Casablanca
Some movies never go out of style. Hardboiled Rick Blaine's veneer is pierced when Isla, the woman he loves and lost in Paris, shows up at his Rick's Place, his Casablanca night club, with her husband, a fugitive hero of the French Resistance. Claude Rains provides the comic relieve as the Police Chief who plays both sides and always comes out on top. Touching, inspiring and ultimately satisfying, Casablanca is a movie to see again and again. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Hans Conreid, Claude Rains. Director: Michael Curtiz. Released in 1942.  VIEW MOVIE!

Somewhere in Time
Love feels like it can transcend any barrier - even time - which may account for this film's cult following. Playwright Richard Collier, played by Christopher Reeve, travels back to the early 1900's where he meets and falls in love with actress Elise Collier, played by Jane Seymour. Spellbound by her, frustrated by the demands and manipulation of her controlling manager, confronting the daily surprises of life in an earlier time zone, he pursues her. Appealing and frankly romantic. With Christopher Plummer as Elise's difficult manager. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc. Released in 1980.  VIEW MOVIE!

Brokeback Mountain
In a simpler time, 1963, in an isolated place, Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain, two young men find they are lovers. Without a context for their love or any support in their society, still find they cannot lose their feelings for each other. Sheepherders Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) cannot forget or end the passionate affair. Despite their marriages and their wives, (Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams) they continue to see each other. Evocative and absorbing, the Oscar-winning drama was directed by Ang Lee, from story by Pulitzer Prize winner E. Annie Proulx. Release in 2005.     
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Four Weddings and a Funeral
Love, friendship, death and destiny weave though this sweet romantic comedy. It's not just about a couple, but a whole group of friends as they fall in love, become couples, and sometimes split up. The focus is Charles (Hugh Grant), with his appealing awkwardness and adorable puppy love who falls for Carrie (Andie MacDowell), just as she is about to marry. She has one last fling with him, increasing his infatuation and goes off to Scotland with Hamish. somehow it all works itself out just before Charles marries the wrong person. Directed by Mike Newell. Released in 1994.  VIEW MOVIE!

Sense and Sensibility
The limitations of one's station and resources were much more powerful in Jane Austen's time and they come to life under Ang Lee's direction in this exquisite realization of Sense and Sensibility. Elinor (Emma Thompson) and her romantic younger sister, Marianne (Kate Winslet), two sisters with limited resources, hope they will be rescued by love from the refined life of gentile spinsterhood in Austen's classic tale of 19th-century etiquette. Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman and Greg Wise play the love interests. Release in 1995.  VIEW MOVIE!

Roman Holiday
Visiting princess Audrey Hepburn decides to take a vacation from the sublime isolation of royalty and her ever-present handlers..Tabloid reporter Gregory Peck and his photographer Eddie Albert see the story of the year. But it turns into an unexpected romance for Peck and he has to decide whether his ulterior motives are worth playing out. . . Hepburn is the perfect combination of sweet innocence and innate dignity. Peck is the indulgent sophisticate whose cool is blown by her lovely presence. Hepburn earned an Oscar for her performance. Directed by William Wyler. Released in 1953.  VIEW MOVIE!

An Ideal Husband
Oscar Wilde's sparkling play comes to life with as four Victorians spar their way into their own separate corners until they can barely find their way out. Cate Blanchett's perfections, her husband Jeremy Northam's hidden past, Rupert Everett's idleness and Minnie Driver's silliness almost brings things to a standstill, until Julianne Moore as Lady Cheveley appears to blackmail, proposition, and manipulate things to life. And incomparable script and peerless performances make this a treat. Directed by Oliver Parker. Released in 1999.       
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Only You
Although Faith (Marisa Tomei) is engaged, she's really trying to find Damon Bradley. When she was a child a fortune teller told her he'd be the love of her life and she is convinced he is her destiny. Her search takes her (and us ) to Venice, where she finds Damon, played by Robert Downey, Jr. But is he the real thing? Delightful, silly, captivating. Framed by airport scenes in New York and Rome that dramatize how differently the two cultures see young lovers. With Bonnie Hunt, directed by Norman Jewison. Released in 1994.  VIEW MOVIE!

When Harry Met Sally
Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) are friends in Nora Ephron's 80's saga of single angst. Then they are friends with privileges. Then they are just friends again. It's complicated, poignant and familiar: haven't we all been through scenes like these? With the best restaurant scene on film (I'll definitely have what she's having.) With Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby. Directed by Rob Reiner. Released in 1989.  VIEW MOVIE!

Gone with the Wind
The first color film has held up, sweeping us into the romance, blood, guts, naivete and futility of the Civil Way, through the eyes of one headstrong, independent, dramatic and self-destructive woman, Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Rhett Butler, the cynic who cannot resist her. Considered the best film of all time, It won ten Academy Awards. With brilliant performances by Olivia De Haviland and Leslie Howard. From the novel by Margaret Mitchill. Directed by Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood. Released in 1939.      
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Garden State
Maybe you really can't go home again. After 10 years away, Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff, who also directed) goes home to New Jersey for his mother's funeral. It means seeing his psychiatrist father (Ian Holm) who insisted he be heavily medicated and confronting the past he has avoided. But he makes a new friend (Natalie Portman) gives up his meds, and begins to take on his own life. Directed by Zach Braff. Released in 2004.  VIEW MOVIE!

 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The impossibility of unintangling ourselves from the ones we love is dramatized by this original and impossible film that features experimental surgery to eliminate memories of the love you lost. Clementine (Kate Winslet) had a medical procedure to erase Joel and their love affair from her mind. When Joel (Jim Carrey) finds out, he does the same, but during the procedure rediscovers the wakening of their love and tries to retrieve them. A surrealistic exploration of love lost and memory's ability to haunt us. Won an Oscar for Best Original Screen Play. Directed by Michael Gondrey. Released in 2004.  VIEW MOVIE!