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. . . And the Pursuit of Happiness

Louis Malle
1986 • 81 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Editions: Collector’s Sets, Hulu Plus

In 1986, Louis Malle set out to investigate the ever-widening range of immigrant experience in America. Interviewing a variety of newcomers in middle- and working-class communities from coast to coast, Malle paints a generous, humane portrait of their individual struggles.

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3 Women

Robert Altman
1977 • 124 minutes • 2.35:1 • United States
Spine: #230 Editions: DVD, Blu-ray

In a dusty California resort rown, a naïve Southern waif finds her role model in a fellow nurse, but her hero-worship evolves into something stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Robert Altman’s dreamlike masterpiece careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal.

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The 39 Steps

Alfred Hitchcock
1935 • 86 minutes • 1.33:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #56 Editions: DVD, Blu-ray, Collector’s Sets, iTunes

A heart-racing spy story by Alfred Hitchcock, The 39 Steps follows Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) as he stumbles upon a conspiracy that thrusts him into a hectic chase across the Scottish moors.

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49th Parallel

Michael Powell
1941 • 123 minutes • 1.33:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #376 Edition: DVD

A Nazi U-boat crew, headed by the ruthless Eric Portman, is stranded in Canada during the thick of World War II in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s quick-witted wartime thriller, 49th Parallel.

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Ace in the Hole

Billy Wilder
1951 • 111 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #396 Edition: DVD

One of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker, Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole stars Kirk Douglas as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter who happens upon the story of a lifetime—and will do anything to ensure he gets the scoop.

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All That Heaven Allows

Douglas Sirk
1955 • 89 minutes • 1.77:1 • United States
Spine: #95 Edition: DVD

Jane Wyman is a repressed wealthy widow and Rock Hudson is the hunky Thoreau-following gardener who loves her in Douglas Sirk’s heartbreakingly beautiful indictment of 1950s small-town America.

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Androcles and the Lion

Chester Erskine
1952 • 98 minutes • 1.33:1 • United Kingdom
Editions: Collector’s Sets, Hulu Plus

George Bernard Shaw’s breezy, delightful dramatization of this classic fable—about a Christian slave who pulls a thorn from a lion’s paw and is spared from death in the Colosseum as a result of his kind act—was written as a meditation on modern Christian values.

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An Angel at My Table

Jane Campion
1990 • 158 minutes • 1.78:1 • New Zealand
Spine: #301 Editions: DVD, Hulu Plus

With An Angel at My Table, Academy Award–winning filmmaker Jane Campion brings to the screen the harrowing true-life story of Janet Frame, New Zealand’s most distinguished author. Angel beautifully captures the color and power of the New Zealand landscape.

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Armageddon

Michael Bay
1998 • 153 minutes • 2.35:1 • United States
Spine: #40 Edition: DVD

Bruce Willis and an all-star cast of roughneck oil drillers blast off on a mission to save the planet in Michael Bay’s doomsday space epic.

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The Atomic Submarine

Spencer G. Bennet
1959 • 72 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #366 Editions: Collector’s Sets, Hulu Plus, iTunes

When a nuclear-powered submarine, the Tiger Shark, sets out to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances near the Arctic Circle, its fearless crew finds itself besieged by electrical storms, an Unidentified Floating Saucer, and lots of hairy tentacles.

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Bad Timing

Nicolas Roeg
1980 • 122 minutes • 2.35:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #303 Editions: DVD, iTunes

Amid the decaying elegance of cold-war Vienna, psychoanalyst Dr. Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel) becomes mired in an erotically charged affair with the elusive Milena Flaherty (Theresa Russell) in Nicolas Roeg’s masterful, deeply disturbing foray into the dark world of sexual obsession.

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The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Simon Callow
1991 • 100 minutes • 1.77:1 • United Kingdom
Edition: DVD

Merchant Ivory’s The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, based on the novella by Carson McCullers and the play by Edward Albee, is both a grotesque black comedy and a prime slice of Southern Gothic set in a poverty-stricken rural community dominated by the curious, androgynous Miss Amelia.

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The Bank Dick

Edward Cline
1940 • 72 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #78 Edition: DVD

W.C. Fields stars as an unemployed, henpecked drunk who spends most of his time at the Black Pussy Cat café. Things take a turn for the absurd when he unwittingly captures a bank robber and lands a job as a security guard.

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The Baron of Arizona

Samuel Fuller
1950 • 97 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Edition: Collector’s Sets

Vincent Price portrays legendary swindler James Addison Reavis, who in 1880 concocted an elaborate hoax to name himself the “Baron” of Arizona, and therefore inherit all the land in the state. Samuel Fuller adapts this tall tale to film with fleet, elegant storytelling and a sly sense of humor.

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The Beales of Grey Gardens

Albert Maysles and David Maysles
2006 • 91 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #361 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets, Hulu Plus

The filmmakers of Grey Gardens went back to their vaults of footage to create part two, The Beales of Grey Gardens, a tribute both to these indomitable women, Big and Little Edie Beale, and to the landmark documentary’s legions of fans, who have made them counterculture icons.

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Beastie Boys Video Anthology

Various
2000 • minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #100 Edition: DVD

The Beastie Boys are among the most influential groups of the last two decades. As their music has opened hip-hop to a wider audience and changed the parameters of its sound, their ambitious music videos have carried the medium to new levels of artistic expression.

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Before the Rain

Milcho Manchevski
1994 • 113 minutes • 1.78:1 • Macedonia
Spine: #436 Editions: DVD, Hulu Plus

Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain crosscuts the stories of an orthodox Christian monk, a British photo agent, and a native Macedonian war photographer to paint a portrait of simmering ethnic and religious hatred about to reach its boiling point.

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Bigger Than Life

Nicholas Ray
1956 • 95 minutes • 2.35:1 • United States
Spine: #507 Editions: DVD, Blu-ray

When a suburban teacher and father (James Mason) is prescribed cortisone for a painful, possibly fatal affliction, he grows dangerously addicted to the experimental drug. This Eisenhower-era throat-grabber, shot in expressive CinemaScope, is an excoriating take on the nuclear family.

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Billy Liar

John Schlesinger
1963 • 93 minutes • 2.35:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #121 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets

Tom Courtenay is Billy Fisher, the underachieving undertaker’s assistant whose constant daydreams and truth-deficient stories earn him the nickname “Billy Liar.” Deftly veering from gritty realism to flamboyant fantasy, Billy Liar is a dazzling and uproarious classic.

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Black Narcissus

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
1947 • 101 minutes • 1.33:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #93 Editions: DVD, Blu-ray, iTunes

This explosive work about the conflict between the spirit and the flesh is the epitome of the sensuous style of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

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Blast of Silence

Allen Baron
1961 • 77 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #428 Edition: DVD

Swift, brutal, and black-hearted, Allen Baron’s New York City noir Blast of Silence is a sensational surprise, a low-budget, carefully crafted portrait of a hit man on assignment in Manhattan during Christmastime.

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The Blob

Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
1958 • 82 minutes • 1.66:1 • United States
Spine: #91 Editions: DVD, Blu-ray, Hulu Plus

One of the great cult classics, The Blob melds ’50s schlock sci-fi and teen delinquency pics even as it transcends these genres with strong performances and ingenious special effects. The Blob helped launch the careers of superstud Steve McQueen and composer Burt Bacharach.

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Blood for Dracula

Paul Morrissey
1974 • 103 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #28 Edition: DVD

In Paul Morrissey’s brash mixture of humor, horror, and sex, Blood for Dracula, the infamous count searches Italy for virgin blood.

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Body and Soul

Oscar Micheaux
1925 • 79 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #371 Edition: Collector’s Sets

Body and Soul, directed by the legendary African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, is a direct critique of the power of the cloth, casting Paul Robeson in dual roles as a jackleg preacher and a well-meaning inventor.

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Bombay Talkie

James Ivory
1970 • 112 minutes • 1.78:1 • United States
Edition: DVD

Starring Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal, Bombay Talkie is Merchant Ivory’s affectionate, bemused view of Bollywood—India’s huge dream factory. Cameraman Subrata Mitra’s ravishing photography has never been surpassed in any other of James Ivory’s films.

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