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

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A band of Spanish conquistadors, led by Aquirre, self-styled 'Wrath of God' go up the Amazon in search of gold, but Aquirre's megalomania turns the expedition into a death trip.

Eleven hundred men, two women, horses, Ilamas, pigs and rifles descend from the Andes highlands down into the steaming primeval forest where the waters of the Amazon begin, in quest of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. Aquirre has with him his beautiful 14-year old daughter who he intends to marry and found a new 'pure' race to rule over a golden empire.

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Cabaret brings 1931 Berlin to life inside and outside the Kit Kat Klub. There, starry eyed American Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) and an impish emee (Joel Grey) sound the call for decadent fun, while in the street the Nazi party is beginning to grow into a brutal political force.

Into this heady world arrives British language teacher Brian Robert (Michael York) who falls for Sally's charm and soon, the two of them find themselves embroiled in the turmoil and decadence of the era.

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He (Brando) is a 45 year old American living in Paris, haunted by his wife's suicide. She (Maria Schneider) is a 20-year-old Parisian beauty engaged to a young filmmaker.

Though nameless to each other, these tortured souls come together to satisfy their sexual cravings in an apartment as bare as their dark, tragic lives. Caught up in the frenzied beat of a carnal dance they cannot seem to stop, these unlikely lovers take their passion to erotic heights - and depths - beyond anything they could ever have imagined.

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High Plains Drifter returns Clint Eastwood to his familiar scene of the Old West and his familiar role of "The Man With No Name." Eastwood portrays a mysterious stranger who emerges out of the heat waves of the desert and rides into the guilt-ridden town of Lago.

After committing three murders and one rape in the first 20 minutes, The Stranger is hired by the town to protect it from three gunmen just out of jail. The Stranger then paints the entire town bright red, renames it "Hell", and supplies Divine retribution in a fiery climax.

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Wealthy mystery novelist Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) invites lower-class hairdresser Milo Tindle (Michael Caine) to his elegant English mansion to discuss Milo's affair with Wyke's wife.

But when Andrew proposes that Milo participate in a robbery scheme to benefit them all, the two rivals find themselves locked in an increasingly devious duel of wits and deceptions. Who is the player? Who is the pawn? And in the shocking and wicked final twist, who will win the deadliest game of all?

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Four ordinary men in two canoes navigate a river they only know as a line on a map, taking on a wilderness they only think they understand.

Deliverance, written by James Dickey based on his novel, surges with the urgency of masterful storytelling, like Georgia's Chattooga River along which it was shot. Equally masterful is the portrayal of each man's change of character under stress, harrowingly enacted by award winners Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. Director John Boorman sets us on the knife-edge of survival - and draws us in with the irresistible force of a raging current.

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When Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) is sent on a mission to the Solaris Space Station, he is confronted with a skeleton crew who are psychologically unstable due to the presence of what they call "visitors". Kris soon begins to encounter his own visitor - his late wife.

Taunting him with illusory compassion, Kris must choose whether to cling to reality or submit to the planet's gift of a lost love regained.

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In late 1940's New York, Mafia 'Godfather' Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) gathers his three sons around him for daughter Connie (Talia Shire)'s wedding; the hot-headed Sonny (James Caan), ineffectual Fredo (John Cazale) and war hero Michael (Al Pacino), who chooses to distance himself from the

family 'business'. When Vito is shot and wounded for refusing to sanction a rival family's heroin sales on his territory, Sonny temporarily takes over and embarks on bloody gang warfare. This results in him being killed in an ambush, and Michael finds himself nominated to succeed the ailing Vito.

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In rural Sweden around the turn of the century, three sisters reside in a vast manor house with their housekeeper. Agnes (Harriet Andersson) lives out the last days of her life in pain, hoping for companionship and affection.

Surrounded by her sisters, Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann), Agnes takes comfort in the fact that her remaining time can be spent with those close to her. However, dissatisfaction in their day-to-day-lives, and the estrangement that they feel from one another, causes the sisters to become increasingly self-absorbed.

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With a screenplay adapted by Leonard Gardner from his own novel, John Huston's drama examines the meager hopes and resigned dreams of small-time boxers.

In limbo between retirement and his youthful prime, alcoholic farm laborer Tully (Stacy Keach) shacks up with fellow outcast Oma (Susan Tyrrell) and keeps trying to make a boxing comeback, but his personal demons repeatedly overpower his ambitions. Meanwhile, fellow Stockton, CA resident and budding fighter Ernie (Jeff Bridges) takes Tully's advice to join trainer Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto)'s gym and make something of himself. Learning the tough lesson that winning is not as easy as it sounds, Ernie is still determined to get what he can out of boxing and, unlike Tully, not let disappointments get the best of him.

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The Ambassador of the small South American country of Miranda is trafficking in drugs with some French bourgeois friends of his. But every time they want to have dinner together, their plans are put off due to unexpected events.

In their quest of a lavish feast, the dividing-line between reality and dreams becomes unclear for each guest, leading to complete and utter ridicule.

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Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen), with two marriages behind her and an absent daughter, is a successful fashion designer.

She lives with her secretary, the repressed and subservient Marlene (Irm Hermann), who will form the second point in a tragic ménage à trois when Petra meets and falls hopelessly in love with a confident young model named Karin (Hanna Schygulla).

In modern-day London, a sex criminal known as 'The Necktie Murderer' has the police on alert, and in typical Hitchcok fashion, the trail is leading to an innocent man, who must know now elude the law and prove his innocence by finding the real murderer.

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When a pair of sociopaths (Mink Stole and David Lochary) with a habit of kidnapping women in order to impregnate them attempt to challenge her title, Divine resolves to show them and the world the true meaning of the word 'filth'.

Incest, cannibalism, shrimping, and film history's most legendary gross-out ending - Waters and his merry band of Dreamlanders leave no taboo unsmashed in this gleefully subversive ode to outsiderhood, in which camp spectacle and pitch-black satire are wielded in an all-out assault on respectability.

Priest (Ron O'Neal) is a prince of the streets, a charismatic businessman who wants out of cocaine-dealing. But a mysterious kingpin doesn't want Priest to change his ways. And that triggers murder, revenge and double-crosses that push Priest into a corner - and heat the neighborhood to flashpoint.