Movie Recommendations

This classic touches both great themes of sci-fi movies in the 1950s: aliens/monsters from space and the horrors of the nuclear bomb. Unlike in most, the alien here is benign—backed up by the power of awesome robot Gort. Excellent performances from Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal, but Gort steals the show.

First film since It Happened One Night (1935) to win all five top Oscars (best picture, best director, best actor, best actress, and best screenplay—from Ken Kesey’s novel). Jack Nicholson plays a man who voluntarily enters an insane asylum and then begins to undermine the repressive and dehumanizing discipline. Louise Fletcher is the controlling, iron-willed…

Good-natured fun with Burt Lancaster showing off his circus skills as the eponymous buccaneer.

Not for viewers who need linear exposition, this inventive romance tracks Jim Carrey’s attempt to save his fragile relationship with Kate Winslet.

Desperate to boost its economy, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick launches a foolproof plan to wage a war with the United States—and lose, so it can receive federal aid. Except they win. Peter Sellers pulls an Alec Guinness with his multiple roles.

Dustin Hoffman personifies the 1960s’ generation breaking away from their parents.

The epitome of kung fu movies. Bruce Lee infiltrates a martial arts order to uncover a plot about…oh, who cares? It’s all about the fight sequences.

Another offbeat charmer from Bill Forsyth; oil magnet Burt Lancaster sends Peter Riegert to buy a sleepy Scottish fishing town.

Delicious Ian McKellen rendition of Shakespeare’s crooked spider has the eponymous monarch creating a Fascist state after murdering his rivals to the throne.

The fun-loving and recently deceased Kerbys (Cary Grant and Constance Bennett) decide they won’t be free to shuffle off the mortal coil until they help their stuffy banker acquaintance Topper lighten up.