Best director (71)

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Unlike most "message" films which date themselves almost immediately, Lewis Milestone's low-key unpolished and deeply-felt screen adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque anti-war novel has lost little of its original impact. Years after its release it was still being banned in countries mobilizing for war. The plot follows a group of young German recruits in World War I through their passage from idealism to disillusionment. As the central character Paul Baumer declares, "We live in the trenches and we fight. We try not to be killed--that's all." All Quiet is an anthology of now famous scenes: Ayres trapped in a shell crater with a man he has killed; the first meeting of the recruits and the...
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Spoiled Ellie Andrews (Colbert from SINCE YOU WENT AWAY) escapes from her millionaire father (Walter Connolly from TWENTIETH CENTURY), who wants to stop her from marrying a worthless playboy. En route to New York, Ellie gets involved with an out-of-work newsman, Peter Warne (Gable from GONE WITH THE WIND). When their bus breaks down, the bickering couple set off on a madcap hitchhiking expedition. Peter hopes to turn the inside story of their misadventures into a job. But complications fly when the runaway heiress and brash reporter fall in love. Directed by Frank Capra (IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE), IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT was the first movie to be honoured with all five major Oscars including...

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One of Frank Capra masterworks which garnered the director his second Academy Award ® win, Mr Deeds Goes To Town is an unforgettable ‘Capraesque’ comedy about a village innocent who inherits a fortune, only to discover it’s all more trouble than it’s worth! Starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur , this endearing and charming classic is “essential Capra and one of his best.”
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The Awful Truth
(G)
1937
Leo McCarey (Going My Way, An Affair To Remember) won a 1937 Best Director Oscar and star Irene Dunne was nominated for The Awful Truth, one of the most captivating screwball comedies ever made. A comic battlefield presided over by two superbly matched sparring partners, The Awful Truth also stars Cary Grant as the other half of a couple facing divorce - and fighting over custody of their beloved dog, Mr. Smith. Somewhere before the final divorce decree, however, Jerry decides he wants Lucy back, only to learn that she's marrying a country bumpkin (hilariously played by Ralph Bellamy). Jerry counters with an engagement to the aristocratic Molly Lamont, sparking a sexy,...

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Winner of 2 Academy Awards Academy Award winner James Stewart (1940 Best Actor, The Philadelphia Story and 1985 Honorary Oscar), Jean Arthur, Academy Award winner Lionel Barrymore (1931 Best Actor, A Free Soul ) and Edward Arnold star in this classic screwball comedy. Based on the phenomenally successful Kaufman-Hart play, You Can't Take It With You was directed by Frank Capra and won two Academy Awards (1938 Best Picture, Best Director) and garnered five more nominations. It was Capra's third Oscar for directing. Arthur stars as Alice Sycamore, the stable family member of an offbeat clan of free spirits who falls for Stewart, the down-to-earth...

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Gone With the Wind
(PG)
1939
David O. Selznick's production of Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize winner Gone with the Wind is "the pinnacle of Hollywood moviemaking," Leonard Maltin of Entertainment Tonight said. And in Maltin's view, "it looks better than it has in years." This sweeping Civil War-era romance won an impressive 10 Academy Awards (including Best Picture), and its immortal characters Scarlett (Vivien Leigh), Rhett (Clark Gable), Ashley (Leslie Howard), Melanie (Olivia de Havilland), Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) and Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) populate an epic story of enduring appeal across generations. Judged by many to be the greatest movie of all time, Gone with the Wind now comes home in its best edition...

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Following a prison term he served for manslaughter, Tom Joad returns to find his family homestead overwhelmed by weather and the greed of the banking industry. With little work potential on the horizon of the Oklahoma dust bowls, the entire family packs up and heads for the promised land - California. But the arduous trip and harsh living conditions they encounter offer little hope, and family unity proves as daunting a challenge as any other they face.
1940
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Winner of five Academy Awards, this inspiring, yet heart-breaking "Hollywood milestone" ( Halliwell's Film Guide ) from Darryl F. Zanuck and director John Ford is "a perfection of screen art" and "one of the finest" pictures ever made ( Variety ). Sixty-year-old Huw Morgan looks back on his life as a boy (RODDY McDOWALL) in a small Welsh mining town. His reminiscences reveal the disintegration of the closely knit Morgans, and his devoted parents (DONALD CRISP, SARA ALLGOOD), while capturing the sentiments and issues of their time. MAUREEN O'HARA and WALTER PIDGEON co-star in this acclaimed screen classic, the story of one family's dreams, struggles and triumphs.

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Mrs. Miniver
(PG)
1942
The moving wartime drama that won the hearts of nations over to Britain's cause and seven Oscars including Best Picture. Keeping the homefires burning, the Miniver family learn to cope with fear, constant bombing raids and grim overseas news about loved ones. But when valiant Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson) captures a German pilot, the stark reality of war arrives on her doorstep.

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Casablanca
(PG)
1943
Casablanca: easy to enter, but much harder to leave, especially if your name is on the Nazis' most-wanted list. Atop 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. Winner of three Academy Awards including Best Picture, Casablanca is "America's most popular and beloved movie - and...

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Going My Way
(G)
1944
Going My Way is a heart-warming and original film that captured seven Oscars TM including Best Actor (Bing Crosby), Best Picture and Best Director. When young Father O’Malley (Crosby) arrives to join the congregation at an old established church, things get complicated. St Dominic’s crusty old Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald) doesn’t think much of O’Malley or his ideas. These two priests simply can’t agree. But when O’Malley’s fresh methods succeed in reaching out to the neighbourhood’s toughest kids the community starts to change. The neighbourhood becomes closer as the church’s meaning grows dearer to their souls. Going My Way is filled with music from the classic “Ave Maria,” sung by...

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The Lost Weekend
(PG)
1945
The Best Picture of 1945 has lost none of its bite or power in this uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism. Ironically, this brilliant Billy Wilder film was almost never released because of poor reaction by preview audiences unaccustomed to such stark realism from Hollywood, but the film has since gone on to be regarded as one of the all-time great dramas in movie history. Ray Milland's haunting portrayal of a would-be writer's dissatisfaction with his life leads him on a self-destructive three-day binge. Filled with riveting imagery, the multiple Academy Award-winner offers an unforgettable view of life on the edge.

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Director Elia Kazan and producer Darryl F. Zannuck caused a sensation with "the most spellbinding ever put on celluloid" (Hollywood Reporter), recipient of three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. One of the first films to directly tackle racial prejudice, this acclaimed adaptation of Laura Z. Hobson's bestseller stars Gregory Peck as a journalist assigned to write a series of articles on anti-semitism. Searching for an angle, he finally decides to pose as a Jew - and soon discovers what it is like to be a victim of relgious intolerance. Dorothy Maguire, John Garfield, Dean Stockwell, and Jane Havoc also star in this post World War II classic.

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Pure cinematic gold! This triple Academy Award - winner well deserves its status as a renowned classic. Both a riveting adventure story and richly sardonic tale, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre digs into the depths of the human soul, producing one of Hollywood's all-time richest finds. Directed by the acclaimed John Huston (who also appeared uncredited in the film), the story features Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt as a trio of down-and-out Americans in 1920's Tampico. Pooling their resources, they strike off into the mountains of Mexico in search of gold. Hounded by jungle Indians, a fortune-hunting Texan and cold blooded banditos, they must finally confront the...

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All About Eve
(PG)
1950
The "dialogue is scintillating, characters... extraordinary, direction... perfect and production as fine as anything 20th Century Fox has turned out" in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "captivating" ( Variety ) Oscar winner for Best Picture. From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington (ANNE BAXTER) moves relentlessly towards her goal: taking the reins of power from the great actress Margo Channing (BETTE DAVIS). The cunning Eve manoeuvres her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend (GARY MERRILL), her playwright (HUGH MARLOWE) and his wife (CELESTE HOLM). Only the cynical drama critic...
All About Eve (PG)

 

1950
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A Place in the Sun
(PG)
1951
It really looks like George Eastman can at last have his place in the sun. A chance meeting with a long lost uncle has led to a job with a future and the beautiful and well bred Angela Vickers is just as infatuated with him as he is with her. But Alice Tripp, who works on the factory assembly line, isn't about to be written out of the picture. George was told not to date any of the women at the factory and Alice helps him keep two big secrets until a very eventful Labor Day weekend at the Vickers lakeside home. What happens at the lake is why Theodore Dreiser titled the original novel "An American Tragedy."
1951
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In this landmark film, passion and tragedy collide on a military base as a fateful day in December 1941 draws near. Private Prewitt ( Montgomery Clift from A PLACE IN THE SUN ) is a soldier and former boxer being manipulated by his superior and peers. His friend Maggio ( Frank Sinatra from THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM ) tries to help him but has his own troubles. Sergeant Warden ( Burt Lancaster from ELMER GANTRY ) and Karen Holmes ( Deborah Kerr from SEPARATE TABLES ) tread on dangerous ground as lovers in an illicit affair. Each of their lives will be changed when their stories culminate in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Winner of eight Oscars, including Best...
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On The Waterfront
(PG)
1954
Marlon Brando gives one of the screen's most electrifying performances as Best Actor in this 1954 Academy Award ® winner for Best Film. Ex-fighter Terry Malloy (Brando from THE GODFATHER) could have been a contender, but now toils for boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb from THE EXORCIST) on the gang-ridden waterfront. Terry is guilt-stricken, however, when he lures a rebellious worker to his death. But it takes the love of Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint from NORTH BY NORTHWEST), the dead man's sister, to show Terry how low he has fallen. When his crooked brother Charley the Gent (Rod Steiger from IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT) is brutally murdered for refusing to kill him, Terry battles to...

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Marty
(PG)
1955
Marty has a problem. Middle-aged and trapped by a smothering mother, his future looks bleak. But when this butcher from the Bronx meets a lonely schoolteacher, suddenly everything is possible. Marty swept the Academy Awards in 1955, winning a Best Actor Oscar for Ernest Borgnine and a Best Screenplay award for Paddy Chayefsky (Network), as well as Best Picture and Best Director Awards.

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Giant
(G)
1956
Giant is a movie of huge scale and grandeur in which three generations of land-rich Texans love, swagger, connive, and clash in a saga of family strife, racial bigotry and conflict between cattle barons and newly rich oil tycoons. It's also one of the most beloved works of director George Stevens, who won an Academy Award for this film, one of 10 Oscar nominations the film earned..

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