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

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This smash hit futuristic comedy is a fresh and sublimely entertaining tale from French filmmakers, Jeunet (Amelie) and Caro. In a starving, post-holocaust France, a butcher keeps his customers supplied by his cannibalistic tendencies.

But when his daughter falls in love with a circus performer, only an underground band of vegetarian freedom fighters can save her beloved from the meat cleaver.

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Among the most highly praised titles in all contemporary film, this singular masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema, directed by Edward Yang, was unavailable for years and much sought after. Set in the early 1960s, 'A Brighter Summer Day' is based on the true story of a crime that rocked Taiwan.

A film of both sprawling scope and tender intimacy, this novelistic, patiently observed epic centers on the gradual but inexorable fall of a young teenager (Chang Chen, in his first role) from innocence to delinquency, and is set against a simmering backdrop of restless youth, rock and roll, and political turmoil.

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Former junkie William Lee (Peter Weller) makes ends meet as an exterminator. But when he and his wife Joan (Judy Davis) discover the hallucinatory properties of the powder he uses to kill bugs, they become hooked, and their world is changed forever.

Insects speak, typewriters mutate and talk, interdimensional beings reveal themselves, identities fracture and blur; nothing and no one is quite what it seems. When Bill, underthe influence of drugs, or the bugsthat have begun talking to him, shoots his wife, he flees to Interzone, at once a place and a state of mind, where things only get stranger.

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Jacques Rivette's award-winning, critically acclaimed film stars Michel Piccoli in one of his finest performances as an artist who, ten years previously, abandoned his masterpiece entitled 'La Belle Noiseuse' (The Beautiful Troublemaker), a painting of his wife (Jane Birkin).

When he encounters the beautiful and fascinating Marianne (Emmanuelle Beart), he is inspired to return to the unfinished canvas, using her as his new model. But disturbing tensions develop as the work progresses and the reasons for the painting's original rejection begin to surface.

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Rogers gives the performance of a lifetime as Sharon, a bored, beautiful telephone operator who seeks excitement in orgiastic sex with strangers. Later, tormented by feelings of emptiness, she attempts suicide.

Comforted by members of a cult-like religion who are preparing for the second coming of Christ - "The rapture" - Sharon undergoes a religious conversion that is hallucinatory, frightening and ultimately tragic. Praised for its power and originality, The Rapture is "unnerving and outrageously uncompromising...you haven't seen anything like it."

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Surreal character study focusing on the friendship between two male hustlers, Mike and Scott, in Portland, Oregon. They live on the streets, do drugs, and sell themselves to men and women. Mike (River Phoenix) is quite, gay and suffers from narcolepsy.

Abandoned as a child, he is obsessed with finding his long-lost mother. Scott (Keanu Reeves) is the rebellious son of a high-ranking family, who lives this life mostly to embarrass his father. Mike is in love with Scott, who still maintains he is straight and insists that his wild lifestyle on the streets is only temporary. Together, they embark on a quest to find Mike's mother, traveling from Portland to Idaho to Italy, whit Scott picking up a beautiful girl along the way.

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Susan Sarandon (Louise) and Geena Davis (Thelma) star as accidental outlaws on a desperate flight across the Southwest after a tragic incident at a roadside bar.

With a determined detective (Harvey Keitel) on their trail, a sweet-talking hitchhiker (Brad Pitt) in their path and a string of crimes in their wake, their journey alternates between hilarious, high-speed thrill-ride and empowering personal odyssey...even as the law closes in.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as the cyborg from the future in the most successful sequel of all time. Almost ten years have passed since Sarah Connor's ordeal began, and her son John, the future leader of the resistance, is now a healthy young boy.

However, the nightmare begins again when a new, more deadly Terminator is sent back in time, its orders - to strike at John Connor while he is still a child. Sarah and John, however, don't face this terrifying Terminator alone. The human resistance has sent back another warrior from the future, its orders - to protect John Connor at any cost - the battle for tomorrow has begun...

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A psychopath known only as Buffalo Bill is kidnapping and murdering young women across the midwest. Believing it takes ones to know one, the FBI sends in Agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) to interview an insane prisoner who may provide psychological insights and clues to the killer's actions.

The prisoner is psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). Brilliant yet psychotic, with a taste for cannibalism, Lecter will only help Starling in exchange for details and secrets about her own complicated life. This twisted relationship forces Starling not only to face her own demons, but leads her face-to-face with a demented killer, an incarnation of evil so overwhelming, she may not have the courage or strength to stop him. Horrific, disturbing, spellbinding. This thriller set the standard by which all others are measured.

Upon examining the Warren Commission report on President Kennedy's assassination, New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) suspects that there is more to the story than the public is being told.

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Linklater's breakout second film is an utterly unique series of loosely interweaved episodes shining a delightfully off-beat light on a parade of socially disconnected, overly educated, and barely motivated citizens in Austin Texas.

In coffeehouses, clubs, bars, apartments, stores, and streets of the college town, life's strange quirks, odd foibles and disruptive inanities come astonishingly to life. Linklater's film remains a cult sensation that launched a thousand imitators. But none of the effusive 20-somethings littering the casts of 1990s US independent cinema can hold a candle to those of this hilarious and vibrant true original.

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After its 1989 release and subsequent screening on public television, 'Tongues Untied' polarised critics with its unapologetic portrayal of black gay experience in America.

Part documentary, part performance, it was described as the film we have been waiting for by critic Cary Alan Johnson and vilified as a misuse of public funds by right-wing presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan. Such divided opinions were testament to the films lasting impact as a powerful depiction of the ongoing black liberation movement, twinned with devastation of the AIDS crisis. 30 years on, the poetry of Marlon Riggs himself, as well as performances from Essex Hemphill and Brian Freeman, comprise a unique record of a critical historical moment with fierce intelligence, virtuosic rhythm and courageous hope that still stuns today.

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In the late seventies celebrated director Francis Ford Coppola and his cast and crew ventured into the dense jungles of the Philippines to begin work on what would eventually become his masterpiece, "Apocalypse Now".

But the journey from page to screen soon spiralled into a hellish, life-threatening nightmare that echoed the film's narrative. Plagued with adversity, one of the most influential films ever made had one of the most notorious shoots in cinema history that few survived unscathed. Compiled from rare on set footage filmed by Coppola's wife Eleanor and interviews with the cast, "Hearts Of Darkness" is the ultimate feature-length documentary, capturing the explosive events that lead to "Apocalypse Now" becoming an acknowledged classic.

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Irene Jacob is utterly captivating in the twin roles of Veronique and Weronika, two young women leading totally separate lives in France and in Poland, yet each strangely aware of the other's presence.

Despite their different backgrounds, the two share not only many of the same likes, foibles and prodigious musical talents, but also the same wisdom, inspiring one to unconsciously avoid making the same mistakes in life as the other.

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Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio) is a talented ballroom dancing champion who longs to dance his own steps. This results in being dumped by his partner and chastened by all those around him, except two people.

One is Fran, the ugly duckling of the school who persuades him to let her dance with him, and eventually steals his heart. The other is his father, a quiet man dominated by his bejewelled wife. Scott knows in his heart he must follow his dreams, but some are determined to see him fail. The film climaxes at the Australian Championship in a superbly choreographed and heart-warming finale.