griggs's - 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List
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Grave of the Fireflies (1988)Hotaru no haka
Set in Japan during World War II, the film focuses on Seita and his little sister Setsuko. After their mother is killed in an air raid, and with their father serving in the navy, they are forced to fight for survival in the devastated Japanese countryside. Food and shelter are scarce, and even their own relatives are too concerned with their own survival. All they have is each other and their belief that life must carry on. - Director:
- Isao Takahata
- Cast:
- Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Akemi Yamaguchi
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Evolving from an earlier project in which Morris interviewed death row inmates for a portrait of Dallas psychiatrist Dr. James Grigson, 'The Thin Blue Line' is the fascinating and controversial true story of Randall Dale Adams (Adam Goldfine). A drifter arrested and convicted for the 1976 murder of Dallas policeman Robert Wood (Ron Thornhill), Dale Adams was sentenced to death for the crime. Billed as "the first movie mystery to actually solve a murder", Morris' film pieced together fresh evidence to eventually overturn the conviction. With its use of expressionistic re-enactments, riveting interview material and moody music by Philip Glass, 'The Thin Blue Line' - whose title recalls the prosecuting judge's comment regarding the thin blue line that maintains the social fabric - pioneered a new kind of non-fiction filmmaking whose style has been copied in countless reality-based television programs and feature films. One of the most important movies of its decade, this utterly thrilling and captivating film's influence continues to reverberate. - Director:
- Errol Morris
- Cast:
- Randall Adams, Errol Morris, David Harris
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Drawn from his own family memories, 'Distant Voices, Still Lives' is a strikingly intimate portrait of working class life in 1940's and 1950's Liverpool. Focusing on the real-life experiences of his mother, sisters and brother whose lives are thwarted by their brutal, sadistic father (a chilling performance by Pete Postlethwaite), the film shows us beauty and terror in equal measure. Davies uses the traditional family gatherings of births, marriages and deaths to paint a lyrical portrait of family life - of love, grief, and the highs and lows of being human, a 'poetry of the everyday' that is at once deeply autobiographical and universally resonant. - Director:
- Terence Davies
- Cast:
- Kenneth Horne, Freda Dowie, Kenneth Williams
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Big (1988)Quisiera ser grande
At a carnival, young Josh Baskin (Tom Hanks) wishes he was big - only to awake the next morning and discover he is! With the help of his friend Billy (Jared Rushton), Josh lands a job at a toy company. There, his inner wisdom enables him to successfully predict what children want to buy, making the awestruck, naive Josh irresistible to a beautiful ladder climbing colleague (Elizabeth Perkins). But the more he experiences being an adult, the more Josh longs for the simple joys of childhood. - Director:
- Penny Marshall
- Cast:
- Tom Hanks, Jaime Tirelli, Elizabeth Perkins
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It's 2019, the world is on the brink of absolute destruction. Tokyo shimmers with tech-noir fetishism, gangs of cyber-punk bikers cruise the sprawl of the post-atomic city and rioting crowds surge under the neon-topped buildings looming a thousand storeys into the sky. Now, old gods return to do battle with Akira and something more than comic book ultra-violence is unleashed... - Director:
- Katsuhiro Ôtomo
- Cast:
- Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Nozomu Sasaki
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Baseball season gets off to a rocky start when the Durham Bulls' new catcher, "Crash" Davis (Kevin Costner), punches out the cocky young pitcher, "Nuke" LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), he's just been hired to train. Then sexy Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) informs both men that each season she chooses one player to share her bed - and Nuke and Crash are this year's draft picks. After Crash passes on the offer, Nuke eagerly enlists as Annie's summer fling...until Crash's jealousy takes over and he convinces Nuke that sex with Annie jinx the Bulls' new-found winning streak! - Director:
- Ron Shelton
- Cast:
- Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins
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It's 1947 Hollywood and Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), a down-on-his-luck detective, is hired to find proof that Marvin Acme, gag factory mogul and owner of Toontown, is playing hanky-panky with femme fatale Jessica Rabbit,wife of Maroon Cartoon superstar, Roger Rabbit. When Acme is found murdered, all fingers point to Roger, and the sinister, power-hungry Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) is on a mission to bring Roger to justice. Roger begs the Toon-hating Valiant to find the real evildoer and the plot thickens as Eddie uncovers scandal after scandal and realizes the very existence of Toontown is at stake! - Director:
- Robert Zemeckis
- Cast:
- Bob Hoskins, Charles Fleischer, Christopher Lloyd
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Bruce Willis stars as New York City Detective John McClane, newly arrived in Los Angeles to spend the Christmas holiday with his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia). But as McClane waits for his wife's office party to break-up, terrorists seize control of the building. While the terrorist leader, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his savage henchman (Alexander Godunov) round up hostages, McClane slips away unnoticed. Armed with only a service revolver and his wits, McClane launches his own one-man war. - Director:
- John McTiernan
- Cast:
- Bruce Willis, Chuck Riley, Bonnie Bedelia
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Gangster George Thomason (Tom Georgeson) and his hapless aide, Ken Pile (Michael Palin), draft a pair of American con artists, Wanda Gerschwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis) and weapons expert Otto West (Kevin Kline), for a massive diamond heist. When the job goes badly, Wanda attempts to seduce George's weak willed lawyer, Archie ' Leach (John Cleese), to find out where George hid the diamonds. Meanwhile, Ken repeatedly attempts to kill an elderly woman (Patricia Hayes) who had witnessed the robbery. - Director:
- Charles Crichton
- Cast:
- John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline
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Alice (1988)Neco z Alenky
Jan Svankmajer's Alice is a creepy and disturbing adaptation of Lewis Carroll's original vision. Combining a live-action Alice (Kristyna Kohoutova) with a stop-motion Wonderland filled with threatening, bizarre characters, the film brilliantly marries a sly visual wit with piercing psychological insight. Presented here fully uncut and in its original Czech-language version for the very first time, this comprehensive release also gathers together a selection of rare and fascinating Alice-related short films. - Director:
- Jan Svankmajer
- Cast:
- Kristýna Kohoutová, Camilla Power
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The Vanishing (1988)Spoorloos
Whilst touring in France, a young couple (Rex and Saskia) stop for a break at a roadside service station. Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) leaves Rex (Gene Bervoets) to browse around the shops and vanishes leaving no clues as to her whereabouts. Three years later Rex begins to receive taunting postcards from Saskia's supposed abductor and is drawn into a terrifying battle of cat and mouse in his desperate quest to discover the fate of his missing lover. - Director:
- George Sluizer
- Cast:
- Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna Ter Steege
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Director David Cronenberg based this controversial and stylish psychological horror on a bizarre true story...Jeremy Irons delivers a disturbing performance as twin Gynaecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle. Intrigued by the mysteries of sex and anatomy, the brothers grow from inseparable playmates to world-renowned specialists. Sharing their women, Elliot and Beverly seem inseparable. The entrance of Claire (Geneviève Bujold), an actress seeking fertility treatment, changes their relationship forever. Both twins seduce her but shy, sensitive Beverly falls in love and attempts to break free from his charming brother with catastrophic consequences. - Director:
- David Cronenberg
- Cast:
- Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold, Heidi von Palleske
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A Tale of the Wind (1988)Une histoire de vent / A Wind Story
This film travels through fantasy and reality as Joris Ivens goes to China to capture the wind. The film reflects the filmmaker's journey from Pour le Mistral (1966), his first film on the wind, to this project, which is his final film. The essay film flows between fantasy and reality moving between the images the filmmaker has made, seen or dreamt about. Combining documentary with Chinese mythology and opera and even Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon (1902), Ivens melds culture, landscape and mindscape with breathtaking effect. The old director travels as a boy from his windmill home in erstwhile Holland in a glider made from clothes from a clothesline. We see his journey through life and into the mysticism of the orient in his old age. His memories take us into a humorous, sometimes pensive, magical journey while the film's crew struggles to capture the wind and his breath. - Director:
- Joris Ivens
- Cast:
- Joris Ivens, Henxiang Han, Zhuang Liu
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Cinema Paradiso (1988)Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
Giuseppe Tomatore's loving homage to the cinema tells the story of Salvatore (Marco Leonardi, Salvatore Cascio, Jacques Perrin), a successful film director, returning home for the funeral of Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), his old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood. Soon memories of his first love affair with the beautiful Elena (Agnes Nano) and all the highs and lows that shaped his life come flooding back, as Salvatore reconnects with the community he left 30 years earlier. - Director:
- Giuseppe Tornatore
- Cast:
- Philippe Noiret, Enzo Cannavale, Antonella Attili
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Red Sorghum (1987)Hong gao liang
As outlined by an unseen, anonymous narrator, "Sorghum" tells of the life between "Grandmother" and "Grandfather". The woman is a bride-to-be en-route to an arranged wedding with an aging leprous winemaker, when she is saved from a bandit attack by one of the bearers of her sedan. After the untimely death of the winemaker, she is re-united with the bearer and they endure continuous travails with banditry, pestilence and war with Japanese. - Director:
- Yimou Zhang
- Cast:
- Li Gong, Wen Jiang, Rujun Ten
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