The Onion Field

Two cops are shot at; the survivor (John Savage) is ostracised by his colleagues for alleged cowardice, which takes him years to live down. Joseph Wambaugh's novel was faithfully treated by Harold Becker in this 1979 curate's egg, but brilliant as Savage is, it's an up-and-coming, intense actor named James Woods who lights the bonfire.

Raising Victor Vargas

Indie festival hit profiles puppy love

Winged Migration

Fabulous bird's-eye view of feathered fliers

Disco Inferno

Black comedy traces rise and murderous fall of Club Kid emperor

Citizen Verdict

Dodgy reality TV satire featuring Jerry Springer

Analyze That

A rather contrived sequel to 1999's Billy Crystal/Robert De Niro buddy comedy (Analyze This), Analyze That nonetheless has enough sporadic wit and infectious Hope/Crosby chemistry to justify its existence. Here De Niro's neurotic mobster is released from prison into the protective custody of Crystal's wisecracking shrink (don't ask). Cue some 'fish out of water' shenanigans, a Sopranos parody, and a grand heist finale.

Othello

Filming in Venice and Morocco whenever funds permitted, Orson Welles shot this adaptation of The Bard's play in scraps over four years in the late 1940s. The circumstances—there were literally years between shots—inspired kaleidoscopic editing and audacious improvisation:when costumes failed to arrive for a critical murder, Welles restaged it half-naked in a Turkish bath. The result:the most vibrant slice of Shakespeare-noir ever filmed.

Alice’s Restaurant

Arthur Penn's follow-up to Bonnie And Clyde, based on Arlo Guthrie's blues hit about his arrest for littering and how it led to him being rejected for service in Vietnam. Penn's movie follows Guthrie as he wanders the US from draft board to college to commune, providing a time capsule of the dreams and rituals of late-'60s drop-out America; and one that, with its lingeringly downbeat ending, now looks prescient.

Six Degrees Of Separation

Director Fred Schepisi attacks John Guare's stageplay, frenetically switching locations and narrators as often as possible in an attempt to movie-ise this intelligent, satirical, wordy account of sociopathic homosexual confidence trickster Will Smith (acting, for real!) and his divisive impact upon a group of pompous, wealthy, middle-aged Upper East Side culturati.

Forbidden Dreams

Three intense '60s masterpieces from Polanski in one box set, plus his Oscar-garlanded WWII ghetto drama from 2002
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