griggs's - 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List

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"Roman Holiday" was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and Audrey Hepburn captured an Oscar for her portrayal of a modern-day princess, rebelling against the royal obligations, who explores Rome on her own.

She meets Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), an American newspaperman who, seeking an exclusive story, pretends ignorance of her true identity. But his plan falters as they fall in love. Eddie Albert contributes to the fun as Peck's carefree cameraman pal.

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When, beset by debt, Madame de...

(Danielle Darrieux) decides to sell a pair of earrings that were a wedding gift from her husband Andre (Charles Boyer), she unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will have serious consequences, not only for the Parisian couple but for Andre's mistress and for an Italian Baron (Vittorio De Sica) who purchases the, by then, much-travelled jewellery.

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Ruthless criminals, a dedicated honest cop, sultry women and a gripping plot - all the elements of a classic police action-drama are here in force. Police Sergeant Bannion (Glenn Ford) is investigating the apparent suicide of a corrupt cop, then is suddenly ordered to stop - and The Big Heat is on.

Driven to unravel the mystery, Bannion continues probing until an explosion meant for him, kills his wife. He resigns from he force and soon learns that behind it all is the powerful underworld led by Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby) and his cold-blooded henchman, Vince Stone (Lee Marvin). When Stone's girl Debby (Gloria Grahame) makes a play for Bannion, Stone disfigures her face and in revenge, she tells all she knows. A life-or-death confrontation between Bannion and Stone brings this classic film noir thriller to a climatic unmissable finale!

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A constant fixture in critics' polls, Yasujiro Ozu's most enduring masterpiece, 'Tokyo Story', is a beautifully nuanced exploration of filial duty, expectation and regret.

From the simple tale of an elderly husband and wife's visit to Tokyo to see their grown-up children, Ozu draws a compelling contrast between the measured dignity of age and the hurried insensitivity of a younger generation.

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While away on business, Harry Graham (Edmond O'Brien) hops a Hollywood tour bus. Sitting next to him is a tough-talking waitress, Phyllis Martin (Ida Lupino). He lights her cigarette and, a few more trips to Los Angeles later, Harry and Phyllis are wed.

Back home in San Francisco, he and his wife, Eve (Joan Fontaine), are trying to adopt a child. Harry hesitates before granting the adoption agency permission to investigate their lives.

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"Salt of the Earth" centers on a long, difficult workers' strike against a mining company in New Mexico. Ramon Quintero (Juan Chacon) fights for equity of wages as well as health and safety issues, but at home he mistreats his wife, Esperanza (Rosaura Revueltas).

When the men are forced to end their picketing, Esperanza joins the other women who demand to play a role in the strike, against their husbands' wishes.

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When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually wrenched apart by vicious slave traders.

Under Kenji Mizoguchi's dazzling direction, this classic Japanese story became one of cinema's greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil.

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In 16th century Japan a poor village is raided every year by a group of bandits until, driven to the brink of starvation, the villagers decide to hire professional warriors to protect them. With only three meager meals a day to offer as payment, their request seems an impossible one.

A simple plot, flawlessly executed - 'Seven Samurai' combines comedy, pathos, memorable characters, gripping tension and some of the finest action scenes ever filmed.

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Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner with a sordid past. Persecuted by the townspeople, Vienna must protect her life and her property when a lynch mob led by her sexually repressed rival, Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), attempts to frame her for a string of robberies she did not commit.

Enter Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden), a guitar-strumming ex-gunfighter who has a history with Vienna.

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Marlon Brando gives one of the screen's most electrifying performances and was named Best Actor at the 1954 Academy Awards for this film. Ex-fighter Terry Malloy (Brando) could have been a contender, but now toils for boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) on the gang-ridden waterfront.

Terry is guilt-stricken, however, when he lures a rebellious worker to his death, but it takes the love of Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint), the dead man's sister, to show Terry how low he has fallen. When his crooked brother Charley the Gent (Rod Steiger) is brutally murdered for refusing to kill him, Terry battles to crush friendly's underworld empire.

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Dan Ballard (John Payne), a respected citizen in the western town of Silver Lode, has his wedding interrupted by four men led by US Marshal, Fred McCarty (Dan Duryea), an old acquaintance, who arrests Ballard for the murder of his brother and the theft of $20,000.

Ballard seeks to stall McCarty while tracking down evidence that will prove his innocence, but the townspeople's loyalty to him gradually begins to waver under McCarty's accusations.

Jefferies (James Stewart), a photographer with a broken leg, takes up the fine art of spying on his Greenwich Village neighbours during a summer heat wave. But things really hot up when he suspects one neighbour (Raymond Burr) of murdering his invalid wife and burying the body in a flower garden.

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Venice. 1866. After a night walking the empty streets of the ancient city together, a countess (Alida Valli) falls in love with an Austrian officer (Farley Granger) and becomes his mistress.

War breaks out and separates them until she eventually finds him again in the throes of battle against the Italians. Betraying both her principles and her cause, she tries to reform him with cruel and tragic consequences for them both.

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Sold by her impoverished mother to Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a brutish fairground wrestler, waif-like Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) lives a life of drudgery as his assistant.

After taking to the road with a travelling circus, a budding relationship with II Matto/The Fool (Richard Basehart), a gentle-natured, tightrope walking clown, offers a potential refuge from her master's clutches. Trapped by her own servile nature, Gelsomina waivers, and Zampano's volcanic temper erupts with tragic consequences. Characteristically mingling elements of biography with metaphor and symbolism, 'La Strada' also combines an easygoing charm with a far harder edged realism in the form of domestic violence and decaying, desolate towns. Masina - Fellini's wife - is astonishing in the central role and what with the evocative Nino Rota score and Otello Martelli's ravishing photography, it's little wonder that 'La Strada' was the winner of the first official Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

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Widely misunderstood and shamefully denigrated at the time of its original release, but now recognised as not simply one of Rossellini's greatest films but as one of the key works of modern cinema, 'Journey to Italy' is a deceptively simple piece.

There is little plot to speak of: a marriage is breaking up under the strains of a trip to Italy, and we watch. But in its deliberate rejection of many aspects of 'classic' Hollywood narrative and its stubborn pursuit of a quite different aesthetic, its meandering story line creates space for ideas and time for reflection.