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

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In the mid-70's, Argentina's military dictatorship carried out a brutal campaign of torture and murder against thousands of its own citizens.

'The Official Story' follows Alicia (Norma Aleandro), the sheltered wife of a wealthy businessman (Hector Alterio), who begins to unravel the horrifying legacy of her country's past when she looks into the background of her own daughter, adopted at birth, to find that she may have been stolen from a family of "los desaparecidos" (the disappeared ones). 'The Official Story' is the true account of a woman faced with the hardest choice she could make - to live a lie or risk tearing apart her own life and family.

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Out Of Africa follows the true life story of Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep), an amazingly strong-willed woman who moves from Denmark to run a coffee plantation with her philandering husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer) in Kenya around 1914.

To her astonishment she soon discovers herself falling in love with the land, its people and a mysterious British adventurer and idealist (Robert Redford).

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Lonely Depression-era waitress Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is hopelessly addicted to Hollywood movies. Spellbound by her new favorite, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Cecilia is astonished when the leading man (Jeff Daniels) suddenly walks off the screen to meet her.

Wooed by his charm, Cecilia finds herself falling for him - until she meets the real actor who plays him. Romanced by both a fictional character and a famous star, Cecilia struggles to locate the shifting line between fantasy and reality, only to discover that sometimes it's just a heartbeat away.

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The year is 1985 - but not for long. Because teenager Marty McFly (Michael J.Fox) is about to be blasted back to 1955 aboard the plutonium-powered DeLorean created by eccentric genius Doc Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd).

But when Marty accidentally keeps his parents-to-be from falling in love, it triggers a time shattering chain reaction that could vaporise his future - and leave him trapped in the past! Now, Marty's last hope is to change history - before the clock runs out in his only chance to get himself Back to the Future!

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Spanning the years 1947-65, the film follows the maturation of Ah-ha (Ah-hsiao) as he and his family (parents, grandmother, older sister, three brothers) cope with the shock of leaving their homeland (the grandmother keeps talking about returning to the mainland to visit the ancestors).

Having been only a child during the move, Ah-ha quickly acclimatizes himself to the new country, often putting him at odds with his more traditional family; he joins a street gang and has to choose between that life and taking the college entrance exam.

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It's only a state of mind. Jonathan Pryce stars as Sam Lowry in this surrealistic spectacle about a daydreaming bureaucrat trapped in a future dystopia where love is forbidden from interfering with efficiency.

But with the help of an underground superhero (Robert De Niro) and a beautiful mystery woman (Kim Greist), Sam learns to soar to freedom on the wings of his untamed imagination, or so he thinks.

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A dreary prison cell is shared by two men who, in terms of lifestyle, could not be further apart. Molina (William Hurt) is a homosexual convicted for obscene behaviour, the other, Valentin (Raul Julia), is a revolutionary who has been continually tortured by the same totalitarian authorities.

As the minutes slowly pass, Molina invents a story based on the glamorous cinema of yesteryear - a Nazi propaganda film involving an unlikely love affair. At first, this extravagant display of personality doesn't bode well for the cellmates' relationship but as time and the story progresses a new kind of friendship begins to blossom.

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Zac Hobson (Bruno Lawrence), a scientist working on a pioneering energy project, wakes up one morning to find that the technology has malfunctioned, leaving him as seemingly the only man left on earth.

As Zac wanders the deserted city of Hamilton, New Zealand, hoping to find some remnant of life besides himself, his mind begins to disintegrate until fantasy and reality blur together in a heady, terrifying cocktail.

An ambitious and successful drama that takes on the life and beliefs of Japan's most celebrated author, Yukio Mishima. Mishima was passionate about merging life and art, which eventually resulted in his ritualistic suicide in 1970, a moment when he felt he could reconcile the two polarities.

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Charley Patanna (Jack Nicholson) has been loyal to The Family' since he can remember. If you need someone taken care of, he's your man - ready to kill at the drop of a dollar.

Unknown to Charley, Boss Don Corrado Prizzi's daughter Maerose (Anjelica Huston) has set her sights on him, but Charley has already fallen for sultry hit-woman Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner). However, their unlikely romance hits a problem when each is given a contract neither can go through with - each other!

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Sandrine Bonnaire won a Best Actress Cesar for her portrayal as Mona - a young and defiant drifter in this tragic story. Using a largely non-professional cast Varda recollects Mona's story through flashbacks of those who encountered her, producing a splintered portrait of an enigmatic woman.

She's not a kind girl but courageous while wandering in the winter. She announces in 1984 the collective conciousness of homeless people dying from the cold.

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Claude Lanzmann's landmark documentary about the holocaust, Shoah. Lanzmann spent twelve years spanning the globe for surviving camp inmates, SS commandants, and eyewitnesses of the "Final Solution".

Without dramatic re-enactment or archival footage - but with extraordinary testimonies - Shoah renders the step-by-step machinery of extermination, and through haunted landscapes and human voices, makes the past come brilliantly alive. "Shoah", is a work of genius, an heroic endeavour to humanise the inhuman, to tell the untellable, and to explore in unprecedented detail the horrors of the past. It is an immensely disturbing experience, yet in its solemnity and beauty not a morbid or disheartening one. There are few works of art which leave one with such a deep appreciation for the preciousness and meaning of life. For these reasons, Shoah is one of the most powerful and important films of all time.

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Celie. "Mr." Sofia (Oprah Winfrey). Nettie (Akosua Busia). Shug (Margaret Avery). The unforgettable characters of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize novel brighten the screen in this rhapsodically cinematic adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg.

At the center of the tale is Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), whose search for fulfillment in a world closed to her becomes a triumph of cruelty overcome by love, of pain eclipsed by joy.

Based on Thomas Harris' first story of Hannibal Lecktor, 'Red Dragon', 'Manhunter' introduced this popular character to an unsuspecting public. It remains a cult classic and is considered the most prominent landmark in Mann's career.

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In a small, woodsy Oregon town, a group of friends - sensitive Gordie (Wil Wheaton), tough guy Chris (River Phoenix), flamboyant Teddy (Corey Feldman), and scaredy-cat Vern (Jerry O'connell) - are in search of a missing teenager's body.

Wanting to be heroes in each other's and their hometown's eyes, they set out on an unforgettable two-day trek that turns into an odyssey of self-discovery. They sneak smokes, tell tall tales, cuss 'cause it's cool and band together when the going gets tough. When they encounter the town's knife-wielding hoods who are also after the body, the boys discover a strength they never knew they had.