griggs's - Favourite 100 Films List

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Kim Ki Taek's (Song Kang Ho) family are all unemployed and living in a squalid basement. When his son, Ki Woo, gets a tutoring job at the lavish home of the Park family, the Kim family's luck changes.

One by one they gradually infiltrate the wealthy Park's home, attempting to take over their affluent lifestyle, but as their deception unravels events begin to get increasingly out of hand in ways you simply cannot imagine.

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In 16th century Japan a poor village is raided every year by a group of bandits until, driven to the brink of starvation, the villagers decide to hire professional warriors to protect them. With only three meager meals a day to offer as payment, their request seems an impossible one.

A simple plot, flawlessly executed - 'Seven Samurai' combines comedy, pathos, memorable characters, gripping tension and some of the finest action scenes ever filmed.

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This Powell and Pressburger classic is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made.

Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), a young ballerina, becomes torn between her love for composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and artistic devotion to her profession, which is dominated by impresario Lermontov.

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A constant fixture in critics' polls, Yasujiro Ozu's most enduring masterpiece, 'Tokyo Story', is a beautifully nuanced exploration of filial duty, expectation and regret.

From the simple tale of an elderly husband and wife's visit to Tokyo to see their grown-up children, Ozu draws a compelling contrast between the measured dignity of age and the hurried insensitivity of a younger generation.

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Das Boot is a graphic and gripping tale that follows the daring patrol of U-96, one of the famed German U-Boats known as ‘The Grey Wolves’. Prowling the North Atlantic, they challenged the British Navy at every turn.

The crew abroad the U-96 is portrayed in a desperate life-and-death struggle, coping with life beneath the waves quickly gives way to terror when confronting the enemy...

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At the centre of the terror is Carrie (Sissy Spacek), a tortured high-school misfit with no confidence, no friends... and no idea about the extent of her 'secret powers' of telekinesis. But when her psychotic mother and sadistic classmates finally go too far.

the once-shy teen becomes an unrestrained, vengeance-seeking powerhouse who, with the help of her 'special gift', causes all hell to break loose in a famed cinematic frenzy of blood, fire and brimstone that will take you to the very depths of horror - and beyond!

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Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is a respected but less-than-perfect surveillance expert who is wracked with self-doubt and carrying a heavy conscience since his work led to the death of two of his subjects.

So when he comes to believe that his latest assignment - eavesdropping on a pair of young lovers - may end in murder, Harry can no longer avoid confronting the moral consequences of his chosen profession.

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When Chicago musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) accidentally witness a gangland shooting they quickly board a southbound train to Florida, disguised as Josephine and Daphne, the two newest and homeliest members of an all-girl jazz band. Their cover is perfet...

until a lovelorn singer (Marilyn Monroe) falls for "Josephine", an ancient play-boy (Joe Brown) falls for "Daphne", and a mob boss (George Raft) refuses to fall for their hoax!

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It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) is returning to a loveless marriage; Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March) is a stranger to a family that's grown up without him; and young sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) is tormented by the loss of his hands. Can these three men find the courage to rebuild their world? Or are the best years of their lives a thing of the past?

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In postwar Japan, Godzilla brings new devastation to an already scorched landscape. With no military intervention or government help in sight, the survivors must join together in the face of despair and fight back against an unrelenting horror.

From renowned director, screenwriter and VFX visionary Takashi Yamazaki (The EternalZero, Stand By Me Doraemon) comes 'Godzilla Minus One', a film about the power of home in the face of despair. The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki, with music by Naoki Sato.

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Dustin Hoffman gives an unforgettable performance as Ratso Rizzo, a scrounging, sleazy small-time con man with big dreams. Jon Voight is magnificent as Joe Buck, the good-looking, naively charming Texan 'cowboy' who is convinced that he is the salvation of many lonely, love starved New York Women.

These two characters are drawn together in this powerful and compassionate film.

In the Deep South, homicide detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) becomes embroiled in a murder investigation. When the bigoted town sheriff (Rod Steiger) gets involved, both he and Tibbs must put aside their differences and join forces in a race against time to discover the shocking truth.

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"Kramer vs. Kramer" is a ground-breaking drama about the heartbreak of divorce and the struggle between work and family. Young husband and father, Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) loves his family - and his job, which is where he spends most of his time.

When he returns home late one evening from work, his wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) confronts him and then leaves him to take care of their six-year-old son while she goes off to find herself. Ted struggles with the demands of balancing a high-pressure career while trying to adapt to his new role of single parent. Just as Ted starts to feel like a fulfilled parent, Joanna returns, but this time she wants her son back...

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Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) is a 21 year old supermarket worker from a small port town in the west of Scotland. Morvern believes that life is something that you get on with as best you can with what you've got.

one morning, Morvern finds that what she's got is a dead boyfriend on the kitchen floor...

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An uncompromising, double-Bafta winning portrait of a particular milieu of working-class family life in southeast London, where its writer and director grew up, 'Nil by Mouth' is a powerful, astute, authentically foul-mouthed account of unfettered machismo, booze and drugs, petty crime and domestic

abuse. The performances are mesmerising throughout, with Ray Winstone as the volatile and self-pitying Ray, Kathy Burke as his longsuffering wife Val and Charlie Creed-Miles as her junkie brother Billy. Shot and scripted in a deceptively casual realist style reminiscent of John Cassavetes, this profoundly personal and humane film eschews sensationalism and sentimentality to illuminate a vicious circle of abuse and criminality. A dark but dazzling masterwork.