griggs's - Roger Ebert's Great Movies List

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Following a prison term he served for manslaughter, Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns to find his family homestead overwhelmed by the weather and the greed of the banking industry.

With little work potential on the horizon of Oklahoma dust bowls, the entire family packs up heads for the promised land - California. But the arduous trip and harsh living conditions they encounter offer little hope, and family unity proves as daunting a challenge as any other they face.

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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.

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A Jewish barber returns home after twenty-years within hospital walls to find his old shop not only dilapidated but marked with hateful graffiti. The source of this hatred is the regime of a tyrannical dictator which is persecuting the barber along with the rest of the Jewish community.

In one of his most ingenious strokes of artistry ever, Chaplin subverted the fears of the time with a visionary and undeniably moving satire of fascism and discrimination.

David Lean directed this stylish film presentation of Charles Dickens' heart warming story of a young man befriending an escaped convict who becomes his unknown benefactor, and of the consequences for the young man as he establishes himself in the world.

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John McTeague (Gibson Gowland) was a simple slow man who became a dentist after working at the Big Dipper Gold Mine. He is now being hunted in Death Valley by his ex-best friend Marcus (Jean Hersholt) and the law.

His lot was cast the day that he meet his future wife Trina (Zasu Pitts) in his office. She was with Marcus and she bought a lottery ticket. Well Mac fell for her and Marcus stepped aside. When Mac and Trina married, she won the Lottery for $5000 and became obsessive about the money in gold. Marcus is steamed as he stepped aside and now she is rich so he has the law shut down Mac as he has no official schooling for his dentistry. Trina fearful that they will take her gold away sells everything and takes all Mac earns when he is working. She adds to her stash of gold as they both live as paupers. When Mac has no job and no money, he leaves and Trina moves. Driven to desperation at being poor and hungry he finds Trina and demands the gold.

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Based on actual events, 'The Grey Zone' is set in the dark, terrible machine that was the Auschwitz death camp.

It tells the powerful story of the Twelfth Sonderkommando, one of the Special Squads of prisoners who were forced into helping exterminate their fellow prisoners in exchange for some special privileges and a few more months of life. When they hear they are to be killed and replaced, an uprising is planned - the only ever revolt in Auschwitz - but as the revolt is about to start a young 14 year old girl is found after she has miraculously survived the gas chambers. The men become obsessed with saving her life even though it could threaten the uprising which could save thousands.

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Bill Murray is at his wisecracking best in this riotous romantic comedy about a weatherman caught in a personal time warp on the worst day of his life! Teamed with a relentlessly cheery producer (Annie MacDowell) and a smart-aleck cameraman, TV weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is sent to

Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities. On his way out of town, Phil is caught in a giant blizzard - which he himself actually failed to predict - and finds himself stuck in a small town hell. Just when things couldn't get worse... they do! Phil wakes the next morning to find that it's Groundhog Day all over again... and again... and again.

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As a young boy Antoine's two passions in life were dancing to Arabic music and having his haircut by the voluptuous local hairdresser. In reaching middle-age his passions remain unchanged and a dream comes true when he meets and marries shy hairdresser Mathilde.

He moves into her salon where they embark on a reclusive life of intense passion, shunning the realities of life outside.

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In a magnificent performance. Tatsuya Nakadai stars as Hanshiro Tsugumo. a masterless down-and-out samurai who enters the manor of Lord lyi. requesting to commit ritual suicide on his property.

Suspected of simply fishing for charity, Hanshiro is told the gruesome tale of the last samurai who made the same request - but Hanshiro will not be moved...

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In 1964 the biggest band on the planet made their big screen debut with 'A Hard Day's Night', a groundbreaking film that presented a 'typical' day in the life of The Fab Four as they tried to outrun screaming fans, find Paul's mischievous grandfather, deal with a stressed TV producer and make it to

the show on time. Directed with unrelenting verve by Richard Lester, whose innovative techniques paved the way for generations of music videos, the film's frenetic mix of comic escapades, legendary one-liners and pop perfection captured a moment in time that defined a generation. The most iconic band in music history had arrived.

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The residents of a tiny, pre industrial Bavarian village are gripped by a collective madness after the man who runs the local glassworks dies without revealing the secret of the magical Ruby Glass. In their desperation to discover the formula, they turn to superstition and murder.

When a mystic appears out of the mountains, will his premonitions save them or foretell their doom? Haunting and visionary, Heart of glass is perhaps best known as the result of one of Werner Herzog's most radical experiments. In order to create the proper atmosphere of trance and sleepwalking, the entire cast acted under hypnosis.

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Two ordinary inner-city Chicago kids dare to reach for the impossible -professional basketball glory - in this epic chronicle of hope and faith.

Filmed over a five-year period, 'Hoop Dreams', by Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert, follows young Arthur Agee and William Gates and their families as the boys navigate the complex, competitive world of scholastic athletics while dealing with the intense pressures of their home lives and neighbourhoods. This revelatory film continues to educate and inspire viewers, and it is widely considered one of the great works of American nonfiction cinema.

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It's the shrink vs. the shark in the ultimate mind game! When a suicidal patient reveals that his gambling debt has him at the end of his rope, dedicated psychiatrist Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse) enters into the shadowy underground world of gaming to help him out.

At a seedy casino, she boldly confronts Mike (Joe Mantegna), the con man to whom her patient is in debt. Duped into a high-stakes poker match, Margaret becomes intoxicated by Mike's mastery, as he both cheats at the game and charms her. She quickly falls for him, turning a blind eye to the fact that he's a swindler who can't be trusted. And before long she finds herself sparring in a mental poker match of the heart...with deadly consequences!

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A dying woman's impulsive wish marks a turning point in the relationship between the cosmopolitan Schlegel sisters, Margaret (Emma Thompson) and Helen (Helena Bonham Carter), and the wealthy Wilcox family when Ruth Wilcox (Vanessa Redgrave) bequeaths her idyllic country house, Howards End, to

Margaret. Convinced that he is acting in the best interests of his family, the patriarchal Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) destroys his wife's "unofficial" will. But, as the lonely repressed Henry falls in love with Margaret, and Helen's willful attacks on class and convention strike at the very heart of the Wilcox family, fate decrees that Henry must pay dearly for his deceit.

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Paul Newman heads a superb cast featuring Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott and Piper Laurie in this riveting film that received an Academy Award nomination as Best Picture of 1961 and brought all four of its stars Oscar nominations.

Newman is electrifying as Fast Eddie Felson, an arrogant, amoral hustler who haunts back street pool rooms fleecing anyone who'll pick up a cue. Determined to be acclaimed as the best, Eddie seeks out the legendary Minnesota Fats, who's backed by Bert Gordon. The love of a lonely woman could turn Eddie's life around, but he won't rest until he bests Minnesota Fats, no matter what price he must pay.