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

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Based on the true life best seller 'Wiseguy' by Nicolas Pileggi and backed by a dynamic pop/rock oldies soundtrack, critics and filmgoers alike declared 'GoodFellas' great.

It was named the best film of the '90s by the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of film critics, and it earned 6 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.

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'Jacob's Ladder' tells the truly scary story of a traumatized Vietnam war veteran, who, as he returns to his civilian life begins to hallucinate.

Visualising horned creatures and visited by his dead son, Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) downwardly spirals into a life of confusion and horror as he searches for the truth behind his Vietnam experience and tries to make sense of what is happening to him.

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After years inside, drug lord Frank White (Christopher Walken) is fresh out of jail and back on the streets of New York City.

Seeing himself as half Scarface, half Robin Hood, Frank and his enforcers brutally take back control of the city, turf by turf - with starry dreams of using the millions to benefit the community and save a local hospital. Before Frank can fulfil his ruthless lust for power, though, he's got to get past the crooked cops determined to take him down, and the criminal competition that won't bend to his will.

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Kevin Costner is Lt. John Dunbar who, as a reward for an act of heroism, chooses reassignment to the Western Frontier. Dunbar becomes caught between two worlds as he drawn into the loving and honourable folds of a Sioux tribe living in the Dakota territory.

This powerful story follows Dunbar's romances and friendships with extraordinary race of people, and ultimately, the crucial decision he must make as white settlers continue their violent and ruthless journey into the lands of the Native Americans.

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As World War II splits Europe, sixteen-year-old German Jew Salomon (Marco Hofschneider) is separated from his family after fleeing with them to Poland, and finds himself reluctantly assuming various ideological identities in order to hide the deadly secret of his Jewishness.

He is bounced from a Soviet orphanage, where he plays a dutiful Stalinist, to the Russian front, where he hides in plain sight as an interpreter for the German army, and back to his home country, where he takes on his most dangerous role: a member of the Hitler Youth. Based on the real-life experiences of Salomon Perel, Agnieszka Holland's wartime tour de force 'Europa Europa' is a breathless survival story told with the verve of a comic adventure, an ironic refutation of the Nazi idea of racial purity, and a complex portrait of a young man caught up in shifting historical calamities and struggling to stay alive.

Vivian (Julia Roberts) is a spirited, streetwise diamond in the rough when she meets shrewd, no-nonsense billionaire Edward Lewis (Richard Gere). It's a chance encounter that turns a week long "business arrangement" into a timeless rags-to-riches romance.

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Literally, a film like no other, this weird, wild and extraordinary photoplay is both melodrama and deadpan parody.

With striking black and white cinematography and stylized set design, Guy Maddin tells a tale of obsessive love in the arctic Russian town of Archangel, where Bolsheviks, White Russians and German Huns converge during World War I.

Hal Hartley's 'Trust' tells the dark comic tale of an unlikely relationship between Maria (Adrienne Shelly), a well-meaning yet thoughtless pregnant teenager, and Matthew (Martin Donovan) an educated yet frustrated high school graduate.

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A brilliant exploration of the power of movies, Close-Up reconstructs the true story of a cinephile's attempt to become a filmmaker he admires.

Hossein Sabzian introduces himself as celebrated Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and, under the pretext of working on a film project, enters the private life of a well-to-do Teheran family and eventually faces fraud charges.

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Once upon a time in a castle high on a hull lived an inventor whose greatest creation was named Edward. Although Edward had an irresistible charm, he wasn't quite perfect. The inventor's sudden death left him unfinished, with sharp shears of metal for hands.

Edward lived alone in the darkness until one day a kind of Avon lady took him home to live with her family. Ando began Edward's fantastical adventures in a pastel paradise known as Suburbia.

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Recently released from prison, the nomadic Henry (Michael Rooker) finds temporary abode in the rundown Chicago lodgings of a former jail acquaintance and small-time drug dealer, Otis (Tom Towles).

Hiding behind his unremarkable employment as a pest exterminator, Henry leads a double life, prowling the streets by night on a brutal and apparently motiveless killing spree. As the bodies mount up, Otis finds himself inducted into Henry's dark secret world, but when Otis' sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) moves in, herself fleeing from an uncomfortable domestic situation, it quickly becomes apparent that two's company, but three's a crowd.

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It's 2084 AD: and Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is haunted by recurring dreams about a journey to Mars. A visit to a vacation parlour unlocks erased memories in Quaid's mind.

Quaid discovers that he is, in fact, a top intelligence agent on Mars which is now under the harsh rule of the treacherous tyrant Vilas Cohaagen. Quaid's memory has been erased to suppress his knowledge of Cohaagen's plans. Quaid outwits the Secret Police and makes his way to Mars where he is reunited with his former lover Melina. Together they must stop Cohaagen's diabolical plan and unlock the mysteries within the planet's core.

In 19th century Canton, Wong Fei-hung (Jet Li) battles ruthless imperialist forces determined to subjugate his country and enslave his people, leading to a climactic fight sequence still regarded as one of the best ever filmed.

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"Boyz N the Hood" is the critically acclaimed story about three friends growing up in a South Central Los Angeles neighborhood, and of street life where friendship, pain, danger and love combine to form reality. "The Hood" is a place where drive-by shootings and unemployment are rampant.

But it is also a place where harmony co-exists with adversity, especially for the three young men growing up there: Doughboy (Ice Cube), an unambitious drug dealer; his brother Ricky (Morris Chestnut), a college-bound teenage father; and Ricky's best friend, Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who aspires to a brighter future beyond the "The Hood". In a world where a trip to the store can end in death, the friends have diverse reactions to their bleak surroundings. Tre's resolve is strengthened by a strong father (Larry Fishburne) who keeps him on the right track. But the lessons Tre learns are put to the ultimate test when tragedy strikes close to home, and violence seems like the only recourse.

Songlian (Gong Li) is the fourth and newest wife to a master who already supports three wives. Each has her own house within the closed world of the family compound, where every evening a red lantern is lit in front of the door of the wife with whom the master chooses to sleep. Let the rivalries begin!