griggs's - Roger Ebert's Great Movies List

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Stephane Audran plays a lonely schoolteacher who develops an inexplicable draw toward an ex-army butcher who may or may not be a serial killer plaguing a small town.

Drawing on Hitchcockian themes of exchanged guilt and shared secrets, Chabrol constructs an extraordinary relationship between the two characters that marries unspoken self-awareness with constant suspense over the unresolved nature of their bond.

At a local carnival in a small German town, hypnotist Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) presents the somnambulist Cesare (Conrad Veidt), who can purportedly predict the future of curious fairgoers. But at night, the doctor wakes Cesare from his sleep to enact his evil bidding...

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Young Sicilian girl Cabiria (Lidia Quaranta) and her nurse, Croessa (Gina Marangoni), survive a devastating volcanic eruption, only to be taken by Phoenicians to Carthage.

As the second of the Punic Wars rages between Carthage and Rome, the pair is sold into slavery, and Cabiria is intended as an offering to the god Moloch and the child-eating statue Kronos. Croessa convinces Roman Fulvius Axilla (Umberto Mozzato) to rescue Cabiria, yet afterward the girl remains in slavery for another decade.

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This utterly compelling psychological thriller from Michael Haneke - one of cinema's most daring original and controversial directors - stars Daniel Auteuil as Georges, a television presenter who begins to receive mysterious and alarming packages containing covertly filmed videos of himself and his

family. To the mounting consternation of Georges and his wife (Juliette Binoche) the footage on the tapes - which arrive wrapped in drawings of disturbingly violent images - becomes increasingly personal, and sinister anonymous phone calls are made. Convinced he knows the identity of the person responsible, Georges embarks on a rash and impulsive course of action that throws up some unpleasant facts about his past and leads to shockingly unexpected consequences.

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Casablanca: easy to enter, but much harder to leave, especially if your name is on the Nazis' most-wanted list. A top that list is Czech Resistance leader VIctor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), whose only hope is Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a cynical American who sticks his neck out for no one...

especially Victor's wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), the ex-lover who broke his heart. So when Ilsa offers herself in exchange for Laszlo's safe transport out of the country, the bitter Rick must decide what's more important - his own happiness or the countless lives that hang in the balance.

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Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a beautiful and mysterious Serbian-born fashion artist living in New York City, falls in love with and marries average-Joe American Oliver Reed (Kent Smith).

But Irena believes that she suffers from an ancient curse and whenever she is emotionally aroused she will turn into a panther and savage her victims. Oliver thinks that is absurd and sends her to psychiatrist Dr. Judd (Tom Conway) to cure her. But truth is sometimes stranger than fantasy...

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Adapted from Ruth Rendell's chilling novel, this is one of Chabrol's most celebrated films. Wealthy family the Lelievres have taken on the extremely efficient but strangely detached Sophie as their live-in maid.

Her free time is spent alone in her room until she meets local postal clerk Jeanne who has a disturbed history and a grudge against Sophie's new employers. As the pair begin to bond the family grow increasingly concerned.

Un Chien Andalou is Bunuel's first film and collaboration with Salvador Dali, a surreal exploration of desire and passion. L'Age D'or is another collaboration with Dali, a surrealist dissection of civilised values.

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Set amidst the glittering theatre world of 19th century Paris, the story revoles around the beautiful and free-spirted courtesan, Garanace, and the four men who compete for her affections; a mime-artist, an actor, an aristocrat and a criminal.

As the melodrama unfolds, we are treated to one of cinema's greatest love stories, a captivating tale of passion, deception and murder.

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On the brink of Civil War, King Henry IV (John Gielgud) attempts to consolidate his reign while fretting with unease over his son's seeming neglect of his royal duties.

Hal (Keith Baxter), the young Prince, openly consorts with Sir John Falstaff (Orson Welles) and his company of "Diana's foresters, Gentlemen of the shade, Minions of the moon". Hal's friendship with the fat knight substitutes for his estrangement from his father. Both Falstaff and the King are old and tired; both rely on Hal for comfort in their final years, while the young Prince, the future Henry V, nurtures his own ambitions.

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A landmark movie in the film noir tradition, Roman Polanski's 'Chinatown' stands as a true screen classic. Jack Nicholson is private eye Jake Gittes, living off the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-war Southern California.

Hired by a beautiful socialite (Faye Dunaway) to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together for one, unforgettable night in...Chinatown.

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On the outskirts of Queens, and just steps from some of New York's most iconic landmarks, Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in a 'Chop Shop' - an illegal workshop breaking stolen cars for the purpose of selling them as parts.

In this ramshackle world of mud, rust, graffiti, and twisted scrap metal populated by illegal immigrants and low-level adult criminals, young Alejandro struggles to pursue his goal of making a better life for himself and his spirited 16-year-old sister, Isamar.

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The Christmas spirit isn't served up with more heartfelt warmth or observant hilarity than it is beloved adaptation of Jean Shepherd's holiday story. In 1940s Indiana, nine-year-old Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) dreams of his ideal Christmas gift: a genuine Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle.

But when gruff dad (Darren McGavin) and doting mom (Melinda Dillon) regularly respond with "You'll shoot your eye out!" Ralphie mounts a full-scale, hint-dropping, Santa-begging campaign. He also endures all kinds of childhood calamities from snowsuit paralysis to the yellow-eyed Scotty Farkus affair to the dreaded tongue-on-a-frozen-flagpole gambit.

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The Little Tramp is hired by a circus and soon becomes the main attraction when his comedic blunders drive the crowd wild. Yet he himself is unaware of this newly acquired eminence due to his tunnel vision of love for the ringmaster's daughter.

'The Circus' features one of the most memorable appearances by the Little Tramp where Chaplin delivers a whirlwind of visual gags that are quite literally show stopping.

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Orson Welles makes his feature-length directorial debut with this classic drama which often tops critics' polls of the best films of all time. In 1940, newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Welles) dies after uttering the word 'Rosebud'.

An anonymous reporter (William Alland) is assigned the task of uncovering the meaning of Kane's dying word, and in the course of his enquiries he receives varying accounts of his life from former colleagues Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and Bernstein (Everett Sloan), and ex-wife Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore). The film, which Welles also produced and co-wrote, was not-so-loosely based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.