frankie's - 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List

Show moreShow less

In one of the most powerhouse performances in American screen-acting, the great Kirk Douglas stars as Chuck Tatum, a newspaper reporter who stumbles upon a potentially career-making story in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

When Tatum begins to influence the story's outcome, a descent begins that finds more than one man caught between a rock and a hard place. An electric narrative that stands as one of Wilder's tautest and most (melo)dramatic plots (penned with Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman), 'Ace in the Hole' plays today as both a prescient examination of the modern media landscape, and the public appetite for the disastrous news-story that leads to toxic wish-fulfillment.

Show moreShow less

The story of the fragile sentimentalism of a former prostitute who visits her sister only to be taunted mercilessly by her childish brother-in-law.

A Streetcar Named Desire: The Original Director's Version is the Elia Kazan/ Tennessee Williams film moviegoers would have seen had not Legion of Decency censorship occurred at the last time. It features three minutes of previously unseen footage underscoring, among other things, the sexual tension between Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) and Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), and Stella Kowalski's (Kim Hunter) passion for husband Stanley.

Show moreShow less

Tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) half-jokingly muses about killing his wife with a stranger he meets on a train, unhinged playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), who'd prefer his father be deceased. In theory, each could murder the other's victim. Crisscross. No motive. No clues. No problem...

except: Bruno takes the idea seriously, with deadly consequences.

Show moreShow less

Holland (Alec Guinness) is a shy, retiring man who works as a bank transfer agent for the delivery of gold bullion. One day he befriends Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), a maker of souvenirs.

Holland remarks that, with Pendlebury's smelting equipment, one could forge the gold into harmless-looking toy Eiffel Towers and smuggle them into France. Soon after, they gain the services of professional criminals Lackery (Sidney James) and Shorty (Alfie Bass) and the four plot what they believe will be the perfect crime - which turns out to be anything but!

Show moreShow less

"Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" is writer, producer and director Albert Lewin's lushly romantic visualisation of the often-told legend of the sea.

A glamorous Ava Gardner is Pandora, who falls hard for the charismatic James Mason as Hendrik, a 17th-century seaman eternally condemned to sail the oceans.

Show moreShow less

Take two legendary co-stars, a rip-roaring boys own story, a fearless director and an eventful location shoot in Zaire and Uganda and you get 'The African Queen' - the best loved of all adventure movies.

During World War One, a hard drinking river trader (Humphrey Bogart) and a prim missionary (Katharine Hepburn) are forced to take a hazardous river expedition together, encountering tropical hazards, nefarious German officers and a surprising romance.

Show moreShow less

Based on a novel by George Bernanos, 'Diary of a Country Priest' marked the first in Director Robert Bresson's so-called "prison trilogy" (followed by 'Pickpocket' and 'A Man Escaped').

The film begins with the arrival of a young, sickly priest (Claude Laydu) at the godless parish of Ambricourt in Northern France. Here he becomes drawn into the complex domestic life of a wealthy Count (Jean Riveyre), his tormented wife, his manipulative daughter and his mistress, Miss Louise (Nicole Maurey). Narrated by excerpts of the priest's diary, the film follows his efforts to awaken the villagers from their spiritual lethargy, with their struggles, suffering and triumphs representing in a microcosm those of humankind itself. Bresson's intensely personal style, minimalist approach to dialogue and music, and use of non-professional actors marked a new kind of filmmaking, which was to influence such diverse directors as Paul Schrader, Richard Linklater and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Show moreShow less

Kelly plays an ex-GI who loves Paris and loves even more an alluring (but engaged) perfume-shop clerk. Dance sequences spun around Gershwin songs accent Kelly's romantic pursuit. And the final 17-minute ballet - combining the title symphony.

Impressionist set stylings and Kelly's unique talent for telling a story in dance - lifts this winner of six Academy Awards including Best Picture into the ether of timelessness. Love Is Here To Stay Kelly sings. So is An American In Paris.

Show moreShow less

Clift stars as George Eastman, a poor young man determined to win a place in respectable society and the heart of a beautiful socialite (Elizabeth Taylor).

Shelley Winters plays the factory girl whose dark secret threatens Eastman's professional and romantic prospects; consumed with fear and desire, Eastman is ultimately driven to a desperate act of passion that unravels his world forever...

Show moreShow less

A spaceship lands in Washington, D.C., capturing the attention of the world. But the peaceful alien emissary (Michael Rennie) it brings fails to earn the public's trust.

When a young woman and her son befriend him, they soon realise they may be all that stands between the human race and total destruction.

Show moreShow less

Set in the 1920s, "The Quiet Man" stars John Wayne as Sean Thornton, an Irish-born American who has travelled to his birthplace of Inisfree to lay claim to his family farm.

Although warmly embraced by the denizens of the village, Thornton's outsider status is thrown into relief when the abrasive landowner Squire Will Danahan (Victor McLaglen) objects both to the turnover of the land, and to the handing over of his sister Mary Kate's (Maureen O'Hara) dowry to the man whose community stature now threatens to show up his own. What follows is a confrontation with custom and with the personal past, all before an unforgettable extended brawl sprawing the entire countryside whereupon nothing less hinges than the peace of Inisfree itself.

Show moreShow less

1940, Paulette (Brigitte Fossey), a young French girl, is orphaned in a Nazi air attack during the battle of France. She is befriended by Michel (Georges Poujouly), the son of a poor farmer whose family take her in to their home to care for her.

Together the two children forge a tight bond, attempting to come to terms with the realities of the death and destruction that surrounds them by creating their own reality, building their own small graveyard to bury dead animals they find. In this sealed universe they have created, Paulette and Michel experience their first and most wonderful love story.

Show moreShow less

It started like any other night...Ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) gets a call from the house of Catherine Tremayne (Barbara O'Neil), little realising where this routine call will take him.

Mrs Tremayne has a beautiful, willful stepdaughter Diane (Jean Simmons); she's attracted to Frank and insists he take a job as the family chauffeur. Frank's wary of getting too close to the kid, however, especially when he realises she's not as sweet as she looks. But Diane has a habit of getting what she wants and it doesn't matter what - or who - it costs...

Silent movies are giving way to talking pictures - and a hoofer-turned-matinee idol (Gene Kelly) is caught in that bumpy transition, as are his buddy (Donald O'Connor), prospective ladylove (Debbie Reynolds) and shrewish costar (Jean Hagen).

Show moreShow less

Opening with a shot of an x-ray, showing the main character's stomach, 'Ikiru' tells the tale of a dedicated, downtrodden civil servant who, diagnosed with a fatal cancer, learns to change his dull, unfulfilled existence, and suddenly discovers a zest for life.

Plunging first into self-pity, then a bout of hedonistic pleasure-seeking on the frenetic streets of post-war Tokyo, Watanable (Takashi Shimura) - the film's hero - finally finds satisfaction through building a children's playground.