Costner's multi-Oscar winner recalls Ford and Lean in its epic sweep, as well as revisionist westerns like Run Of The Arrow in its portrayal of Native Americans. Costner's weary Civil War veteran is appointed commander of a remote army outpost, where he finds kinship with the Lakota Sioux. Rich characterisations are balanced by awesome widescreen backdrops.
Harold Becker's tale of US Military School cadets squaring up against greedy property developers stars Timothy Hutton and a youthful Sean Penn and Tom Cruise. It's a faintly ludicrous story that works thanks to Becker's understated direction and three strong leading performances, made all the more interesting when you consider that a post-breakthrough Penn and Cruise would have been cast the other way round. Here, Cruise is the hothead and Penn the conscience-stricken man of reason.
This stunningly realised 1962 restaging of D-Day is the last great war epic. The stars include John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger, Sean Connery and a wounded Richard Burton, but the greatest stretches come on the inclement grey Normandy beaches, where General Robert Mitchum tries to lead his beleaguered men up the dunes, and get his cigar to light.
In 1999, Beavis & Butthead creator Mike Judge made his first foray into live action with this good-natured satire on the mind-numbing life of the white-collar worker. Ron Livingstone is the drone desperate to escape his corporate existence, whose attempts to get sacked leave a team of troubleshooters convinced he's management material. Jennifer Aniston co-stars. Over-looked, but often screamingly funny.
Full of incident and introducing a slate of new characters, including Alan Cummings' edge-of-camp Nightcrawler, this workmanlike sequel plays less thrillingly second time round on a small screen. In addition to the expected commentaries, the second disc has more info about the film's making, the comic's history and what Ian McKellen had for tea on Day 28 of shooting than even a diehard fan could possibly want.
Time has been kind to Less Than Zero. This kitschy exposé of teenage dysfunction in Beverly Hills, now freed from the weight of Bret Easton Ellis, has much in it to admire, from the fluorescent art direction and uber-'80s soundtrack to Andrew McCarthy's glassy-eyed performance and Robert Downey Jr's eerily prescient depiction of a rehab recidivist.
Like a title fight between the two greatest actors of their generation, The Young Lions cares less about adapting Irwin Shaw's anti-war bestseller (which it subsequently mangles) than allowing Montgomery Clift's neurasthenic Private Ackerman and Marlon Brando's fey Nazi officer to out-Method each other on camera. Though the two icons only share one incidental scene, their separate contributions are still electrifying.
Robert Mitchum plays the world-weary captain of a US destroyer patrolling the South Atlantic, who becomes involved in a chess-like battle of wits with noble U-Boat commander Curt Jürgens. Dick Powell's tense 1957 WWII movie is notable as one of the first to accord the Germans some respect, unfolding as a game of cat and mouse that will be played to the death.
