John McClane (Willis) is a cop from New York City who is on his way to Los Angeles to see his kids and his wife Holly (Bedelia), who moved to LA because of a job at the Nakatomi Corporation. When he arrives at Nakatomi Plaza, he meets Holly's boss Joe Takagi and her co-worker Harry Ellis. He and Holly go into a private bathroom and get into an argument. When Holly leaves to give a speech, thirteen armed terrorists lead by Hans Gruber (Rickman) seize control of the building and take the occupants of the 30th floor, who are the only ones left in the building, hostage. Luckily, they missed John since he was in the bathroom. He sneaks out and witnesses Gruber kill Takagi. He goes to floor 32 and pulls the fire alarm, but the terrorists cancel the alarm and send someone up to kill John. However, he kills the terrorist and steals his machine gun. Now he has to kill the rest of the terrorists and save the hostages before the terrorists get their way.
This historical war drama represents a serious attempt to reflect the bravery of a group of Civil War soldiers - the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts - often disregarded by history. They were a troop of free black men who fought foolhardily to help win liberty for their people. The historical novels ONE GALLANT RUSH by Peter Burchand and LAY THIS LAUREL by Lincoln Kirstein, as well as the letters of Robert Gould Shaw, served as basis for the film featuring Colonel Shaw (Matthew Broderick) the officer in the Federal Army who volunteered to lead the 54th. Shaw had to face the prejudices of both the enemy side (the order was to kill all black commanding officers) and of his own fellow officers.
Butch and Sundance are the two leaders of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. Butch is all ideas, Sundance is all action and skill. The west is becoming civilized and when Butch and Sundance rob a train once too often, a special posse begins trailing them no matter where they run. Over rock, through towns, across rivers, the group is always just behind them. When they finally escape through sheer luck, Butch has another idea, "Let's go to Bolivia". Based on the exploits of the historical characters.
The robbery should have taken 10 minutes. 4 hours later, the bank was like a circus sideshow. 8 hours later, it was the hottest thing on live T.V. 12 hours later, it was all history. And it's all true (3 more taglines...)
Based upon a real-life story that happened in the early seventies in which the Chase Manhattan Bank in Flatbush, Brooklyn, was held siege by a gay bank robber determined to steal enough money for his male lover to undergo a sex change operation. On a hot summer afternoon, the First Savings Bank of Brooklyn is held up by Sonny and Sal, two down-and-out characters. Although the bank manager and female tellers agree not to interfere with the robbery, Sonny finds that there's actually nothing much to steal, as most of the cash has been picked up for the day. Sonny then gets an unexpected phone call from Police Captain Moretti, who tells him the place is surrounded by the city's entire police force. Having few options under the circumstances, Sonny nervously bargains with Moretti, demanding safe escort to the airport and a plane out of the country in return for the bank employees' safety.
This short cigar belongs to a man with no name. This long gun belongs to a man with no name. This poncho belongs to a man with no name. He's going to trigger a whole new style in adventure. (2 more taglines...)
An anonymous, but deadly man rides into a town torn by war between two factions, the Baxters and the Rojo's. Instead of fleeing or dying, as most other would do, the man schemes to play the two sides off each other, getting rich in the bargain.
Adrift in the Depression-era Southwest, 'Clyde Barrow' (qv) and 'Bonnie Parker (II)' (qv) embark on a life of crime. They mean no harm. They crave adventure — and each other. Soon we start to love them too. But nothing in film history has prepared us for the cascading violence to follow. Bonnie and Clyde turns brutal. We learn they can be hurt — and dread they can be killed.
When Castro opened the port at Mariel Harbor, thousands of Cubans fled to the United States. One is a young tough named Antonio (Tony) Montana, who, with his friend Manny Ray, starts in with Miami's cocaine trade. He survives attack by chainsaw after a deal goes bad, and several other attempts by other dealers to eliminate him. Eventually the grandiose Montana becomes head of a cocaine cartel. But his enemies start coming after him, and his paranoia threatens to drive Montana's empire into the ground...
Based on James Dickey's novel, this film tells the story of an ill-fated canoe trip in deep backwoods America, where the people are as scary as the country is beautiful.
Safecracker Henri Charriere (Steve McQueen), also known as Papillon ("butterfly"), is wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life in a French penal colony on Devil's Island whose name speaks for itself. He keeps his mind on an escape. Papillon befriends his cell-mate Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman), a counterfeiter, who agrees to join forces to escape from the prison. But they are captured and incarcerated in solitary confinement. Papillon makes numerous escape attempts which are foiled every moment either by an informant or by force majeure. Despite the consequent recapture and even more horrible conditions, Papillon tries not to lose heart and continues his attempts to gain freedom.
Sydney Schanberg is a New York Times journalist convering the civil war in Cambodia. Together with local representative Dith Pran, they cover some of the tragedy and madness of the war. When the Americans forces leave, Dith Pran sends his family with them, but stays behind himself to help Schanberg cover the event. As an American, Schanberg won't have any trouble leaving the country, but the situation is different for Pran; he's a local, and the Khmer Rouge are moving in.
Young Treasury Agent Elliot Ness arrives in Chicago and is deternimed to take down Al Capone but he learns that it's not going to be easy, because Capone has the police in his pocket. But Ness meets Jimmy Malone a veteran patrolman and probably the most honorable one in the force. He asks Malone to help him get Capone but Malone warns him that if he goes after Capone, he is going to war. They recruit academy cadet, George Stone and Treasury agent Oscar Wallace, who is also an accountant, who wants to prosecute Capone for tax evasion. When they make headway, Capone tries to get them but they are untouchable.
As an inmate at Leavenworth prison, Robert Stroud has a series of confrontations with the guards and with the other convicts. When Stroud kills a guard, he is sentenced to be executed, and only his mother's impassioned intervention gets his sentence commuted to life imprisonment, which he must serve in solitary confinement. As he serves out his sentence in boredom and despair, one day he finds a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard. Stroud soon takes a deep interest in caring for birds, which gives him a new purpose in life, but which also brings new conflicts with prison authorities.
In the Year of Darkness, 2029, the rulers of this planet devised the ultimate plan. They would reshape the Future by changing the Past. The plan required something that felt no pity. No pain. No fear. Something unstoppable. They created 'THE TERMINATOR' (2 more taglines...)
In the future, Skynet, a computer system fights a losing war against the humans who built it and who it nearly exterminated. Just before being destroyed, Skynet sends a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah, the mother to be of John Connor, the Leader of the human resistance. The terminator can pass for human, is nearly indestructible, and has only one mission, killing Sarah Connor. One soldier is sent back to protect her from the killing machine. He must find Sarah before the Terminator can carry out it's mission.
The powerful tycoon Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) has initiated "Operation Grand Slam," a cataclysmic scheme to raid Fort Knox and obliterate the world economy. James Bond, armed with his specially equipped Aston Martin (its accessory package includes built-in machine guns, a smoke screen and an ejector seat), must stop the plan by overcoming several outrageous adversaries. First there's Oddjob (Harold Sakata), the mute servant who kills at the toss of a lethal hat; next, the beautiful Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), who gives new meaning to the phrase "golden girl"; and finally, sexy pilot Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), whose romantic feelings for Bond complicate her involvement in Goldfinger's high-flying scheme.
Guaranteed to make you want to stop bird-watching and put the old bird feeder to the ax—at least for a while. The whole thing starts when Melanie Daniels is crossing a lake and is nipped by a gull. Gradually, incidence of bird damage to humans by pecking increases. Glass windows splinter before diving birds, children are sent home from school to safety, townspeople take refuge in a lunchroom, Miss Daniels in a phone booth, and finally everyone hides in homes tightly boarded up against repeated attacks by the birds. It's enough to make you kick the next pigeon you come across.
In an indictment of the British Boys School, we follow Mick and his mostly younger friends through a series of indignities and occasionally abuse as any fond feelings toward these schools are destroyed. When Mick and his friends rebel, violently, the catch phrase, "which side would you be on" becomes quite stark.
San Francisco is being terrorized by a sniper who calls himself Scorpio, and Scorpio kills Diana Davidson as she swims in a pool. Inspector Harry Callahan is known as Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry is a widower, his wife having been killed in an auto accident. He lives to make the existence of his superiors a miserable one, and he refuses to play by the rules. Dirty Harry doesn't wear Kevlar and he doesn't carry an arsenal of automatic weapons. All he needs is his .44 magnum. Six shots doesn't seem like much, but it's enough when you rarely miss and a single shot can knock you into the next millennium. Dirty Harry handles the search for Scorpio, and ends up stopping three men from robbing a bank. Known for bringing bad luck to his partners, Dirty Harry reluctantly accepts new partner Chico Gonzalez on the orders of Lieutenant Al Bressler. Dirty Harry even gets chewed out by the mayor. Scorpio promises to kill a black person and a priest if the city doesn't give him $100,000. Nearly caught, Scorpio doubles the ransom, kidnaps a 14-year-old girl, and buries her alive, giving the police a limited time to cough up the money before she suffocates. Dirty Harry follows Scorpio's instructions for the delivery, which results in Chico getting wounded. Dirty Harry tracks Scorpio to Kezar Stadium, the home of the San Francisco 49ers. Scorpio is running across the football field, and Dirty Harry calmly takes aim and nails him in the leg at the 50-yard line. The shot lifts him up and flips him over. Dirty Harry tortures Scorpio into revealing the girl's hiding place. She's found dead and Scorpio is released due to Dirty Harry's unorthodox procedure. Later, Scorpio takes over a school bus. And Dirty Harry is the only one who can take Scorpio down.
Based on Katsuhiro Otomo's popular manga, this animated sci-fi feature opens in New-Tokyo in 2019, thirty years after the planet has been ravaged by a nuclear war. The highways are ruled by motorcycle gangs; corrupt politicians try to hold the whip hand over the population; unscrupulous scientists run experiments on kids with the hope of expanding human psychic powers. During the conflict between two rival gangs of bikers, Tetsuo loses control of the bike and nearly runs down a child-like blue-skinned stranger. The military unexpectedly shows up at the scene of the accident and takes him to a top-secret facility. There, Tetsuo becomes a test subject to awaken Akira, a source of incredible psychic and physical powers and the cause of the nuclear explosion in Tokyo thirty years ago. However, the tests trigger the growth of Tetsuo's innate psychokinetic ability. He breaks out and begins to go on a rampage, wreaking havoc on Neo Tokyo.
William Friedkin's gritty police drama portrays two tough New York City cops trying to intercept a huge heroin shipment coming from France. An interesting contrast is established between 'Popeye' Doyle, a short-tempered alcoholic bigot who is nevertheless a hard-working and dedicated police officer, and his nemesis Alain Charnier, a suave and urbane gentleman who is nevertheless a criminal and one of the largest drug suppliers of pure heroin to North America. During the surveillance and eventual bust, Friedkin provides one of the most gripping and memorable car chase sequences ever filmed.
Ted Kramer is a career man for whom his work comes before his family. His wife Joanna cannot take this anymore, so she decides to leave him. Ted is now faced with the tasks of housekeeping and taking care of himself and their young son Billy. When he has learned to adjust his life to these new responsibilities, Joanna resurfaces and wants Billy back. Ted however refuses to give him up, so they go to court to fight for the custody of their son.
