Movie Recommendations

One of the two most powerful antiwar films ever made (the other being Renoir’s Grand Illusion—interesting that both deal with WW I). Kirk Douglas is understated and most effective as the officer assigned to determine whether three soldiers named by a general as cowards for failing to fulfill his idiotic battle orders should be court-martialed and…

Another winning Alec Guinness/Ealing Studios combination. This time Guinness is a bank clerk with a seemingly foolfproof plan to rob a fortune in gold. (Audrey Hepburn’s film debut, as Chiquita.)

As Dennis Weaver drives along a near-deserted California highway to get to work, an 18-wheeler inexplicably tries to kill him. Early Spielberg TV movie has all the suspense of his big-budget thrillers.

Screenwriter Aldous Huxley takes remarkable liberties with Austen’s novel, but Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Edna May Oliver, and the rest of the cast make it eminently watchable.

Searing examination of racism and how cooperation can break down that boundary. Sidney Poitier is arrested on suspicion of murder as a black man passing through a small Southern town; Rod Steiger won an Oscar for his protrayal of the sheriff.

Genuinely spooky movie about demonic posession; thought the effects are slightly dated today, the atmosphere is chilling. Watch it in a dark house.

The real mystery is why Hitch decided to refilm this tale of a vactioning family dragged into an international assassination attempt. Stick with this version over the 1956 Jimmy Stewart/Doris Day remake.

Genial slacker John Cusack sets his sights on valedictorian Ione Skye in Cameron Crowe’s very human romance.

Hitch’s psychological magnum opus starts slowly but builds to a fever pitch of tension as acrophobic Jimmy Stewart investigates suicidal housewife Kim Novak.

One of the two or three all-time best silent comedies. Buster Keaton is superb as the man who has to take a train on a daring mission behind enemy lines during the Civil War. The film shows off his superb athletic/acrobatic skills, deadpan humor, and ability to construct sight-gags with wonderful timing and grace.