greatest-ever-made's - Favourites List

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James Cagney is C.R. "Mac" MacNamara, a top soft drinks executive shipped off to (then West) Berlin and told to keep an eye on his boss' 17-year-old Atlanta socialite daughter Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin) while she visits Germany.

Scarlett's tour seems endless, and Mac discovers she's fallen for a (then East) Berlin communist agitator and the young couple are bound for Moscow! Mac has to bust up the burgeoning romance before his boss learns the truth, all the while dealing with his wife Phyllis (Arlene Francis) and her own impatience with German living.

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F. W. Murnau, Germany's finest director, was imported to Hollywood in July 1926. William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation promised and gave him complete artistic freedom. Fox told Murnau to take his time, spend whatever he had to, and make any film he wished to make.

The film that resulted was Sunrise, made entirely without studio interference. Sunrise, a psychological thriller from the silent movie era, begins when the pleasant and peaceful life of a naive country Man (George O'Brien) is turned upside down when he falls for a cold-blooded yet seductive Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston). She persuades him to drown his virtuous Wife (Janet Gaynor) in order to be with her. This is one of the most moving stories ever told on screen - a tale of temptation, reconciliation, reconsecration, and redemption, told with a lyrical simplicity that gives it the timeless universality of a fable.

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Humphrey Bogart stars as Dixon Steele, a screenwriter who is faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy best-seller. He enlists hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson to tell him the story in her own words.

Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humour implicate him. Fortunately, lovely neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed. and their friendship ripens into love. m Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them?

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When callous thugs beat Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) senseless and viciously murder the gorgeous blonde he's been trying to help, the hard-boiled detective retaliates the only way he can: by hitting first and asking questions later.

Cutting a brutal swathe through the city's sleazy underside, Hammer uncovers a mysterious black container whose deadly contents not only solve the murder...but trigger an apocalyptic climax as well!

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Dean Martin is full of charm, wit and snappy one-liners in this sly, irreverent, brash and daring comedy from the legendary team of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond .

When world-renowned singer "Dino" (Martin in a hilarious self-parody) passes through Climax, Nevada, he doesn't count on meeting two would-be songwriters with a plan to trap him there and serenade him with their songs. But then again, they weren't counting on Dino's insatiable appetite...for wine and women! And when one of the men learns that his own wife was once president of Dino's fan club, he hires a replacement wife (Kim Novak) to help lure the carousing star into a song-buying mood!

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The Marx Brothers - Chico, Groucho, Harpo and Zeppo - are one of the cornerstones of American comedy. Starting out in vaudeville, they conquered Broadway and the big screen in their own inimitable style, at once innovative, irreverent, anarchic, physical, musical, ludicrous and hilarious.

With the advent of the 'talkies', the Brothers signed to Paramount Pictures and brought their stage act to cinema audiences. They made five films in five years, all of which are collected here: 'The Cocoanats' (1929), 'Animal Crackers' (1930), 'Monkey Business' (1931), 'Horse Feathers' (1932) and one of the greatest comedies of all time, 'Duck Soup' (1933). The Paramount era represents the Marx Brothers at their absolute finest, retaining all of the energy and controlled chaos of their stage shows. Plots are unimportant - it's the gags, set-pieces and one-liners that matter: "Why a duck?", "Hello, I Must Be Going", "Hooray for Captain Spaulding", "That's the bunk!", 'Horse Feathers', "Swordfish" scene and classic mirror sequence in 'Duck Soup'.

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Screwball sparks fly when Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn let loose in one of the fastest and funniest films ever made - a high-wire act of invention that took American screen comedy to new heights of absurdity.

Hoping to procure a million-dollar endowment from a wealthy society j matron for his museum, a hapless paleontologist (Grant) finds himself entangled with a dizzy heiress (Hepburn) as the manic misadventures pile up - a missing dinosaur bone, a leopard on the loose, and plenty of gender-bending mayhem among them. Bringing Up Baby's sophisticated dialogue, spontaneous performances, and giddy innuendo come together in a whirlwind of comic chaos captured with lightning-in-a-bottle brio by director Howard Hawks.

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Based on the true life best seller 'Wiseguy' by Nicolas Pileggi and backed by a dynamic pop/rock oldies soundtrack, critics and filmgoers alike declared 'GoodFellas' great.

It was named the best film of the '90s by the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of film critics, and it earned 6 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.

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Ex-outlaw Link Jones (Gary Cooper) boards a train to Foil Worth to hire a schoolteacher for his town when he's knocked unconscious and robbed - by a gang of outlaws associated with his own uncle (Lee J. Cobb) whom he abandoned years earlier in his bid to go straight.

Soon after, and in order to protect the life of the woman he'd earmarked for teacher, saloon singer Billie Ellis (Julie London), Link rejoins the gang for one last hold-up...

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Kelly plays an ex-GI who loves Paris and loves even more an alluring (but engaged) perfume-shop clerk. Dance sequences spun around Gershwin songs accent Kelly's romantic pursuit. And the final 17-minute ballet - combining the title symphony.

Impressionist set stylings and Kelly's unique talent for telling a story in dance - lifts this winner of six Academy Awards including Best Picture into the ether of timelessness. Love Is Here To Stay Kelly sings. So is An American In Paris.

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When gun fancier Bart Tare sees Annie Laurie Starr's sideshow sharpshooting act, he's a dead-bang goner. He and she go together, as Bart ultimately says, 'like guns and ammunition'.

The two become bank robbers on the run, eluding roadblocks and roaring into movie history as one of the benchmark film-noir works. Joseph H. Lewis directs this ferocious thriller, selected for the National Film Registry and often cited as a forerunner to 'Bonnie and Clyde'. Peggy Cummins and John Dall star, meeting in a sexually charged carny shooting contest and soon driven by impulses of violence and arousal they don't fully understand. They're young, foolish, doomed - and point blank in Gun Crazy's unforgiving sights.

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Things are different for the Pontipee men now that big brother Adam's fetched a bride and brought her to their cabin.

Indeed, the unwed brothers are so inspired they raid the town and carry off brides of their own! Like a favourite flannel shirt, everything fits right in this rugged whoop-for-joy directed by Stanley Donen, choreographed by Michael Kidd and featuring an exhilerating Gene dePaul/Johnny Mercer score that won an Academy Award. Jane Powell and Howard Keel star, supported by a cast of buckskinned dancers and petticoated danseuses. And what steppin'! The barn-raising sequence alone - back-flipping, plank-leaping athleticism - leaves a daylong smile. "Bless Your Beautiful Hide", all you brides and brothers!

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The Little Tramp punches in and wigs out inside a factory where gizmos like an employee feeding machine may someday make the lunch hour last just 15 minutes.

Bounced into the ranks of the unemployed, he teams with a street waif (Paulette Goddard) to pursue bliss and a paycheck, finding misadventures as a roller-skating night watchman, a singing waiter whose hilarious song is gibberish, a jailbird and more. In the end, as tramp and waif walk arm in arm into an insecure future we know they've found neither bliss nor a paycheck but, more importantly, each other. The times and satire remain timeless in 'Modern Times'.

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One heaves rocks through windows. The other happens by in the nick of time to offer his services as an expert window repairman. It's a system that works.

So does everything else about this beloved Charlie Chaplin classic whose blend of laughs and pathos changed the notion of what a screen comedy could be. For the first time as a filmmaker, Chaplin stepped into feature-length storytelling with this tale of the down-but-never-out Tramp (Chaplin) and the adorable ragamuffin (6-year-old Jackie Coogan) who, rescued as a foundling and raised in the School of Hard Knocks by the Tramp, is this inseparable sidekick. Memorable scenes include a lesson in table manners, the bully brawl and the Tramp's angelic dream.

Intrigue and espionage abound when a young woman travelling aboard a transcontinental express train strikes up an acquaintance with a charming elderly English governess, who then disappears without a trace. Is the young woman hallucinating, or is something altogether more sinister afoot...?