griggs's - Roger Ebert's Great Movies List

A little lost alien, three million light years away from home. A lonely ten-year old boy willing to take him home. Two lives changed by a timeless adventure and a friendship that knows no earthly bounds.

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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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Written by Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Terry Southern, Fonda produced the low-budget production whilst Hopper took on Directing duties, receiving an award at Cannes for his first work.

Since its release, Easy Rider has been regarded as a symbol of free-spirited reaction against society, and even for those too young to remember its original release, it maintains its status as a classic film which characterises the attitude of a decade. Now, after 30 years, Easy Rider has been remastered and is presented here in High Definition with both clearer picture and sound quality.

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Brother and sister Enrique (David Villalpando) and Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez) flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

It's a story that happens every day, but until Gregory Nava's groundbreaking El Norte (The North), the personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism. A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, 'El Norte' is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival, which critic Roger Ebert called a 'Grapes of Wrath' for our time.

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With 'El Topo', Alejandro Jodorowsky gave birth to the countercultural phenomenon of the Midnight Movie and carved out a place in history as one of cinema's most unique and visionary filmmakers, impressing John Lennon and Yoko Ono so much that they enthusiastically endorsed the film at one of its

first New York screenings. Part Luis Bunuel, part Sergio Leone, this bizarre, ultra-violent Western features a brutal, black-clad gunslinger who, accompanied by his young son, sets off on a murderous mission to challenge four zen masters of gun-fighting. When his mission is complete he then goes on a quest for peace and personal redemption, but finds that death is never far away.

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In 1828, as if out of nowhere, a young man appeared in Nuremberg's town square. He had no history, spoke only a few words, and could not stand upright. Having been locked in a basement for 17 years, Kaspar Hauser was more beast than man.

Who was he, and where did he come from? Despite attempts by townsfolk to understand and civilize him, Kaspar became little more than a sideshow attraction. And though the mystery of his origins remained unanswered, perhaps the biggest question of all was, why did someone want him dead?

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Joel (Jim Carrey) is stunned to discover that his girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has had their tumultuous relationship erased from her mind. Out of desperation, he contacts the inventor of the process, Dr Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), to get the same treatment.

But as his memories of Clementine begin to fade, Joel suddenly realizes how much he still loves her.

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Welcome to Club Exotica, a place where fantasies can become reality but where illusion runs amuck. Here, in a murky underworld of lust and longing, a lonely accountant named Francis falls for Christina, one of the dancers.

Although Christina is already involved with someone, the club owner pushes her towards Francis and a dangerous game of deceit and duplicity begins... A multi-layered and mysterious portrayal of lives shaped by desire and delusion, Atom Egoyan's bold erotic thriller is a stunning combination of directorial flair and keen philosophical insight...

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After a lavish dinner party in a stately mansion, the guests find themselves mysteriously unable to leave the room.

As the days pass the elaborate pretences and facades that they've built up by virtue of their position in society collapse completely as they become reduced to living like animals to survive.

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When Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) visits his fiancee Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey) in her crumbling family mansion, her brother Roderick (Vincent Price) tries to talk him out of the wedding, explaining that the Usher family is cursed and that extending its bloodline will only prolong the agony.

Madeline wants to elope with Philip, but neither of them can predict what ruthless lengths Roderick will go to in order to keep them apart.

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"Fanny and Alexander" is Bergman's dreamlike family chronicle. The Ekdahl's are an upper-middle-class theatrical family sheltered by their own theatrics from the deepening chaos of the outside world.

One tumultuous year in the life of the Ekdahl family is viewed through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve), whose imagination fuels the magical goings-on leading up to and following the death of his father. His mother's remarriage to a stern prelate banishes Alexander and his sister Fanny (Pernilla Allwin) from all known joys, and thrusts them and the movie into a kind of gothic horror. The bishop is a Bergmanesque character whose severity has gone awry - he has become sinister - and the film's round rejection of him in favour of "kindness, affection and goodness" may be Bergman's fondest farewell to cinema.

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Jerry (William H. Macy), a small-town Minnesota car salesman is bursting at the seams with debt... but he's got a plan. He's going to hire two thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife in a scheme to collect a hefty ransom from his wealthy father-in-law.

It's going to be a snap and nobody's going to get hurt... until people start dying. Enter Police Chief Marge (Frances McDormand), a coffee-drinking, parka-wearing - and extremely pregnant -investigator who'll stop at nothing to get her man. And if you think her small-time investigative skills will give the crooks a run for their ransom... you betcha!

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Faust's tale is a classic one of a man who sells his soul to the devil. In an attempt to gain control of the Earth, Mephisto (Emil Jannings) wagers an angel (Werner Puetterer) that he can corrupt the soul of the elderly professor Faust (Gosta Ekman).

Mephisto unleashes a plague that spreads amongst its inhabitants. Faust, unable to find a cure-renounces both God and science invoking the aid of Satan through a mysterious book.

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In their small-town meeting hall, a maladroit committee of volunteer fire-fighters holds a ball to celebrate the retirement of one of their own, but thanks to poor planning and lack of leadership, the evening quickly devolves into a catastrophe.

Nobody can prevent the lottery prizes from being stolen out from under the very noses of those guarding them. A beauty contest turns into an embarrassing farce, and the brigade can't even respond properly to a real fire next door. The Firemen's Ball was Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman's final film in his home country; he was scouting locations in Paris when the Russians moved their tanks into Prague in 1968 causing Forman to decide to remain an expatriate.

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Iquitos, Peru, is a town Isolated in the middle of the jungle at the turn of the century. On the outskirts, a few shacks are rotting in the mud. In the centre are the splendid houses of the nouveaux-riches rubber barons.

It is in this setting, rich in grotesque contrast, that Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald - Fltzcarraldo (Klaus Kinski), as the natives call him - has his dream of bringing together Enrico Caruso and Sarah Bernhardt for one great celebration of Grand Opera. To finance his fantastic dream, Fitzcarraldo decides to exploit a vast area of rubber trees growing beyond the impassable Ucayala Falls. In order to circumvent this barrier, he literally has his huge steamboat lifted over a mountain from one branch of the river to the other. With the aid of a tribe of Indians bewitched by records featuring the voice of the greatest singer of all time, Fitzcarraldo fights fever, mosquitoes and suffocating heat to achieve the impossible.