with their grown children after the bank takes their home, yet end up separated and subject to their offspring?s selfish whims. An inspiration for Ozu?s Tokyo Story, Make Way for Tomorrow is among American cinema?s purest tearjerkers, all the way to its unflinching ending, which McCarey refused to change despite studio pressure.  (less)

his little sister (Linda Mans) flee to the Texas Panhandle, where they find work harvesting in the wheat fields of a wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard). A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire?Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating at once a timeless American idyll and a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labor. Stills from Days of Heaven   (less)

Mifune, that it was only a matter of time before he returned in a sequel. Made just one year later, Sanjuro matches Yojimbo ?s storytelling dexterity, yet adds a layer of world-weary pragmatism that brings the duo to a thrilling and unforgettable conclusion. Sanjuro : In Kurosawa?s sly companion piece to Yojimbo, the jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan?s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a: proper, samurai on its ear. Yojimbo : To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage in Akira Kurosawa?s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. Stills from Yojimbo   (less)

fatal affliction, he grows dangerously addicted to the experimental drug, resulting in his transformation into a psychotic and ultimately violent household despot. This Eisenhower-era throat-grabber, shot in expressive CinemaScope, is an excoriating take on the nuclear family; that it came in the day of Father Knows Best makes it all the more shocking?and wildly entertaining. Stills from Bigger Than Life   (less)

complexity of Anderson's brand of comedy. Here, it revolves around Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), the errant patriarch of a dysfunctional family of geniuses, including precocious playwright Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), boyish financier and grieving widower Chas (Ben Stiller), and has-been tennis pro Richie (Luke Wilson). All were raised with supportive detachment by mother Etheline (Anjelica Huston), and all ache profoundly for a togetherness they never really had. The Tenenbaums reconcile somehow, but only after Anderson and Wilson (who costars as a loopy literary celebrity) put them through a compassionate series of quirky confrontations and rekindled affections. Not for every taste, but this is brilliant work from any perspective. --Jeff Shannon  (less)

and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, "the last romantic couple." With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, Pierrot le fou is one of the high points of the French new wave, and one last frolic before Godard moved ever further into radical cinema.  (less)

a cult classic and established Little Edie as fashion icon and philosopher queen.  (less)

of color, fans will otherwise find themselves in well-charted waters. As The Life Aquatic opens, Zissou (Bill Murray), a self-involved, Jacques Cousteau-like filmmaker, has just released a documentary depicting the death of his best friend Esteban, who was eaten by some sort of sea creature--possibly a jaguar shark. Zissou's troubles also include his waning popularity with the public, and a nemesis (Jeff Goldblum) who hogs up all the grant money. Hope arrives in the form of Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), an amiable Kentuckian who may be Zissou's son. Despite his lack of enthusiasm for fatherhood, Zissou welcomes Ned--and Ned in turn saves Zissou's new documentary (in which he seeks revenge on the jaguar shark) in more ways than one. One of Wes Anderson's greatest achievements as a director to date has been launching the autumnal melancholy phase of Bill Murray's career, starting with Rushmore in 1998, and Murray delivers a similarly comedic yet low-key performance here. Unfortunately, Zissou is one of the few characters in this ensemble to achieve multi-dimensionality. Even co-star Wilson doesn't get to develop Ned much beyond Noble Southerner, and he ends up seeming more like a prop for illustrating Zissou's emotional development rather than his own man. The Life Aquatic probably won't be remembered as a great film, but it is still one that no Anderson (or Murray) fan can afford to miss.-- Leah Weathersby  (less)

a great dancer (Anton Walbrook). Criterion is proud to present The Red Shoes in its DVD premiere.  (less)

refusal to recognize him and his fellow IRA inmates as political prisoners, rather than as ordinary criminals. McQueen dramatizes prison existence and Sands?s final days in a way that is purely experiential, even abstract, a succession of images full of both beauty and horror. Featuring an intense performance by Michael Fassbender, Hunger is an unflinching, transcendent depiction of what a human being is willing to endure to be heard.  (less)

studied, imitated, even parodied, but never outdone, Bergman’s stunning allegory of man’s search for meaning was one of the benchmark foreign imports of America’s 1950s art house heyday, pushing cinema’s boundaries and ushering in a new era of moviegoing. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: • New, restored high-definition digital transfer with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • Introduction by Ingmar Bergman, recorded in 2003 • Audio commentary by Bergman expert Peter Cowie • A new afterword to the commentary by Cowie • Bergman Island (2006), an 83-minute documentary on Bergman by Marie Nyreröd, featuring in-depth and revealing interviews with the director • Archival audio interview with Max von Sydow • A 1998 tribute to Bergman by filmmaker Woody Allen • Theatrical trailer • Bergman 101, a selected video filmography tracing Bergman’s career, narrated by Cowie • Optional English-dubbed soundtrack • New and improved English subtitle translation • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Gary Giddins  (less)

stripped-down aesthetic, largely nonprofessional casts, and unorthodox approaches to storytelling, these intensely emotional works were international sensations and effectively launched the neorealist movement. Shot in battle-ravaged Italy and Germany, these three films are some of our most lasting, humane documents of devastated postwar Europe, containing universal images that encompass both tragedy and hope. Rome Open City This was Roberto Rossellini?s revelation, a harrowing drama about the Nazi occupation of Rome and the brave few who struggled against it. Though told with a bit more melodramatic flair than the other films that would form this trilogy and starring well-known actors ? Aldo Fabrizi as a priest helping the partisan cause and Anna Magnani in her breakthrough role as the fiancée of a resistance member ? Rome Open City (Roma città aperta) is a shockingly authentic experience, conceived and directed amid the ruin of World War II, with immediacy in every frame. Marking a watershed moment in Italian cinema, this galvanic work was an international sensation, garnering awards around the globe and leaving the beginnings of a new film movement in its wake. Paisan Roberto Rossellini?s follow-up to his breakout Rome Open City was the ambitious, enormously moving Paisan (Paisà), which consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of World War II, taking place across the country, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley. With its documentary-like visuals and its intermingled cast of actors and nonprofessionals, Italians and their American liberators, this look at the struggles of different cultures to communicate and of people to live their everyday lives in extreme circumstances is equal parts charming sentiment and vivid reality. A long-missing treasure of Italian cinema, Paisan is available here for the first time in its full original release version. Germany Year Zero The concluding chapter of Roberto Rossellini?s War Trilogy is the most devastating, a portrait of an obliterated Berlin shown through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy. Living in a bombed-out apartment building with a sick father and two older siblings, young Edmund is mostly left to wander unsupervised, getting ensnared in the black-market schemes of a group of teenagers and coming under the nefarious influence of a Nazi-sympathizing ex-teacher. Germany Year Zero (Deutschland im Jahre Null) is a daring, gut-wrenching look at the consequences of fascism, for society and the individual.   (less)

travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism. A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, El Norte is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival, which critic Roger Ebert called a Grapes of Wrath for our time. DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer supervised and approved by director Gregory Nava New audio commentary featuring Nava In the Service of the Shadows: The Making of El Norte: a new video program featuring interviews with Nava, producer and cowriter Anna Thomas, actors Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez and David Villalpando, and set designer David Wasco Wall of Silence, a new short documentary by Nava and Barbara Martinez Jitner, concerning the building of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border The Journal of Diego Rodriguez Silva, the 1972 award-winning student film by Nava Gallery of Chipas location-scouting photographs Theatrical trailer New and improved English subtitle translation PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by novelist Héctor Tobar and Roger Ebert's 1983 review of the film  (less)