greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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1954 Paris, Victor Le Garrec, a former professional boxer, runs a gym and works hard to train young recruits to achieve the goals he wasn't able to reach during his professional career. He feels this is finally possible when he recognizes the potential in Andre Menard, a young railway worker.

Victor offers to train him and André accepts willingly, although he soon realizes that Victor's wife Blanche (Arletty) is not happy with the arrangement. Andre's attention is soon drawn away from his training when he starts to have an affair with a wealthy young woman, Corinne (Marie Daems). In the end, he may have to choose between the woman he loves and his career as a world-class boxer...

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Samantha Caine (Geena Davis), a suburban schoolteacher, suffers from amnesia. When her mysterious past begins to haunt her idyllic life, she sets out on a desperate search to discover her true identity. Aided by Mitch Henessey (Samuel L.

Jackson), a dead-beat private detective, she follows a trail of clues into the middle of a terrorist conspiracy in the U.S. Intelligence community. They slowly learn that Caine is much more that a soft spoken teacher. Repressed from her memory is her former life as Charly Baltimore, a highly trained secret agent and killer .But Charly is slowly re-emerging, which spells trouble for the terrorists, and anybody else who gets in her way...

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Kurosawa's transposition of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' to sixteenth century Japan is immensely successful in capturing the spirit of the original. A truly remarkable film combining beauty and terror to produce a mood of haunting power.

'Throne of Blood' also shows Kurosawa's familiar mastery of atmosphere, action and the savagery of war.

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The Hotel du Nord is a family-run hotel on the edge of the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris. As the family is celebrating a first communion, a young couple checks in, planning a double suicide.

Only one shot is fired, and the man, Pierre (Jean-Pierre Aumont), flees leaving his lover, Renee (Annabella), to die in the room. But, he leaves the gun behind and she survives. A series of convoluted affairs between hotel patrons and staff, as well as passion-fuelled travels across France, ensue - all to end the story in perfect symmetry.

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'Sanjuro' was a film made in response to popular demand.

The previous year Kurosawa had scored a huge critical and commercial hit for his own production company with Yojimbo, which introduced the character calling himself 'Sanjuro' (which means simply 'thirty years old'), the scruffy, mercenary, cynical ronin (masterless samurai) played by Toshiro Mifune. The public had taken this maverick figure to their hearts and demanded a sequel. Originally Kurosawa had planned to give the script to another director, Hiromichi Horikawa, but finally decided to take it on himself.

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In this compelling tale of obsession, teenage siblings Paul (Edouard Dermithe) and Elisabeth (Nicole Stéphane) create an intense, private world in their shared room. They live, sleep, bicker and play out erotically charged games within their chambre, without heed to the world around them.

However, when outsiders intrude into their disturbingly private realm, the scene is set for tragedy.

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Director Vincent Sherman's 1941 classic. As the people of Germany adapt to life under Nazi rule, two brothers find themselves on opposite sides of the country's new philosophy.

Eric (Philip Dorn) is the leader of a resistance group, broadcasting clandestine radio messages telling the nation the truth about the war and Germany's new regime. His younger brother Kurt (Jeffrey Lynn) a solider maimed in the fighting, returns home from the frontline a true believer, dedicated to the cause. A gripping drama unfurls as the brothers' lives become intertwined when Kurt is tasked by the Gestapo to undercover the voice of the resistance.

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Errol Flynn made his name portraying dashing heroes who clasped a sword in one hand and a maiden in the other. Audiences loved Flynn's devil-may-care bravado as much as they admired his athletic grace and astonishing good looks.

'Adventures of Don Juan' was his first swashbuckler in nine years - and a glorious reprise it is, directed with gusto by Vincent Sherman. In the title role, Flynn is a wiser, warmer, wittier version of his earlier characters as he rescues the Spanish queen (Viveca Lindfors) from the snares of an evil duke. Oscar-winning costumes and super sets (including a knockout grand staircase) create a lavish atmosphere for dalliances with married beauties, narrow dungeon escapes and duels aplenty. En garde!

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The enigmatic samurai in Yojimbo is played by the great Toshiro Mifune as a scruffy, scratching, itinerant warrior who wanders into a strange town and right into the middle of two warring clans.

Showing his skills with the samurai sword within minutes of his arrival, he soon has the town's rival factions competing for his services.Kurosawa's genius for storytelling combines with thrilling swordplay, a healthy dose of black humour, a soundtrack every bit as atmospheric and amusing as Ennio Morricone's, and a towering performance from Mifune, to make 'Yojimbo' an irresistible widescreen action movie.

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In 1866 the U.S. Government and the leaders of the Sioux Nations met to negotiate a passage through Indian territory, when gold is discovered in the mountains of Montana. Unable to reach an agreement, the U.S. Cavalry defy the peace treaty and build a fort to protect their new road.

Van Heflin stars as Jim Bridger, a scout hired by the cavalry and the only man capable of defusing the powder-keg situation. Against the backdrop of a potential war, Bridger must also face personal demons when he runs into Lieutenant Rob Dancy, a bigoted army officer with a dark history.

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Eva Lovelace (Katharine Hepburn) is sparkling in her Oscar winning role of 1934 as a naive, innocent actress who arrives in New York with no friends, no money and no accommodation.

But what she does have is a wealth of ambition and the unique ability of a small town girl wanting to make it in a big world. Arriving at the offices of Broadways biggest producers, Joseph Sheridan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and Louis Easton (Adolphe Menjou), Eva sits patiently whilst a troupe of theatre lovelies are cast for Broadway's next big play. Unable to cope with the bitchy put-downs of leading-lady Rita Vernon (Mary Duncan), Eva pleads with the kindly British Shakespearian actor Robert Harley Hedges (C. Aubrey Smith) to take her under his wing and coach her. But Broadway is a world of broken dreams and success is sometimes but a fleeting moment of morning glory...

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From Oscar winning writer/director Adam McKay (The Big Short) comes 'Vice', an audacious and darkly comedic look at former US Vice President Dick Cheney's stealthy rise from Washington intern to the most powerful man on the planet.

Oscar winner Christian Bale leads an all-star cast that includes Oscar nominees Steve Carell as the affable, yet steely Donald Rumsfeld, Amy Adams as Cheney's ambitious wife, and Oscar winner Sam Rockwell as the malleable George W. Bush. Spanning a half-century, Cheney's journey from rural Wyoming electrical worker to de facto President of the United States is a hilariously terrifying true tale of the use and misuse of institutional power.

In Let's Make Love, an uproarious comedy of backstage conniving and romantic intrigue, Marilyn is marvellous as a show-stopping star who teaches an international tycoon that money can't buy you love. Featuring cameos by movie legends Milton Berle, Bing Crosby and Gene Kelly.

Jean Arthur stars as Alice Sycamore, the stable family member of an offbeat clan of free spirits who fall for Tony Kirby (James Stewart), the down-to-earth son of a snooty, wealthy family. Amidst a backdrop of confusion, the two very different families rediscover the simple joys of life.

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Madadayo follows the last two decades in the life of Hyakken Uchida (Tetsuo Matsumura), a writer and teacher who retires in the war years of the early 1940's.

Beginning in the 1943 (the year Kurosawa made his first feature), the beloved teacher is joined by his students and colleagues each yeah for a birthday celebration, toasting "Mahda-kai? (Are you ready?)" to which his answer is always "Madadayo!" which means "Not yet!", acknowledging that death may be near but life goes on - it is both a triumphant denial of death and a gentle plea for more time.