neil-down's - Rented List

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Whilst driving in heavy rain on a deserted road. Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) pulls over to pick up a hitchhiker (Rutger Hauer). Halsey quickly regrets his decision to stop as the hitcher pulls a knife on him and nearly forces the car off the road.

In a narrow escape Halsey manages to leave the hitcher behind on the road. However, his nightmare has only just begun as a terrifying and psychotic game of cat and mouse ensues with all who pass on the road becoming unwitting victims of The Hitcher.

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Alan Ladd plays the titular gunslinger, the archetypal "man alone" who wanders into town and shortly afterward becomes embroiled in a conflict between a group of Wyoming homesteaders and the nefarious cattle baron who has designs to wrest away their land.

As the conflict escalates, and a romance develops between Shane and homesteader Marian Starrett (Jean Arthur, in her last screen role), a who's-who of studio system character talent revolves through the production - Van Heflin, Jack Palance, Elisha Cook, Jr. - before one of cinema's most famous, unforgettable endings.

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Sergio Leone's monumental epic 'Once Upon a Time in the West' ranks among the five or six all-time Western masterpieces. The picture itself is as big as its Monument Valley locations, as grand as its fine, distinguished cast. Henry Fonda plays the blackest character of his long career.

He's Frank, the ruthless, murderous psychopath who suffers conscience pangs after annihilating an entire family. Jason Robards is the half-breed falsely accused of the terrible slaughter. Charles Bronson plays the harmonica playing man who remembers how his brother was savagely tortured.

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Charlton Heston stars as Brad Braden, the diehard circus manager who lives and breathes to keep the show rolling. With the Big Top about to hit rock bottom, Braden hires The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde), a daring trapeze legend, to revitalize the circus.

His arrival sparks the rivalry and admiration of Holly (Betty Hutton), Braden's girlfriend and trapese star. After a death-defying battle to regain her place in the centre ring, Holly soon finds herself torn between the love of workaholic Brad and the brazen Sebastain. Add to the mix a flirtatious elephant trainer, racketeers and a lovable clown (James Stewart) with a secret past, and every character becomes a tough act to follow.

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Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman sparkle in Practical Magic, adapted from Alice Hoffman's best seller. They play sisters hexed by a centuries old curse and coping with witches' brew of events involving a possible love-match.

That includes (Aidan Quinn) for one, a zombie (Goran Visnjic) for the other and a need to resume the age-old witchcraft taught by two doting Owens aunts.

A home, a motor car, servants, the latest fashions: the most eligible and most finicky bachelor (Louis Jourdan) in Paris offers them all to Gigi (Leslie Caron). But she, who's gone from girlish gawkiness to cultured glamour before our eyes, yearns for that wonderful something money can't buy.

A Beautiful Mind stars Russell Crowe in an astonishing performance as brilliant mathematician John Nash, on the brink of international acclaim when he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy. Now only his devoted wife can help him in this powerful story courage, passion and triumph.

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Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield), England's Roman Catholic Chancellor, is forced into a difficult position when corrupt King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) demands his approval to divorce his wife and marry his mistress.

Torn between his conscience and duty to the crown, Sir Thomas chooses to say nothing, sparking the rage of the king. What unfolds is a battle of wills packed with palace intrigue, political brinkmanship and the fate of man, church and country. In the end, his silence spoke loudest of all.

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Forty-two-year-old Manhattan native Isaac Davis (Allen) has a job he hates, a seventeen-year-old girlfriend (Mariel Hemingway) he doesn't love, and a lesbian ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) who's writing a tell-all book about their marriage... and whom he'd like to strangle.

But when he meets his best friend's sexy, intellectual mistress, Mary (Diane Keaton), Isaac falls head over heels in lust! Leaving Tracy, bedding Mary and quitting his job are just the beginning of Isaac's quest for romance and fulfillment in a city where sex is as intimate as a handshake - and the gate to true love... is a revolving door.

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Academy Award® winner Kate Winslet delivers a dynamic performance in this tale of eroticism, secrecy and guilt set in turbulent post-Nazi Germany.

Bringing to life the celebrated international novel, Winslet is riveting as Hannah Schmitz; a lonely, working-class woman who experiences a brief but intense affair with a teenage boy. Years later they meet again; Hannah now a defendant in a notorious case and her ex-lover, now a law student, holding the secret to her salvation.

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In the savage and deadly world of the gangland king, the man at the top is ruler, only for as long as he controls everything in his territory. For that man, the rewards can be infinite, but so are the dangers.

Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) is enjoying the height of his powers, and he is on the verge of something that would make his current 'arrangements' small fry. But stronger forces than even he can control have moved in and taken over. Climaxing in one long and bloody day of terror, an Easter Good Friday, he is to see his empire begin to crack and crumble.

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Jimmy Stewart plays the bungling but charming big-city lawyer determined to rid the fair village of Shinbone of its number one nuisance and bad man: Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). And as if all that weren't enough, the biggest star that ever aimed a six-shooter plays the man of the title: John Wayne.

Super-sincere Stewart and rugged rancher Wayne also share the same love interest (Vera Miles). One gets the gunman but the other gets the gal.

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Moana 2 re-unites Moana and Maui three years later for an expansive new voyage alongside a crew of unlikely seafarers.

After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she's ever faced.

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'Shakespeare in Love' is a romantic comedy for the 1990's set in the 1590's, telling the witty, sexy story behind the creation of the greatest love story of them all - Romeo and Juliet.

Young Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is the up and coming playwright of the time but has been disastrously struck by the bane of the writer's life - writer's block. His comedy "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter" is not going anywhere and the playhouse is under threat of closure. What will needs is a muse - and she appears in the form of the beautiful and (and betrothed) Lady Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow). The path of true love doesn't run smooth for young Will, however - Viola is engaged to be married to the insufferable Lord Wessex (Colin Firth) at the command of Queen Elizabeth (Judi Dench). The joys and tragedy of his own life find their way onto the page in a moving, witty and spellbinding tale.

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An extraordinary motion picture, 'Ordinary People' is an intense examination of a family being torn apart by tension and tragedy.

Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore star as the upper-middle-class couple whose "ordinary" existence is irrevocably shattered by the death of their oldest son in a boating accident, suicide and guilt left by the drowning, Judd Hirsch is the empathetic psychiatrist who provides his lifeline to survival. Mary Tyler Moore gives a riveting portrayal of the inexplicably aloof mother. Robert Redford's achievement as director, after more than twenty years as a superstar in front of the camera, earned him an Oscar. Superb performances and masterful direction complement the award-winning screenplay, based upon the novel by Judith Guest.