Criterion Collection (Firm).
1) Nashville
Description
A cornerstone of 1970s American filmmaking from Robert Altman. It is a view of the country's political and entertainment landscapes set in the nation's music capital. It weaves the stories of 24 characters--from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress--into a cinematic tapestry that is equal parts comedy, tragedy, and musical. It showcases Altman's ability to get to the heart of American life via its eccentric byways, and barrels forward to...
3) Eraserhead
Description
A nightmarish collage of images which blends the grotesque and the absurd, the deeply disturbing and the darkly humorous. Henry is the nerdish central character who lives in a squalid apartment with a strange girl and their monstrous baby. The extraordinary special effects create an eerie, dream-like world with a logic all its own.
4) Rushmore
Description
A gifted, rebellious teenager finds himself in competition with a wealthy older man for a favorite teacher's affections.
6) Rififi
Appears on list
Description
A story of a successful jewel robbery in which the four thieves betray each other.
Appears on list
Description
Marlon Brando gives the performance of his career as the tough prizefighter-turned-longshoreman Terry Malloy in this raggedly emotional tale of individual failure and institutional corruption. This film charts Terry's deepening moral crisis as he must choose whether to remain loyal to the mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly and Johnny's right-hand man, Terry's brother, Charley, as the authorities close in on them.
11) Bottle rocket
Description
"Three best friends try to escape their suburban boredom through a life of crime. But these bickering, bumbling thieves are no match for the local 'godfather, ' who leads them into the biggest heist of their careers"--Container.
Appears on list
Description
A story of four women's search for spiritual peace. Agnes, a spinster who lives with her housekeeper, is dying of cancer, and is visited one last time by her two sisters, Karin and Maria. These two become entangled in feelings of jealousy, manipulation and selfishness. Yet Agnes, tortured by cancer, is able to transcend her sisters' pettiness to remember moments of staggering beauty as well as horror.
13) Harold and Maude
Description
Countercultural director Hal Ashby tells the story of the emotional and romantic bond between a death-obsessed young man from a wealthy family and a devil-may-care, bohemian octogenarian. Equal parts gallows humor and romantic innocence, Harold and Maude dissolves the line between darkness and light along with the ones that separate people by class, gender, and age. The cult classic of its era, featuring indelible performances and a soundtrack by...
14) Short cuts
Formats
Description
While helicopters overhead spray against a Medfly infestation, a group of peoples' lives in Los Angeles intersect, some casually, some to more lasting effect. While they go out to concerts and jazz clubs and even have their pools cleaned, these same folks also lie, drink, and cheat. Death itself seems never to be far away. A look at human life and American culture with over 20 lives interweaving.
15) Days of heaven
Description
A young couple who pretend to be brother and sister move from Chicago to the Texas panhandle to escape poverty. There, they work the ranch of a rich and handsome farmer, who has fallen in love with the woman.
16) The big chill
Description
After the shocking suicide of their friend, a group of thirty-somethings reunite for his funeral and end up spending a weekend together, reminiscing about their shared pasts as children of the sixties and confronting the uncertainty of their lives as adults of the eighties.
17) Heat and dust
Description
Story of a woman who goes to India to find the truth about her aunt who left her British husband for an Indian prince.
20) Easy rider
Description
A generation-defining movie about friends who engage in a motorcycle journey across the country to discover the true America. Bonus features include: CD Songtrack, making of documentary, commentary, and British Film Institute Modern Classic Book.