All Films (Alphabetical List)


Alphabetical list of films suggested by Friends.


Peaceweb's Movies with a Conscience


Last updated: November 21, 1997
* A Nous la Liberte
France, 1931, B & W, Comedy, D: Rene Clair, 104 m
Two ex-convicts get jobs at a factory, where one works his way up to the job of owner, where he reduces workers to human machines. Faced with blackmail, he hits the road again with his old pal.

* Aadalen 31
Sweden, 1969, Drama, D: Bo Widerberg, 100? m
A May Day parade of striking Swedish workers turns into a massacre of innocent people by the Swedish police. Based on a true story.

* All Quiet on the Western Front
USA, 1930, B & W, Drama, D: Lewis Milestone, Original book: by Erich Maria Remarque, 105 m
This anti-war movie about German boys in World War I was banned by Hitler, as was the original book

* All the President's Men
USA, 1976, Drama, D: Alan J. Pakula, Stars: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, 138 m
The story of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who broke the Watergate Scandal which eventually forced President Richard Nixon from the White House.

* Angel and the Badman
USA, 1947, B & W, Drama, D: James Edward Grant, ; Stars: John Wayne, Gail Russell, Harry Carey 100 m
A gunslinger is changed by a remarkable woman.

* Apocalypse Now
USA, 1979, Drama, D: Frances Ford Coppola, Original Book: The Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad; Stars: Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, 150 m
A US special agent is sent up-river into Cambodia during the Vietnam War to kill a rogue officer.

* Atomic Cafe, The
USA, 1986, Documentary, D: Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, Pierce Rafferty, 86 m
A look back at the 1960s propaganda on what to do in case of a nuclear attack and footage of nuclear explosions and their effect on the troops used as guinea pigs.

* Belle Epoque
Spain, 1992, Comedy, D: Fernando Trueba, Stars: Fernando Gomez, Jorge Sanz, 109 m
At the time of the Spanish Civil War, a deserter is taken in by a farmer and wooed by his four daughters.

* Birdman of Alcatraz, The
USA, 1962, Drama, D: John Frankenheimer, Stars: Burt Lancaster, Thelma Ritter, Karl Malden, 143 m
The film is based on the story of a man named Robert Stroud, imprisoned for life on the island prison of Alcatraz in California who became a world authority on ornithology.

* Blade Runner
USA, 1982, Drama, D: Ridley Scott, Stars: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, 117 m
Deckard, an L.A. cop in the year 2019, has the job of hunting and terminating replicants, sophisticated robots who have escaped a space colony and have infiltrated earth.

* Born on the Fourth of July
USA, 1989, Drama, D: Oliver Stone, Stars: Tom Cruise, Bryan Larkin, 140 m
Ron Kovic, a soldier paralyzed in the Vietnam War, becomes an anti-war organizer.

* Bound for Glory
USA, 1976, Biography, D: Hal Ashby, Star: David Carradine, 147 m
The story of folk singer Woodie Guthrie, from the time he left his home in Texas in the 1930s to his success on radio in California to his death in 1963(?). Woody wrote "This Land is Your Land" and "The Plane Crash in Los Gatos Canyon".

* Brazil
UK, 1985, Drama, D: Terry Gilliam, Screenplay: by Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown, 131 m
Deep in the bowels of a technocratic dictatorship enslaved by the output from bizarre computers, a hapless clerk rebels,

* Burmese Harp, The [Biruma no Tategoto]
Japan, 1956, B & W, Drama, D: Kon Ichikawa, Stars: Jun Hamamura, Yunosuke Ito, 116 m
After W.W. II, a Japanese soldier with a harp is sent to convince his fellow soldiers in Burma to surrender.

* Burnt by the Sun
France/Russia, 1994, Drama, D: Nikita Mikhalkov, Stars: Oleg Menchikov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, 146 m
Colonel Sergei Kotov, a hero of the Soviet Revolution, spends an idyllic summer at his wife's dacha with wife and his six-year-old daughter. His world changes when cousin Dmitri arrives from Moscow, and the hero suddenly become an enemy of the people.

* Bye Bye Blues
Canada, 1989, Drama, D: Anne Wheeler, Writer: Anne Wheeler
A woman from small-town Saskatchewan gets the chance to become a lead singer in a dance band during the Second World War. Her romance with a member of the band leads to a confrontation when her husband, from whom she had not heard since his capture, finally returns.

* Cadillac Man
USA, 1990, Comedy, D: Roger Donaldson, Original Book: Z; Stars: Robin Williams, Tim Robbins, Judith Hoag, 97 m
A used car salesman, with 12 cars to sell or he loses his job, confronts a crazy jealous husband with a machine gun.

* Catch-22
USA, 1970, Satire, D: Mike Nichols; Original Book: Joseph Heller, Stars: Alan Arkin, Art Garfunkel, 121 m
A US bombardier in W.W. II learns the only way out of the Army is to go crazy; but if you want out, you're not crazy.

* Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, La (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie)
France, 1972, Comedy, D: Luis Bunuel, Stars: Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Stephane Audran, 100 m
The attempts by friends to hold a dinner party turns reality and etiquette upside down in this surrealistic comedy.

* China Syndrome, The
USA, 1979, Drama, D: James Bridges ; Stars: Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas 123 m
The cover-up of an accident at a California nuclear power plant entwines with the story of how television bends the news.

* Colonel Chabert, Le
France, 1994, Drama, D: Yves Angelo, Stars: Gerard Depardieu, Fanny Ardent, 110 m
A French Colonel, presumed dead, straggles back from Napoleon's Russian campaign to find his wife has taken his fortune and remarried.

* Coming Home
USA, 1978, Drama, D: Hal Ashby, Stars: Jane Fonda, Jon Voigt, Bruce Dern, 127 m
A woman falls in love with a disabled Vietnam vet who campaigns against the War while her husband is in Vietnam.

* Cool Hand Luke
USA, 1967, Drama, D: Stuart Rosenberg, Stars: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J. D. Cannon, 126 m
A drifter who deliberately defies the law winds up in jail, where things are even tougher, and only an unforgettable egg-eating contest provides relief.

* Cry Freedom
UK, 1987, Drama, D: Richard Attenborough, Stars: Denzel Washington, Kevin Kline, 154 m
A white liberal newspaper editor in South Africa befriends a Black political leader, Steve Biko, who later dies at the hands of the police. The editor, charged under the censorship laws, escapes the country under a false passport.

* Cry, the Beloved Country
USA, 1995, Drama, D: Darrell Roodt, Original Book: Alan Paton, Stars: James Earl Jones, Dembisa Kente, 120 m
In South Africa, a poor Black man, Absolom Kumalo, moves to Johannesburg and falls in with bad company. He is involved in the murder of a good white man. Absolom's brother, preacher Stephen Kumalo (James Earl Jones) is befriended by the white landowner whose son was killed.

* Daens
Belgium, 1972, Drama, D: Stijn Coninx, Stars: Jan Decleir, Antje De Boeck, Gerard Desarthe, 138 m
A good-hearted priest, Father Daens, is sent to an industrial town where children slave at mechanized looms. The conflict between Daens and the local socialists turns upside down when they realize his sympathy for the workers and unite to elect him to Parliament.

* Dances with Wolves
USA, 1990, Drama, D: Kevin Costner; Stars: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene (II), 183 m
Posted to Dakota Territory during the US Civil War, Lt. John Dunbar discovers an Indian tribe and turns to Native ways.

* Dead Man Walking
USA, 1995, Drama, D: Tim Robbins, Stars: Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Robert Prosky, 122 m
A man convicted of murder and awaiting execution on death row writes to a nun, who works to set him free. Film is based on the true story of Sister Helen Prejean, a Louisiana nun who tried to end the death penalty in the USA.

* Declin de l'empire americaine, Le
Canada, 1986, Comedy, D: Denys Arcand, 101 m
Four university teachers - a gay man and three heterosexual men (one married, one celibate, one with a girl friend) - gather at a cottage on a lake to prepare dinner for the four women who arrive later. The discussion turns around sex, the female body, their love lives, and the political passions of the 1960s. The women then have the mirror image of this dialogue.

* Devil in a Blue Dress
USA, 1995, Drama D: Carl Franklin, Stars: Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, Jennifer Beals, 101 m
In 1948, an African-American veteran gets involved in tracing a wealthy white woman hiding in the East Los Angeles ghetto. This sexually explicit mystery highlights the two worlds of 1940s America: the Black ghetto and the white neighborhoods.

* Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
UK, 1963, B & W, Comedy, D: Stanley Kubrick, Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, 104 m
A rogue US general, convinced of a Communist plot, sends a bomber to the Soviet Union, which could trigger a Doomsday Device if attacked.

* Dreigroschenoper, Die (The Threepenny Opera)
Germany, 1931, B & W, Drama, D: Georg Wilhelm Pabst; Play: Bertolt Brecht; Music: Kurt Weill; Stars: Florelle, Valeska Gert, Lotte Lenya, Albert Prejean, Fritz Rasp, 124 m
London is divided into discrete begging franchises, under the strict control of the beggar master, Mr. Peachum. It all goes well until the gangster Mack the Knife (Maeckie Messer) challenges Peachum's rule, and all the London underworld is forced to take sides.

* Duck Soup
USA, 1933, B & W, Comedy, D: Leo McCarey, Stars: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, 70 m
The Kingdom of Fredonia, governed by corrupt Rufus J. Firefly (Groucho) is threatened, invaded, and liberated with much stupidity but little violence.

* Europa Europa [Hitlerjunge Salomon]
Germany/Poland, 1990, Drama, D: Agnieszka Holland, Stars: Solomon Perel, Marco Hofschneider, 113 m
A young Soviet Jew, captured by Hitler's Army, pretends to be German to save his life and is taken to an elite Hitler Youth School in Germany.

* Fahrenheit 451
France, 1967, Drama, D: Francois Truffaut, Stars: Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cheryl Cusack, Original book: by Ray Bradbury, 111 m
Truffaut's only film in English, the film portrays a civilization where all books are banned.

* Fly Away Home
USA, 1996, Drama, D: Carroll Ballard; Stars: Jeff Daniels, Anna Paquin, Dana Delany, 110 m
Amy, 13, loses her mother in an car accident in New Zealand, and goes to Canada to live with her father. She finds a nest of goose eggs and helps them hatch, but then has to learn how to teach the goslings to fly south.

* For the Boys
USA, 1991, D: Mark Rydell, Stars: Bette Midler, James Caan, George Segal, 148 m
Dixie, an unknown singer, gets her chance with star Eddie in the USO in WW II, then has to face Korea, McCarthyism, and Vietnam.

* For Whom the Bell Tolls
USA, 1943, Drama, D: Sam Wood, Original Book: Ernest Hemingway, Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, 170 m
A young soldier fighting for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, has one night of romance before battle.

* Free Willy
USA, 1993, Drama, D: Simon Wincer; Stars: Jason James RIchter, Lori Petty, 112 m
A whale, captured and put on display in an aquatic show, is freed by a lad with a mission.

* Friendly Persuasion
USA, 1956, Drama, D: William Wyler, Original Book: Jessamyn West, Stars: Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Marjorie Main, Anthony Perkins, 140 m
A Quaker family in Indiana struggles to keep the Peace Testimony during the Civil War.

* Front Page, The
USA, 1974, Comedy, D: Billy Wilder, Stars: Jack Lemon, Walter Matthau, Carol Burnett, Susan Sarandon, 105 m
A film version of the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play about the sell-your-grandma-for-a-story Chicago newspapermen of the 1920s.

* Front, The
USA, 1976, Drama, D: Martin Ritt, Stars: Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, 94 m
A man of no talent or convictions (played by Woody Allen) is hired to be a front man for a group of blacklisted Hollywood writers during the 1950s.

* Full Metal Jacket
USA, 1979, Drama, D: Stanley Kubrick, Original Book: The Short Timers, by Gustav Hasford, Stars: Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, 116 m
Marine basic training on Paris Island cuts to the realities of combat in Vietnam.

* Gallipoli
Australia, 1981, Drama, D: Peter Weir, Stars: Mel Gibson, Mark Lee, Harold Baigent, 110 m
A young Australian runner, training for the Olympics, signs up for the Great War. He ends up on the beaches under Turkish guns in the middle of one of the bloodiest battles of that war.

* Gandhi
UK/India, 1982, Drama, D: Richard Attenborough, Stars: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, 188 m
The life of Mohandas Gandhi, from his youth in South Africa to law school in England to his remarkable nonviolent campaign for Indian independence.>

* Glory
USA, 1989, Drama, D: Edward Zwick, Stars: Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, 122 m
Robert G. Shaw, the white colonel commanding the first African-American brigade to fight for the Union in the Civil War, faces the prejudice of his fellow officers and Confederate orders to shoot him on sight.

* Gods Must be Crazy, The
South Africa, 1980, Comedy, D: Jamie Uys; Stars: Marius Weyers, Sandra Prinsloo, Nx!au, 109 m
A Bushman in the Kalahari Desert finds a Coke bottle after it falls from the sky. When chaos breaks out over its intended use, he decides to return it to the Gods, from whence it came.

* Gorillas in the Mist
USA, 1988, Drama, D: Michael Apted Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Bryan Brown, Julie Harris, 129 m
The story of the life of Dian Fossey, who went to Africa in 1967 to do a National Geographic article on a vanishing breed of gorillas. Her magnificent obsession is magnificently portrayed.

* Gospel According to St. Matthew, The
Italy/France, 1966, Drama, D: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Stars: Enrique Irazoqi, Margherita Caruso, 135 m
This film shows the life of Jesus, simple and unadorned, according to the Gospel of Matthew. Director Pier Paolo Pasolini, a Marxist filmmaker, was invited by the Catholic Church to a conference on film, Put up in a monastery during the conference, he had only the Bible to read. After reading Matthew's Gospel, he decided to make this classic film.

* Graduate, The
USA, 1967, Comedy, D: Mike Nichols, Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Richard Dreyfuss, Anne Bancroft, 104 m
Benjamin, a recent college graduate, with no idea of what to do in life, falls into an affair with his boss's wife. When he winds up on a date with her daughter and falls for her, the mother's wrath erupts.

* Grande Illusion, La
France, 1937, B & W, Drama, D: Jean Renoir, Stars: Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim, 114 m
Class, anti-Semitism and injustice trap the two French soldiers, Marechal and Rosenthal, who are captured by the Germans in W.W.I.

* Great Dictator, The
USA, 1940, Comedy, D: Charles Chaplin, Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, 128 m
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel of Tomania is challenged by his rival Benzino Napaloni of Bacteria in Chaplin's first talkie. Chaplin plays two roles: the Jewish barber and Dictator Hynkel.

* Handmaid's Tale, The
USA/Germany, 1990, Drama, D: Volker Schlondorff, Stars: Robert Duvall, Elizabeth McGovern, Faye Dunaway, Original book: by Margaret Atwood, 109 m
In a right-wing fundamentalists successor state to the shattered United States, a woman who has been reduced to a reproductive slave of a rich military family, joins a rebellion.

* Guilty by Suspicion
USA, 1991, Drama, D: Irwin Winkler, Stars: Robert de Niro, Annette Bening, George Wendt, Patricia Wettig, 105 m
A fictional Hollywood director (Robert de Niro) finds himself hauled up before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the 1950s. First he is asked about his own involvement in the Communist Party in the 1930s. Then he is asked to "name names" of friends of his who are now, or ever have been, members of the Communist Party or any organizations the committee deems to be its front groups.

* Heimat - Eine deutsche Chronik
West Germany, 1984, Drama, D: Edgar Reitz, Stars: Eva Maria Bayerswalter, Gabriele Blum, Roland Bongard, 924 m
A family in the town of Schabbach on the Rhine goes from 1920s poverty to the rise of Hitler and W.W.II to West Germany prosperity.

* Zweite Heimat, die - Chronik einer Jugend in 13 Filmen
Germany, 1992, Drama, D: Edgar Reitz, Stars: Henry Arnold, Eva Maria Bayerswalter, Edith Behleit, Johanna Bittenbinder, 1532 m
The story of Hermann Simon of Schabbach and his friends, from the start of university to the end of his marriage, from 1962 to 1972.

* Henry V
UK, 1989, Drama, D: Kenneth Branagh, Stars: Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, Simon Shepherd, 137 m
On his way to the Battle of Agincourt against the French, Henry V rallies his dispirited troops and confronts his own doubts.

* Hiding Place, The
USA, 1975, Drama, D: James F. Collier, Stars: Jeanette Cliff, Julie Harris, Eileen Heckart,
Two sisters, Corrie and Betsie ten Boom, shelter Jews in Holland during the German occupation and are discovered sent to a concentration camp.

* If You Love This Planet
Canada, 1982, Documentary, D: Terre Nash, 26 m
Dr. Helen Caldicott, president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, talks about the dangers of nuclear war and what we can do about it, in this award-winning documentary.
Available from: National Film Board of Canada

* In Country
USA, 1989, Drama, D: Norman Jewison, Stars: Emily Lloyd, Bruce Willis, 120 m
A girl whose father died as a US soldier in Vietnam, finds his diary and comes to terms with his life and that war.

* Incident at Oglala
USA, 1992, Documentary, D: Michael Apted; Stars: Robert Redford (narrator)
On July 26, 1975, a shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota left two FBI agents dead. With less-than-convincing evidence, Leonard Peltier was found guilty and imprisoned for the crime.

* Jack London
USA, 1948, B & W, Biography, D: Alfred Santell, Stars: Michael O'Shea, Susan Hayward, 81 m
Author Jack London's life unrolls on the screen, from cannery row to the open seas, from Yukon prospecting to university, and oh, those women he loved along the way!

* Jesus of Montreal
Canada/France, 1989, Drama, D: Denys Arcand, Stars: Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, 119 m
A small group of young actors put on a Passion Play in Montreal. After resistance from the Church, and rejection by society, their story begins to parallel that of Jesus and his disciples.

* JFK
USA, 1991, Biography, D: Oliver Stone, Stars: Sally Kirkland, Anthony Ramierez, Ray La Pere, Steve Reed, 189 m
The story of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's last days to his assassination in Dallas Texas on November 22, 1963, and the strange events shortly thereafter, told from the point of view of New Orleans attorney Jim Garrison, who believed Kennedy to be the victim of a conspiracy .

* Joe Hill
Sweden, 1971, Biography, D: Bo Widerberg; Stars: Tommy Berggren, Wendy Geier, 114 m
The story of the folk hero of the American labor movement, from his arrival from Sweden to his joining the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or Wobblies), to his death in front of a Salt Lake City firing squad. Joe Hill was convicted of murder charge which many now believe to be false.

* Johnny Got His Gun
USA, 1971, Drama, D: Dalton Trumbo, Stars: Timothy Bottoms, Kathy Fields, Marsha Hunt, Jason Robards, Donald Sutherland, 111 m
A US soldier, disabled in W.W. I, regains consciousness and relives his life through dreams and memories.

* Johnny Shiloh
USA, 1963, Drama, D: James Nielson, Stars: Kevin Corcoran, Brian Keith, 90 m
A young man loses his family in the Civil War and tags along with the army.

* Jonah, Who will be 25 in the Year 2000 (Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l'an 2000)
France/Switzerland, 1976, Comedy, D: Alain Tanner, Stars: Jean-Luc Bideau, Myriam Meziere, Miou-Miou, 116 m
In Geneva, burned-out 60s political activist revives enough to warn some farmers that a land developer is about to swindle them out of their farm. He and the secretary who tipped him off befriend the farm family, and start a commune with their own school for Jonah.

* Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
Canada, 1993, Documentary, D: Alanis Abomsowin
This National Film Board documentary shows the Native side of the stand-off at Oka, Quebec in 1990 between the Mohawks on one side and the Surete du Quebec and the Canadian Army on the other.

* Killing Fields, The
UK, 1984, Drama, D Roland Joffe, Stars: Sam Waterson, Haing S. Ngor, 141 m
Dith Pran, aide to NYT journalist Sydney Schanberg in Vietnam, stays behind as the war ends, and the horror of Pol Pot's Cambodia unfolds.

* Kiss of the Spider Woman, The
USA/Brazil, 1985, Drama D: Hector Babenco, Stars: William Hurt, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, 119 m
This classic film portrays a gay man and a political prisoner locked together in a cell of a South American prison. William Hurt won an Oscar for his performance.

* Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed (Les armes de l'esprit / Weapons of the Spirit)
France, 1989, Documentary, D: Pierre Sauvage, Original Book by Philip J. Hallie, 90 m
Pastor Andre Trocm� and the other Huguenots in Le Chambon, France, shelter thousands of Jews from the Nazis during W.W. II.
Link to article by Jeremy Pine Purchase from French American Cultural Services Educational Aid

* Life of Brian, The
UK, 1979, Comedy, D: Terry Jones, Stars: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, 93 m
Brian, a Jew living under Roman occupation, joins the Judean People's Front (challenged by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Judea), and has a hard time persuading people he is not the Messiah. Monty Python's hi-jinx are shown here in high gear.

* Little Big Man
USA, 1970, Drama, D: Arthur Penn, Original Book: Thomas Berger, Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George, 150 m
Jack Crab, and adopted Indian now 121 years old, reminisces about his days as a scout for General George Custer and the sole survivor of Custer's Last Stand.

* Lord of the Flies
USA, 1990, Drama, D: Harry Hook, Original book: by William Golding, 90 m
British schoolboys, shipwrecked on an island, are divided. Half follow the civilized, rational Ralph and half follow Jack, the leader of the tribe of militarists.

* Lost Horizon
USA, 1937, Drama, D: Frank Capra, Stars: Ronald Colman, Sam Jaffe, Edward Everett Horton, Jane Wyatt, 138 m
A small plane carrying a British diplomat (Ronald Colman) and a small group of people crash-land in the Himalayas, in the valley of Shangra-la, which offers a life away from the world of cares and corruption.

* Man for All Seasons, A
UK, 1966, Drama, D: Fred Zinnemann, Stars: Paul Scofield, Wendy Hillier, Leo McKern, 150 m
When King Henry VIII asked Lord Chancellor Thomas More to support a break with Rome and the establishment of the Church of England, More refused, and stayed loyal to his church all the way to the executioner.

* Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
Canada, 1992, Documentary (National Film Board of Canada) D: Mark Achbar, Stars: Noam Chomsky as himself, 110 m
World-famous linguist and American's one-man political opposition Noam Chomsky argues that big business and the US government combine to shape the news. As examples, he uses the focus on the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Kampuchea and the neglect of the slaughter of East Timorese by US-backed Indonesian troops.

* Margaret's Museum
Canada, 1995, Drama, D: Mort Ransen; Stars: Helena Bonham Carter, Kate Nelligan, Clive Russell, 118 m
A young girl, who lost her father and brother to the Cape Breton mines, meets a man she adores, partly because he refuses to work in the mines. When hard times make weaken his promise, Margaret takes her revenge in a unique and chilling manner.

* M*A*S*H
USA, 1970, Comedy, D: Robert Altman, Original Screenplay: Ring Lardner, Jr. Stars: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerrit, Sally Kellerman, 116 m
The escapades of an emergency medical unit in the Korean War show the pathos of war and one of the few ways to survive it.

* Matewan
USA, 1987, Drama, D: John Sayles, 132 m
West Virginia miners, hard up against the bosses in the 1920s, are united by a former Wobbly who brings together the white, African-American, and Italian workers.

* Medium Cool
USA, 1969, Drama, D: Haskell Wexler, Stars: Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, 110 m
Real footage of the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968 and the police attack upon the demonstrators outside is used in this film showing the story of a fictional TV reporter who remains coolly detached from all these events he's filming.

* Midnight Clear, A
USA, 1991, Drama, D: Keith Gordon, Stars: Peter Berg, Kevin Dillon, 107 m
At Christmas, 1944, US and German soldiers lose the desire to fight and change to the mock combat of a snowball fight.

* Milagro Beanfield War, The
USA, 1988, Drama, D: Robert Redford, Stars: Ruben Blades, Richard Bradford, Sonia Braga, Julie Carmen, 117 m
A rugged individualist in New Mexico decides to stand up against the housing developers who are trying, by fair means or foul, to assemble the land his ancestors and his people have owned for centuries.

* Mission, The
UK, 1986, Drama D: Roland Joffe, Stars: Robert de Niro, Jeremy Irons, 125 m
A Jesuit mission to the Indians in the jungles of Brazil in the 18th Century is threatened by Portuguese and Spanish colonists. The nonviolent resistance of one priest (Jeremy Irons) comes up against the cry for armed resistance by another missionary (Robert de Niro).

* Mississippi Burning
USA, 1988, Drama, D: Alan Parker, Stars: Gene Hackman, William Dafoe, Frances McDormand, 128 m
Two FBI agents, one straight-arrow type and one Southern lawman, set out to solve the murders of two civil rights workers murdered during Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964.

* Mosquito Coast, The
USA, 1986, Drama, D: Peter Weir, Stars: Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, River Phoenix, Original book: by Paul Theroux, 117 m
An iconoclastic environmentalist and inventor moves his family from the United States to Central America, where he becomes the autocrat of his household empire.

* Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
USA, 1939, Drama, D: Frank Capra, Screenplay: Sydney Buchman, Lewis R. Foster; Stars: Jean Arthur, James Stuart, Claude Rains, 125 m
Idealistic young Jefferson Smith (James Stuart) is appointed to a U.S. Senate seat by the governor of his state to fill the term of a Senator who died in office. Once there, Smith challenges the corruption of the system that put him in power,

* Nasty Girl, The (Das schreckliche Maedchen)
West Germany, 1990, Drama, D: Michael Verhoeven, Stars: Stella Adorf, Helmut Alimonta, Cordula Bachl, 92 m
A young woman in West Germany sets out in the 1970s to uncover the history of the town during the "braune Jahren" of the Hitler's Germany. Of course, no one in the town except the Mayor was ever a Nazi ..

* Network
USA, 1976, Drama, D: Sydney Lumet, Stars: William Holden, Faye Dunaway, William Finch, Robert Duvall, 121 m
This satire by on television by Paddy Chayefsky casts Finch as a "mad prophet of the airwaves" who mesmerizes his audience.

* Never Cry Wolf
USA, 1983, Drama, D: Carroll Ballard, ; Stars: Charles Martin Smith, Brian Denehey, Zachary Ittamangnaq, 105 m
Smith plays Farley Mowat, a tale-telling Canadian writer headed North to live among the wolves and eat mice.

* Nine to Five (9 to 5)
USA, 1980, Comedy, D: Colin Higgins, Stars: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, 110 m
A dictatorial boss is locked out by his three women employees, who bring amazing efficiency to the plant - as long as their ex-chief is tied up.

* 1984
UK, 1984, Drama, D: Michael Radford, Original book: by George Orwell, Stars: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Susannah Hamilton, 110 m
After an atomic war, the world is carved up between three empires. London, the capital of Oceania, is ruled by a dictatorship which has total control over its citizens. Winston Smith, a bureaucrat, tries to escape with his lover, Julia.

* Norma Rae
USA, 1979, Drama, D: Martin Ritt, Stars: Sally Field, Beau Bridges, Ron Leibman, 110 m
Norma Rae, a textile worker in the South, summons all the courage in the world to contact a labour union organizer. Their struggle has just begun.

* Oh! What a Lovely War
UK, 1969, Comedy, D: Richard Attenborough, Stars: Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, Dirk Bogarde, Susannah York, Maggie Smith, Jane Seymour, 139 m
A brilliant, stinging expose of the jingoism of British society W.W.I

* Olvidados, Los
Mexico, 1950, B & W, Drama, D: Luis Bunuel, Stars: Alfonso Mejia, Jesus Navarro, Estela Inda, 80 m
A young man named Pedro is led astray by a gang of youths in the festering slums of Mexico City.

* On the Beach
USA, 1959, B& W, Drama, D: Stanley Kramer, Original Book; Neville Shute, Stars: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins, 133 m
A lone submarine survives a nuclear war between the USA and the USSR.

* Papillon
USA, 1973, Drama, D: Franklin Shaffner, Stars: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, 150 m
Henri Charriere, "the butterfly", sets out to escape from Devil's Island despite the enormous odds against him.

* Paths of Glory
USA, 1957, Drama, D: Stanley Kubrick, Original Book: Humphrey Cobb, Stars: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, 86 m
Sent on a mission impossible, French soldiers mutiny in W.W.I, Their unit commander must deal with them and a foolhardy general.

* Posse
UK, 1993, Drama, D: Mario van Peebles, Stars: Mario van Peebles, Stephen Baldwin, 111 m
A group of African-American soldiers desert from the Spanish-American War and head west with stolen treasure.
Review by Susan Doll, Magill's Survey of Cinema

* Pow-Wow Highway
USA, 1989, B & W, Drama, D: Jonathan Wicks, Stars: A Martinez, Gary Farmer, Joannelle Nadine Romero, 88 m
Two young Native men on the U.S. plains seek to rally their people. Philbert seeks mystical power through Native spirituality, and the other, a Vietnam War veteran named Buddy Red Bow, tries political organizing.

* Private History of a Campaign That Failed, The
USA, 1981, Drama, D: Peter H. Hunt, Original Book: Mark Twain, Stars: Pat Hingle, Edward Herrmann, 90 m
Fifteen boys from Hannibal, Missouri, face the horrors of war. A dramatization of "A War Prayer" opens the film. Mark Twain, who was a deserter from a Confederate unit in the Civil War and became an anti-slavery writer, wrote the original story.

* Quiz Show
USA, 1994, Drama, D: Robert Redford, Stars: John Tuturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, Paul Scofield, 133 m
A young lawyer working for Congress in the 1950s discovers that a famous TV quiz show is fixed (based on the true story of the $64,000 Question).

* Red Badge of Courage
USA, 1951, Drama, D: John Huston, Original Book: Stephen Crane, Stars: Smith Ballew, Whit Bissell, 69 m
A soldier in the Civil War vacillates between courage and cowardice, and rallies to fight again.

* Return of the Secaucus Seven, The
USA, 1980, Comedy, D: John Sayles, 110 m
A group of young anti-war protesters from the 1960s get together on the anniversary of their arrest - not for sitting in at a draft board, as was their plan, but for a traffic offence on the way to the protest.

* Roger and Me
USA, 1989, Documentary Comedy, D: Michael Moore, 83 m
Moore tries to interview the Chairman of General Motors, Roger Smith, to ask him why he closed GM's plant in Flint, Michigan, eliminating thousands of jobs in that city. The footage of a Fourth of July parade in Flint, that of a woman in Flint trying to make a living selling "Rabbits: Pets or Meat", and that of Smith giving a speech at GM's Christmas Party are mischievously intermingled.

* Roi de coeur (King of Hearts)
France, 1966, Comedy, D: Philippe de Broca, Stars: Alan Bates, Genevieve Bujold, 100 m
A British soldier sent into a French town in W.W. I to disarm a bomb finds himself locked up in the town's insane asylum, where the inmates, less insane than the populace during war, crown him the "King of Hearts".

* Romero
USA, 1989, Drama, D: John Duigan, Stars: Raul Julia, Richard Jordan, Ana Alicia, 105 m
Bishop Romero of El Salvador spoke out against the Death Squads of the government. His reward was martyrdom.

* Rosa Luxemburg
Czechoslovakia/West Germany, 1986, Biography, D: Margerethe von Trotta, Stars: Barbara Sukowa, Daniel Olbrychski, Otto Sander, 110 m
From 1898 to 1919, Polish-born Rosa Luxemburg, the hero of German Social Democrats, worked against ware and for a socialist society. Ironically, she and Karl Liebknecht were murdered in Berlin on January 15, 1919, by Freie Korps troops under the first Social Democratic government Germany ever had.

* Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, The
USA, 1966, Comedy, D: Norman Jewison, Original Book: The Off-Islanders, by Nathaniel Benchley, Stars: Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Sainte, Alan Arkin, 120 m
A Russian submarine lands off New England during the Cold War and negotiates with the town.

* Salt of the Earth
USA, 1954, Drama, D: Herbert Biberman, Screenplay: Herber Biberman, Michael Wilson (I); Stars: Will Geer, David Wolfe, David Sarvis, 94 m
Striking workers in the Empire Zinc mine in New Mexico are faced with the extra oppression of Mexican-Americans and women. Written, directed, and produced by members of the Hollywood Ten.

* Salvador
USA, 1986, Drama, D: Oliver Stone, Stars: James Woods, James Belushi, John Savage, 123 m
A freelance journalist goes into the jungles of El Salvador to interview the rebels and gets caught between them and the government.

* Schindler's List
USA, 1993, D: Steven Spielberg, Stars: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Carolyn Goodall, 197 m
German businessman Oskar Schindler saves more than 1,000 Jews from the Holocaust in Germany.

* Search, The
USA, 1948, Drama, D: Fred Zinnemann, Stars: Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Aline MacMahon, 105 m
After W.W. II, a boy is cared for in Berlin by Clift while the boy's mother searches for him in Displaced Persons' camps across Europe.

* Sergeant York
USA, 1941, D: Humphrey Hawks, Stars: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, 134 m
A pacifist, drafted in the US Army in W.W.I, turns into a military hero.

* Shawshank Redemption, The
USA, 1994, Drama, D: Frank Darabont, Stars: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, 142 m
Banker Andy Defresne, sent to Shawshank Prison in the 1940s for the murder of his wife and her lover, wins the respect of Red, the prison's black marketeer, and finally of all his fellow prisoners.

* Shenandoah
USA, 1965, Drama, D: Andrew McLaglan, Stars: James Stewart, Doug McClure, Glenn Corbett, 105 m
A farmer in Virginia tries valiantly to keep out of the Civil War.

* Silkwood
USA, 1983, Drama, D: Mike Nichols ; Stars: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, 128 m
A woman who works in a nuclear parts factory in Oklahoma discovers some strange goings-on and winds up dead in an accident that looks like a set-up.

* Slaughterhouse Five
USA, 1972, D: George Roy Hill, Stars: Michael Sacks, Ron Liebman, Valerie Perrine, John Dehner, Holly Near, 104 m
Billy Pilgrim emerges from a POW camp in Dresden after the fire-bombing in W.W. II to become adrift in time.

* Sorrow and the Pity, The (Le Chagrin et la Pitie)
Switzerland, 1970, Documentary, D: Marcel Ophuls, 260 m
The stories of survivors of W.W. II in Clermont-Ferrand, France - both collaborators and resisters to Petain and the German Occupiers.

* Soylent Green
USA, 1973, Drama, D: Richard Fleischer ; Stars: Charlton Heston, Edgar G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, 100 m
Set in the year 2022, an investigator (Charlton Heston) who is going after a murderer, discovers an astounding secret which has been hushed up by the government.

* Spartacus
USA, 1960, Drama, D: Stanley Kubrick, Stars: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, 161 m (restored version 198 m)
Spartacus, a slave trained as a gladiator, was forced to fight to the death with an opponent around 71 B.C. His opponent spared him, and Spartacus went on to lead a slave revolt which spread over half of Italy.

* Summer of My German Soldier, The
USA, 1978, D: Mike Nichols, Original Book: Bette Green, Stars: Bruce Davison, Esther Rolle, Michael Constantine, Barbara Barrie, 100 m
In Georgia in W.W.II, a teenage Jewish girl and an escaped German POW start a wartime romance.

* To Kill a Mockingbird
USA, 1962, Drama, D: Robert Mulligan, Original Book: Harper Lee, Stars: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Robert Duvall, 129 m
A white Southern lawyer defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

* Uns et les autres. Les (Bolero)
France, 1981, Drama, D: Claude Lelouche, Stars: James Caan, Evelyne Bouix, Geraldine Chaplin 173 m
Three generations of dancers from the USA, France, Germany and the Soviet Union live through W.W. I to the Holocaust to the 1960s.

* Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt)
Australia/Germany, 1991, Drama, D: Wim Wenders, Stars: Solveig Dommartin, William Hurt, Sam Neill, Jeanne Moreau, 179 m
Solveig Dommartin falls in with some bank robbers and then escapes with William Hurt, who is being pursued by the CIA on a trumped-up charge because the agency wants to get hold of his instruments, which record dreams and give sight to the blind.

* Viridiana
Mexico/Spain, 1961, Drama, D: Luis Bunuel, Stars: Francisco Rabal, Silvia Pinal, 90 m
A novice nun named Viridiana rejects the assaults of her uncle and opens her house to all the poor, the beggars and the destitute of the town - with unexpected results.

* Walkabout
Australia, 1971, Drama, D: Jenny Agutter, Lucien John, David Gulpilil, 100 m
Two British schoolchildren, stranded in the Outback, join an Aboriginal man on his Walkabout, a ritual banishment from the tribe.

* War, The
USA, 1994, D: Jon Avnet, Stars: Elijah Wood, Kevin Costner, Mare Winningham, 127 m
A Southern US veteran, psychologically injured by the Vietnam War, tries to teach his children peace.

* Way We Were, The
USA, 1973, Drama, D: Sydney Pollack, Stars: Barbara Streisand, Robert Redford, 118 m
The straight-arrow college guy falls for radical Katie in a romance that spans the 1930s and 40s in America.

* Warszawa
Poland, 1992, Drama, D: Janusz Kijowski, Stars: Julie Delpy, Hanna Schygulla, Lambert Wilson, 110 m
In the winter of 1943, Stefania, a Christian Polish woman (Hanna Schygullla) hides two Jews, Alek and Fryda (Julie Deply and Lambert Wilson). But Fryda, suspicious and jealous, goes on to risk the trio's lives.

* Wings of Desire (Der Himmel ueber Berlin)
West Germany, 1987, Drama, D: Wim Wenders, Stars: Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, Solveig Dommartin, Peter Falk; Original Screenplay: Wim Wenders, Peter Handke and Richard Reitinger, 127 m
Two angels whose turf is Berlin, disguise themselves as ageing hippie men with shabby overcoats, ponytails and smiling faces. One angel, Damiel (Bruno Ganz), tires of his life of observing, recording, and consoling, but never intervening, and above all, never feeling. Damiel is tempted to try mortality by ex-angel Peter Falk, an actor in Berlin to do an anti-war movie about Nazi Germany. Damiel gets his wish to become mortal and comes crashing to earth beside the Berlin Wall. He searches for the mortal he has fallen in love with, a woman named Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a beautiful trapeze artist in a two-bit circus.

* Weisse Rose, Die (The White Rose)
West Germany, 1982, Drama, D: Michael Verhoeven, Stars: Martin Benrath, Wulf Kessler, Lena Stolze , 123 m
In Munich in 1942, two students, Hans and Sophie Scholl, join an underground resistance group against Hitler. They distribute leaflets and make contacts in other cities. Then the Gestapo finds their trail.

* World Apart, A
UK, 1988, Drama, D: Chris Menges, Stars: Barbara Hershey, Jodhi May, 112 m
A 13-year-old white girl, growing up in South Africa in the 1960s, has all the usual trappings of power - except that her parents are anti-apartheid activists. Her father is forced to flee the country, and her mother goes to work for an anti-government newspaper.


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Co-ordinator: Carl Stieren, Peace and Social Concerns Committee, [email protected]
Peace and Social Concerns Committee, Ottawa Monthly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends, 91A Fourth Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 2L1 CANADA
Revised November 21, 1997