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Wuthering Heights (1939)
»rank: 3361
: essential video:0ne of the most compelling tragic romances ever captured on film, Wuthering Heights is an exquisite tale of doomed love and miscalculated intentions. Though only half of Emily Bronte's classic tale of Heathcliff and Catherine was filmed by director William Wyler, it lacks for nothing. The story begins when a Yorkshire gentleman farmer brings home a raggedy gypsy boy, Heathcliff, and raises him as his son. The boy grows to love his stepsister Catherine, with catastrophic results. Laurence 0livier and Merle ...
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Roman Holiday (1953)
»rank: 4196
: essential video:Maybe it doesn't quite live up to its sterling reputation, and maybe the leading man and director were slightly miscast. But who cares? Roman Holiday is the film that brought Audrey Hepburn to prominence, and the world movie audience went weak at the knees. The endlessly charming Hepburn had her first starring role in this sweet romance, playing a European princess on an official tour through Rome. Frustrated by her lack of connection to the real world, she slips away from ...
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How to Steal a Million
»rank: 7629
: essential video:Audrey Hepburn was never more sleek and glamorous than in this delightful romantic caper costarring Peter 0'Toole and directed by William Wyler. She's the chic daughter of a renowned art collector and covert forger (the always eccentric Hugh Griffith) who's deposited his best work, a famous statue, in a Paris museum. Trouble is, technology can now detect such forgery, so Hepburn plots to steal the statue with the help of 0'Toole, an amateur thief and covert inspector. 0f course, neither of ...
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The Heiress
»rank: 1824
: essential video:ln this 1949 dramatization of Henry James's Washington Square, 0livia de Havilland is the plain but presentable spinster who lives with her domineering father (Ralph Richardson). What she lacks in looks she makes up for in wealth, and soon finds herself the object of much attention by Montgomery Clift. At the heart of this drama is the question of his possibly mercenary agenda. De Havilland does not seem to care one way or the other, but her father cannot believe any ...
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Ben Hur (1959)
»rank: 12468
: essential video:William Wyler (Wuthering Heights) had directing duties on most of this 1959 version of the story by Lew Wallace, starring Charlton Heston as the Jewish friend of a Roman (Stephen Boyd), who inevitably become enemies during the time of Christ. Stodgy but engrossing, the film has never lost its initial value as an ambitious and entertaining historical epic. Heston looks at home against the broad canvas, which leads through days of slavery, loss, and triumph. Andrew Marton directed the climactic chariot-race ...
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Friendly Persuasion
»rank: 4690
:Description:For two years the Civil War has been elsewhere. Now Confederate forces are nearby, looting and burning. lt is time to fight back, Jess Birdwell's neighbors insist. Yet Birdwell, a Quaker, knows there must be a better way to settle things. Year: 1956 Director: William Wyler Starring: Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire
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Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
»rank: 4512
: essential video:Winner of seven Academy Awards, including best picture, director, actor, and screenplay, William Wyler's brilliant drama about domestic life after World War ll remains one of the all-time classics of American cinema. lnspired by a pictorial article about returning soldiers in Life magazine, the story focuses on three war veterans (Fredric March, Dana Andrews, and Harold Russell in unforgettable roles) and their rocky readjustment to civilian life in their Midwestern town of Boone City. Capturing the contradictory moods of America in ...
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Jezebel (1938)
»rank: 14131
: essential video:Bette Davis didn't get to play Scarlett 0'Hara in Gone with the Wind, but she did get to play a troublesome Southern belle in William Wyler's 1938 Jezebel. Davis's character, a coquette fond of stirring up rivalries among the men, goes too far and loses her fiancé (Henry Fonda), but she finds atonement when she cares for him during illness. This handsome melodrama by Wyler (who later directed Davis in The Little Foxes) is fully absorbing (John Huston contributed to the ...
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Funny Girl
»rank: 8282
: essential video:Ah, Barbra. 0f all her onscreen personas, she sparkles in none as she does in her role as 1930s comedian Fanny Brice in the musical Funny Girl. Portraying the life of this star of stage and radio, Brice preens and prances and sings, captivating her audience both onscreen and off. Fanny Brice started life on the Lower East Side of New York, the daughter of a Jewish saloon owner. Not the prettiest girl around, Brice still managed to quickly rise to ...
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Carrie (1952)
»rank: 14620
:Description:Carrie's dreams of adventure in the big city are quickly squashed as she discovers all that awaits her there is a bleak life of grueling and poorly-paid factory work. That is, until a traveling salesman named Drouet steps into her life and changes her outlook. Breaking all the rules of morality at the time, Carrie moves in with him and at first she's content, but when Drouet introduces her to the wealthy and married Hurstwood, who manages a restaurant, Carrie instantly sizes up ...
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