Emma Beare's 501 Must-See Movies

A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down.

The Grapes of Wrath is a social drama filmed in 1939 based on the novel by the same name from acclaimed author John Steinbeck.

Orson Wells was 26 when he made his first feature film Citizen Kane. The film became known as one of the greatest of all time and earned him international celebrity. The story is about the publishing business and how one thrill-seeker’s struggle for power negatively affected everybody he came in contact with and eventually lead to a merciless war.

Longtime alcoholic Don Birnam has been sober for ten days and appears to be over the worst... but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother and girlfriend, he begins a four-day bender that just might be his last – one way or another.

The Best Years of Our Lives is a classic film from director Williams Wyler about three war veterans. The film earned seven Oscars in 1946.

A humble orphan suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor.

An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would had been like if he never existed.

A man and his son search for a stolen bicycle vital for his job.

Director Mankiewisz’s tragic comedy about the American show business is one of the darkest and most cynical films ever made. Bette Davis is brilliant in her roll as a once Broadway Diva who takes care of the promotion for the talented actress Eva (played by Anne Baxter). All together the film won six Oscars in 1951.

Director Billy Wilder is ice cold in his captivating Hollywood drama Sunset Blvd. A screenwriter begins an affair with a silent film actress who thinks she’s at the top of her field...

One of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter caught in dead-end Albuquerque who happens upon the story of a lifetime and will do anything to ensure he gets the scoop.

On the Waterfront is a social criticism gangster film from director Elia Kazan, about an ex-boxer, who is part of the corruption of the trade unions for the men working on the waterfront in New York. A film about mob violence that won eight Academy Awards.

After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz vio...

12 Angry Men is the 1957 film debut for director Sidney Lumet. An interpretion from a Broadway show, this film is about 12 jurors who must decide whether an 18-year-old is guilty of killing his father.

When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to e...

Sweet Smell of Success is a Film Noir from American director Alexander Mackendrick. This drama tells the defamation of a media mogul against a jazz musician who wants to marry his sister.

An ex-police officer is asked to follow an old friends wife who thinks she is being followed by ghosts. A classic Hitchcock about a man who’s afraid of heights and a woman he must unfortunately follow to great heights.

A bout de Souffle is Godard’s debut film and a French classic. With this film Godard begins a new style of filming that revolutionized the film industry.

Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent e...

With 8 ½ Frederico Fellini leaves a self-portrait where dreams and reality are a mix. With help from a most excellent cast and unique scenery this self reflecting film is one of his master works.

A bored wife of a wealthy doctor spends her afternoons exploring exciting escapades as a call-girl in a chic Paris brothel.

Recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock is trapped into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, who happens to be the wife of his father's business partner and then finds himself falling in love with her teenage daughter, Elaine.

A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.

Easy Rider is the classic cult film from the 1960’s. A road movie that embodies the feeling of being a hippie as two friends head cross-country to Mardi Grass. A controversial period film by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda with some classic music from a generation of wanderers.

The coming of age of a youth named Sonny in a small Texas town in the 1950s.

The intersecting stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—connect to the music business in Nashville, Tennessee.

The successful film drama from director Milos Forman portrays the life inside a psychiatric ward where the line between the insane and the not insane is blurred. Based on the novel by the same name by Ken Kesey.

All the President’s Men is a political thriller from director Alan J. Pakula based on the Watergate scandal and starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

A small time boxer gets a once in a lifetime chance to fight the heavyweight champ in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect.

An emotionally self-destructive boxer's journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring, destroys his life outside it.

The King of Comedy is a bitterly evil satire of show business. Rupert Pupkins is obsessed with becoming famous so he aims at kidnapping one of the best in the business, Jerry Langford.

Dangerous Liaisons is the film based on the novel of the same name by Choderlos de Laclos set in 18th century France. Marquise de Merteuil’s asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned in this love triangle drama.

The sensible drama about the reunification of two very different brothers and their struggle to stay together. Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for best actor for his memorable performance as the autistic Raymond.

Do The Right Thing takes place on a hot summer day in Brooklyn and depicts the racial conflict between an Italian American pizza restaurant owner and his African American customers and how things erupt into a violent outbreak. This Spike Lee Joint touches on themes of segregation and apartheid in the USA.

China in the 1920's. After her father's death, 19 year old Songlian is forced to marry the much older lord of a powerful family. With three wives already, each living in a separate house within the great castle, there is fierce competition for his attention and the privileges that are gained. This competition gets out of hand...

An examination of the machinations behind the scenes at a real estate office.

A studio executive is being blackmailed by a writer whose script he rejected but which one? Loaded with Hollywood insider jokes.

This film tells the many unbelievable life adventures of a small town not-so-intelligent man named Forrest Gump. Throughout his life Forrest Gump influences popular culture, meets many famous people, and is witness to many historical events most of which he is unaware of their significance.

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for ...

A young Shakespeare, out of ideas and short of cash, meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.

All About My Mother / Todo Sobre Mi Madre – Pedro Almodóvar tells the story of a woman searching for the father of her son as she is confronted with her past. This homage to the mother enticed two million Spaniards into the theaters.

American Beauty is a film about a well situated family man in suburbia who yearns for something besides the seemingly normal and good life he lives. As he and his family change, so does the neighborhood as examples of freedom, love, beauty and the pursuit of happiness come up in the film.

The movie takes a broad approach to the war on drugs in the USA. It shows the corruption in both Mexico and the USA. Both on a personnal scale as on larger scale. The movie has a lot of storylines, which are tied together slowly.

Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.

The tragic love story in the East Berlin with the backdrop of an undercover Stasi controlled culture. Stasi captain Wieler is ordered follow author Dreyman and plunges deeper and deeper into his life until he reaches the threshold of doubting the system.

A Pedro Almodóvar film about the power of lonely women and their return in our modern day culture. Almodóvar goes back into his favorite genre of dramatic comedy as well as filming it in his birth town of La Mancha. The film stars Penelope Cruz.

The true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffers a stroke and has to live with an almost totally paralyzed body; only his left eye isn't paralyzed.

Fledgling writer Briony Tallis, as a 13-year-old, irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit. Based on the British romance novel by Ian McEwan.

The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexp...

Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.