Directed by Norman Jewison (Moonstruck, The Hurricane), In the Heat of the Night won five Oscars in 1967: Best Picture, Best Actor (Rod Steiger), Best Screenplay (Stirling Silliphant), Best Editing (Hal Ashby), and Best Sound. Nearly sixty years later, the…
In more than twenty years of making films, Sean Baker became a critical darling but made few waves with the moviegoing public. That changed with 2024’s Anora. While Anora only grossed $55 million worldwide, it represents more than five times…
On the heels of Dumb and Dumber, the Farrelly Brothers brought their unique mix of slapstick and toilet humor to the tale of another ‘loser’ with Kingpin. Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) is a washed-up pro bowler, who lost his game…
After nearly thirty years making movies, John Wayne earned his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor in Sands of Iwo Jima. His role as Sgt. John M. Stryker doesn’t stray from the hard leader types that had made Wayne a…
The final collaboration between director John Ford and star John Wayne, 1963’s Donovan’s Reef is a family comedy set in set in a fictional place called Haleakaloa where they once fought the Japanese. Not known for his comedic skills, Wayne…
Clint Eastwood’s fifth film as a director, The Outlaw Josey Wales, derived from the novel Gone to Texas by Forrest Carter, is one of Eastwood’s best early westerns. Armed with a screenplay by Sonia Chernus and Philip Kaufman, with music…
Directed by Mel Gibson (Braveheart, Hacksaw Ridge) from a screenplay written by first time scribe Jared Rosenberg, Gibson does a capable job with Flight Risk, a largely paint-by-the-numbers actioner. Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery stars as Madolyn Harris, an Air Marshal…
Despite his status as one of the finest comedians of all time, Richard Pryor’s personal life was far from funny. For his second and final turn as a director, Pryor mines his own life for 1986’s Jo Jo Dancer, Your…
One of the most opulent films ever produced, director Miloš Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The People Vs. Larry Flynt) shot Amadeus primarily in France, Austria, and the Czech Republic. Though most of the scenes take place indoors…
Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, The Sacrifice, is a fitting epitaph for a great artist. While it’s not an easy movie to get through, nearly every frame is a piece of art, the script is thoughtful, and the performances are universally…