Tamiroff as a seedy underworld leader, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Marlene Dietrich as an enigmatic gypsy complete this fascinating drama engulfed in haunting cinematography and a magnificently eerie score by Henry Mancini.

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Mr and Mrs Arpel live in a remarkably modern house in a bland, clean neighbourhood. In this excessively controlled universe there is no room for play, chance or humour, and their son Gerard is bored.

However the calm is broken with the sudden eruption of his eccentric misfit uncle, Monsieur Hulot, Madame Arpel's brother. His family and entourage resent his whimsicality, especially as he becomes a role model for Gerard...

Featurete is a surreal, comic vision of modern life in which the director's much-loved character, Monsieur Hulot - accompanied by a cast of tourists and well-heeled Parisians - turns unintentional anarchist when set loose in an unrecognisable Paris of steel skyscrapers, chrome-plated shopping malls and futuristic night spots.