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The Ten Commandments
»rank: 6940
: essential video:Legendary silent film director Cecil B. DeMille didn't much alter the way he made movies after sound came in, and this 1956 biblical drama is proof of that. While graced with such 1950s niceties as VistaVision and Technicolor, The Ten Commandments (DeMille had already filmed an earlier version in 1923) has an anachronistic, impassioned style that finds lead actors Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner expressively posing while hundreds of extras writhe either in the presence of God's power or from orgiastic ...
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Masada
»rank: 7731
: essential video:This 1981 television miniseries, based on Ernest K. Gann's historical novel The Antagonists, is a dramatization of a documented revolt by nearly a thousand Jerusalem Jews against Roman oppressors in A.D. 72 to 73. Following a city-wide siege by Rome's soldiers, Jewish Zealots move into a fortress in the mountains of Masada, from which they present a defense strong enough to convince the enemy to negotiate. Peter 0'Toole, in all his golden dignity, plays Cornelius Flavius Silva, commander of the Roman ...
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Old Maid (1939)
»rank: 7782
: essential video:This 1981 television miniseries, based on Ernest K. Gann's historical novel The Antagonists, is a dramatization of a documented revolt by nearly a thousand Jerusalem Jews against Roman oppressors in A.D. 72 to 73. Following a city-wide siege by Rome's soldiers, Jewish Zealots move into a fortress in the mountains of Masada, from which they present a defense strong enough to convince the enemy to negotiate. Peter 0'Toole, in all his golden dignity, plays Cornelius Flavius Silva, commander of the Roman ...
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Out on a Limb Miniseries
»rank: 7519
: essential video:This 1981 television miniseries, based on Ernest K. Gann's historical novel The Antagonists, is a dramatization of a documented revolt by nearly a thousand Jerusalem Jews against Roman oppressors in A.D. 72 to 73. Following a city-wide siege by Rome's soldiers, Jewish Zealots move into a fortress in the mountains of Masada, from which they present a defense strong enough to convince the enemy to negotiate. Peter 0'Toole, in all his golden dignity, plays Cornelius Flavius Silva, commander of the Roman ...
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Nixon
»rank: 10487
: essential video:0liver Stone's controversial drama about the Nixon years in the White House stars Anthony Hopkins in a genuinely great performance as the scandal-plagued president. The film attempts to wed suggestions of Nixon's formative experiences as a boy to his political connections with shady movers and shakers and finally to his self-destructive tenure in the 0val 0ffice. The Watergate scandal is revisited rather impressionistically--it may be hard for viewers who weren't alive then to get a sense of what the crisis was ...
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All Creatures Great and Small, Series 2: Volumes 1-6
»rank: 9886
: essential video:0liver Stone's controversial drama about the Nixon years in the White House stars Anthony Hopkins in a genuinely great performance as the scandal-plagued president. The film attempts to wed suggestions of Nixon's formative experiences as a boy to his political connections with shady movers and shakers and finally to his self-destructive tenure in the 0val 0ffice. The Watergate scandal is revisited rather impressionistically--it may be hard for viewers who weren't alive then to get a sense of what the crisis was ...
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No Highway In The Sky
»rank: 1313
: :A little-known gem, No Highway in the Sky is an interesting hybrid of U.S. and British film production. Most of the cast is British, as are the look and feel of the film, but the lead actor and the budget are both American. James Stewart plays aeronautical engineer Theodore Honey, the quintessential absent-minded professor: eccentric, forgetful, but brilliant. His studies show that the aircraft being manufactured by his employer has a subtle but deadly design flaw that manifests itself only after the aircraft ...
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Chariots of Fire
»rank: 464
: essential video:The come-from-behind winner of the 1981 0scar for best picture, Chariots of Fire either strikes you as either a cold exercise in mechanical manipulation or as a tale of true determination and inspiration. The heroes are an unlikely pair of young athletes who ran for Great Britain in the 1924 Paris 0lympics: devout Protestant Eric Liddell (lan Charleson), a divinity student whose running makes him feel closer to God, and Jewish Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a highly competitive Cambridge student who ...
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The April Fools
»rank: 5231
: essential video:The come-from-behind winner of the 1981 0scar for best picture, Chariots of Fire either strikes you as either a cold exercise in mechanical manipulation or as a tale of true determination and inspiration. The heroes are an unlikely pair of young athletes who ran for Great Britain in the 1924 Paris 0lympics: devout Protestant Eric Liddell (lan Charleson), a divinity student whose running makes him feel closer to God, and Jewish Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a highly competitive Cambridge student who ...
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Leaving Normal
»rank: 2401
: essential video:The come-from-behind winner of the 1981 0scar for best picture, Chariots of Fire either strikes you as either a cold exercise in mechanical manipulation or as a tale of true determination and inspiration. The heroes are an unlikely pair of young athletes who ran for Great Britain in the 1924 Paris 0lympics: devout Protestant Eric Liddell (lan Charleson), a divinity student whose running makes him feel closer to God, and Jewish Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a highly competitive Cambridge student who ...
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