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

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When British P.O.W.'s build a vital railway bridge in enemy-occupied Burma, Allied commandos are assigned to destroy it in David Lean's epic World War II adventure 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'.

Spectacularly produced, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' captured the imagination of the public and won seven 1957 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Alec Guinness), and Best Director. Even it's the theme song, an old WWI whistling tune, the 'Colonel Bogey March', became a massive worldwide hit. 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' continues today as one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of all time.

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From INDIA, the cradle of the gods, comes this epic drama of an Indian mother, the nucleus round which revolves the tradition and culture of the ages in this ancient land. In India, every woman is an integral part of a man.

With marriage she merges her individuality into her husband's and both together form a single entity in society. One without the other is but half the story of an eternal harmony going beyond a single birth and through seven births as the Indian scriptures say. A woman's marriage is thus an eternal spiritual bond and in her absolute dedication to her husband, her single prayer is to die in the presence of her husband and carried out by him even as a bride in death. To this eternal Indian woman, the home is her temple, the husband her god, her children his blessings and the land her great mother. This is a story of one such Indian woman, a supreme symbol of millions of mothers that make this ancient land Mother India.

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This landmark film by the virtuosic Mikhail Kalatozov was heralded as a revelation in the post-Stalin Soviet Union and the international cinema community alike.

It tells the story of Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova) and Boris (Alexei Batalov), a couple who are blissfully in love until World War II tears them apart. With Boris at the front, Veronica must try to ward off spiritual numbness and defend herself from the increasingly forceful advances of her beau's draft-dodging cousin.

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Safe their picturesque chateau behind the front lines, the French General Staff passes down a direct order to Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas): take the Ant Hill at any cost. A blatant suicide mission, the attack is doomed to failure.

Covering up their fatal blunder, the Generals order the arrest of three innocent soldiers, charging them with cowardice and mutiny. Dax, a lawyer in civilian life, rises to the men's defense but soon realizes that, unless he can prove that the Generals were to blame, nothing less than a miracle will save his clients from the firing squad.

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A powerful film about a ruthless journalist and an unscrupulous press agent who'll do anything to achieve success, this fascinating, compelling story crackles with taut direction and whiplash dialogue.

Bristling with vivid performances by Curtis and Lancaster, this gutsy expose of big-city corruption is a timeless classic that cuts deep and sends a chilling message. It's late at night in the steamy, neon-lit streets of New York's Times Square, and everything's buzzing with nervous energy. But press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is oblivious to the whirlwind of street vendors, call girls and con men bustling around him as he nervously waits for the early edition of The Globe. Whose career did gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) launch today… and whose did he destroy?

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Ex-outlaw Link Jones (Gary Cooper) boards a train to Foil Worth to hire a schoolteacher for his town when he's knocked unconscious and robbed - by a gang of outlaws associated with his own uncle (Lee J. Cobb) whom he abandoned years earlier in his bid to go straight.

Soon after, and in order to protect the life of the woman he'd earmarked for teacher, saloon singer Billie Ellis (Julie London), Link rejoins the gang for one last hold-up...

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Experience Orson Welles' timeless masterpiece, 'Touch of Evil', complete and uncut with restored footage for the first time ever! This exceptional film noir portrait of corruption and morally-compromised obsessions stars Welles as Hank Quinlan, a crooked police chief who frames a Mexican youth as

part of an intricate criminal plot. Charlton Heston plays an honorable Mexican narcotics investigator who clashes with the bigoted Quinlan after probing into his dark past. A memorable supporting cast including Janet Leigh as Heston's inquisitive wife, Akim Tamiroff as a seedy underworld leader, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Marlene Dietrich as an enigmatic gypsy complete this fascinating drama engulfed in haunting cinematography and a magnificently eerie score by Henry Mancini.

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The lustful fantasies of crippled Qinawi a newsstand vendor in a Cairo train depot morph into a dangerous fixation with a seductive but scheming lemonade seller just as a serial killer begins terrorizing the city in this Egyptian thriller.

Also directed by Chahine, the film met with a chorus of condemnation upon its 1958 release but is now considered a masterwork by many cinephiles and critics.

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.

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Joker Jackson (Tony Curtis) and Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) are two convicts on the run. Escaping from a Southern work gang, the two men are bound together by an unbreakable iron chain and separated by an unbridled hatred towards each other.

Relentlessly pursued by a posse and bloodhounds, they put aside their differences to survive. But when a lonely woman (Cara Williams) breaks their chain and deliberately sends Cullen to certain death, Jackson must decide what's more important: saving Cullen...or saving himself.

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After he saves her from drowning in the bay, Scottie's (James Stewart) interest shifts from business to fascination with the icy, alluring blonde. When tragedy strikes and Madeleine (Kim Novak) dies, Scottie is devastated.

But when he finds another woman remarkably like his lost love, the now obsessed detective must unravel the secrets of the past to find the key to his future.

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On the last day of World War Two in a small town somewhere in Poland, Polish exiles of war and the occupying Soviet forces confront the beginning of a new day and a new Poland.

In this incendiary environment we find Home Army soldier Maciek Chelmicki, who has been ordered to assassinate an incoming commissar. But a mistake stalls his progress and leads him to Krystyna, a beautiful barmaid who gives him a glimpse of what his life could be. Gorgeously photographed and brilliantly performed, Ashes and Diamonds masterfully interweaves the fate of a nation with that of one man, resulting in one of the most important Polish films of all time.

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Classic Hammer horror starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) journeys to Castle Dracula, where he is turned into one of the undead by the famous vampire (Lee).

Professor Van Helsing (Cushing) arrives and drives a stake through Harker's heart, but must then pursue Dracula to London, where the Count intends to make Harker's fiancée Lucy Holmwood his bride.

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Mr and Mrs Arpel live in a remarkably modern house in a bland, clean neighbourhood. In this excessively controlled universe there is no room for play, chance or humour, and their son Gerard is bored.

However the calm is broken with the sudden eruption of his eccentric misfit uncle, Monsieur Hulot, Madame Arpel's brother. His family and entourage resent his whimsicality, especially as he becomes a role model for Gerard...

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With 'The Music Room' (Jalsaghar), Satyajit Ray (Pather Panchali) brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of the world of a fallen aristocrat (the beloved actor Chhabi Biswas) desperately clinging to his way of life.

His greatest joy is the music room in which he has hosted lavish concerts over the years - now a shadow of its former vivid self. An incandescent depiction of the clash between tradition and modernity, and a showcase for some of India's most popular musicians of the day, 'The Music Room' is a defining work by the great Bengali filmmaker.