LOVE STORY was the Number One film of 1970 and probably the most famous three-hanky tearjearker of all time. Harvard law student (and millionaire) Ryan O’Neal meets Radcliffe music student (and self-described “social zero”) Ali MacGraw and the two quickly (way too quickly) fall in...

From Patty Duke to Dustin Hoffman, Oscar appreciates actors who take on the challenge of playing disabled characters. But few have done so with such poignancy and effortless ease as Jane Wyman in her Oscar-winning role as the deaf mute Belinda in JOHNNY BELINDA (1948). Belinda lives in a small fishing...

LIMELIGHT is an interesting film in the Charlie Chaplin canon. In his last American film, Chaplin stars as Calvero, a once-famous English music hall comedian, who saves a young ballerina (Claire Bloom) from suicide and helps her regain belief in her talent. The title card at the beginning of the film...

Today, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY is known as the film that  most cinephiles believe “undeservedly” won the 1941 Best Picture prize over CITIZEN KANE. While VALLEY may not be a groundbreaking film, it is a moving and touching memoir. Based on Richard Llewellyn’s novel, John Ford’s...

I’LL CRY TOMORROW contains one of Susan Hayward’s best performances as singer Lillian Roth (1910-1980). Once dubbed “Broadway’s Youngest Star,” Roth suffered through failed marriages, alcoholism, homelessness, and a suicide attempt. With the help of Alcoholics Anonymous,...

THE BISHOP’S WIFE contains one of Hugo Friedhofer’s most heavenly scores. Cary Grant stars as an angel who is summoned to earth in answer to the Bishop’s (David Niven) prayer to help him find his way in building a new cathedral.  Instead, Dudley (Grant) helps the Bishop reignite his...

THE GODFATHER, PART II is a rarity in Hollywood: a sequel that works as well as, or better than, the original. The film follows the Corleone mob family in two very different stories: the first with Michael (Al Pacino) in 1950’s Nevada and Cuba and the second with Robert De Niro playing a younger...

Based on a play by Paddy Chayefsky (the Oscar-winning MARTY and NETWORK), THE CATERED AFFAIR is a kitchen-sink drama starring Ernest Borgnine and Bette Davis as a Bronx cabbie and his wife whose daughter Debbie Reynolds (now that’s some gene pool!) is getting married. Borgnine wants to use his...

Over 50 years later, David Lean’s THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI still stands as one of the all-time great antiwar films. Alec Guinness stars as Colonel Nicholson, the commander of a group of British soldiers held in a Japanese POW camp in Burma in 1943. Forced to build a bridge on the Bangkok-Rangoon...

When people complain about the Academy Awards, it’s films like THE MISSION that justify that complaint. THE MISSION is the kind of film that Oscar loves--self-important and pretentious to the nth degree. Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro star as a Jesuit priest and his novice battling the Catholic...