Here are the names of some movies we think are worth renting.

• About a Boy (light, romantic comedy; based on a Nick Hornby novel) **
• About Schmidt (funny family soap opera about retired guy; acting is real good, script is average) **
• Audition (NFE; weirdness and torture; in Japanese w/subtitles) **
• Autofocus (the life and death of Bob Crane; bleak yet intense) **
• Bloody Sunday (true story of the killing of Irish protesters by British troops; raw and remarkable) ****
• Blue Crush (very cool girl surfer movie) ***
• Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore takes on guns in the USA) ***
• Business of Strangers ***
• Changing Lanes **
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (fictitious story about the secret life of Gong Show host Chuck Barris) ****
• Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (independent film from Sundance and Jodie Foster) **
• Death to Smoochie (some great black humor in this one; it was panned by the critics, but it's not as bad as they said, although the ending is weak) *
• Dogtown and the Z Boys (documentary about the birth of modern skateboarding in CA during the early 70s) ***
• Elling (2 emotionally disturbed middle-aged men get an apartment in Oslo and struggle to cope; charming and funny) ***
• Emperor's New Clothes (fictional story about Napoleon's last years) ***1/2
• Far From Heaven (great story of a family falling apart because of the husband's repressed homosexuality) ****
• Gangs of New York (long and bloody but worth a rental) *
• Good Girl (Jennifer Aniston does a nice job in a major dramatic role) ***
• Igby Goes Down (One of the Culkin boys does a great job as a teen from a wealthy NYC background in crisis) ***
• Iris (depressing but great acting from Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, and Kate Winslet) **
• Italian for Beginners (a group of strangers meet through an Italian class and get involved; Danish w/subtitles; charming, low-key, and funny) ***
• Kissing Jessica Stein (light, charming romantic comedy; grew out of a play written by the women who play the lead roles) ***
• Lantana (several couples struggle to maintain their marriages; made in New Zealand) **
• Last Orders (a group of English buddies grow old and one of them dis) **
• LIE (about troubled kids growing up in Long Island) **
• Lovely and Amazing (thre sisters and a mother in crisis; Katherine Keener is great) ***
• Minority Report ***
• Monsoon Wedding (complicated, large wedding in India; many characters and subplots) ****
• Monster's Ball (Halle Berre won an Oscar but the movie is slight) *
• Mostly Martha (uptight German chef finds redemption in an dancing Italian chef and an orphan; not as bad as it sounds) **
• Nine Queens (South American movie about cons conning each other) **
• No Such Thing (another strange but enjoyable movie from Hal Hartley) **
• Notorious C.H.O. (Margaret Cho in another stand-up concert film; as good as the first) **
• Pianist ***1/2
• Personal Velocity (3 separate stories about young women in crisis; based on short stories) ***
• Punch Drunk Love (Adam Sandler as a geek does an amazingly great job) **
• Ratcatcher (intense, gritty independent film set in a poor Glasgow neighborhood during a trash strike) ***
• Road to Perdition ***
• Salton Sea (stylish, tattoo-happy murder thriller; a little too confusing for its own good; Vincent D'Onofrio is amazing) **
• Secretary ***
• Signs *
• Sunshine State (John Sayles movie set on the Florida coast based on a development battle) ***
• Standing in the Shadow of Motown (about the backing band for all the Motown hits; they were ripped off, of course) ***
• Tadpole ***
• 13 Conversations About One Thing (depressing but well done; a group of loosely connected stories set in NYC) **
• Twenty-Four Hour Party People (the story of an influential independent British record label in the 80s) ***
• Y Tu Mama Tambien (Mexican road movie with horny young men and sexy, depressed older woman) ***
• Z (released in the 60s and recently re-released on DVD; great political thriller, a true story) ***

• Aimee & Jaguar (Jewish lesbians in Berlin as the city burns at end of WWII; based on a true story) ***
• All About My Mother (Spanish; accidents, motherhood, transvestite hookers, pregnant nuns, & Streetcar) ***
• Almost Famous (teen journalist travles with rock band in the late 60s.) ***
• American Psycho (raphic violence; a serial killer with a sick sense of humor on Wall Street) **
• Animal Factory (Willem Dafoe and Edward Furlong in a prison movie by Steve Buscemi) **
• Ballad of Ramblin' Jack (doc about Ramblin' Jack Elliot by his daughter) ***
• Bamboozled (Spike Lee satire) **
• Before Night Falls (true story of a homosexual Cuban poet persecuted by the Castro regime) ***
• Best in Show (another mockumentry from a guy from Spinal Tap. Hysterical and painful.) ***
• Billy Elliot (feel good movie about poor Scottish kid who wants to dance ballet) **
• Boiler Room (the world of young financial con artists) *
• But I'm a Cheerleader (spoof of anti-gay groups who say they can cure homosexuality) **
• Caberet Balkan (violent and intense set of connected short pieces) ***
• Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (Two Vietnamese exiles, who were adopted and brought up by African-American parents, deal with a visit from their real mother and the tribulations of love.) *
• Chicken Run (chickens escape Stalag in claymation; some very funny gizmos) **
• Chuck and Buck (odd story about two grown up friends, one of which tries to forget their homosexual past; intense w/subtle humor) ***
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Asian kung fu fighters fly thru the air) ****
• Croupier (English casino operator gets involved in a hiest) ***
• Cup, The (boys at a monastery in the Himalayas try to watch World Cup soccer games; better than it sounds) **
• Dancer in the Dark (Byork plays a Czech immigrant in the deep south during the early 60s. Very bleak but moving. Several musical numbers.) ***
• East is East (Pakastanis in London. Generational clashes.) **
• Erin Brockovich **
• Felicia's Journey (often creepy psychological thriller) **
• Filth and the Fury (finally a good documentary about the Sex Pistols) ***
• Five Senses (small Canadian film about five individuals struggling to connect) **
• Galaxy Quest (very good, very funny Star Trek) **
• George Washington (odd movie set in a decaying southern town) ****
• Girlfight (good boxing movie.) **
• Girl on the Bridge (suicidal knife-throwing act; wimpy ending; French with subtitles) **
• High Fidelity ***
• House of Mirth (intense Victorian mind games) **
• Jesus' Son (strung out and down and out; based on Dennis Johnson short stories) ***
• Joe Gould's Secret (based on two New Yorker articles. Set inthe 40s.) **
• Last Night (follows several characters during the last night of life as we know it) ***
• Life and Time of Hank Greenberg (nice documentary about the first Jewish baseball star) **
• Magnolia (ambitious ensemble piece about the difficulties of emotional connections; set in LA; good frogs) ****
• Me Myself I (Australian film about a woman who gets to experience the life she passed up) **
• My Dog Skip (a boy and his dog in a small town during WWII) **
• O Brother Where Art Thou (Cohen brothers take on the Odyssey in 30s south) ***
• One Day in September (Academy Award winning docu about the murder of Isreali Olympic team in Munich in 1972 and how the Germans completely screwed up the situation; with comments from one of the terrorists) ***
• Pollock (the decline and fall of abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock) **
• Requiem for a Dream (heorin and diet pills lead to dreadful ends; starts out bleak and gets worse; very disturbing but brilliant; NFE) ***
• Saving Grace (another touching, amusing movie set in a small, quirky, and quaint Irish village) **
• Shadow of a Vampire (about the shooting of a famous vampire movie; Willem Dafoe is inspired) ***
• Shanghai Noon (Jackie Chan in the wild west. Very funny.) **
• Small Time Crooks (Woody Allen as a theif in the midst of a marital crisis; below average for him) *
• Songcatcher (musicologist goes to Appalachian area for research; Janet McTeer is very good) **
• State and Main (great, funny ensemble pic about the making of a movie in a small New England village) ***
• Straight Story (elderly guy drives riding mower across Iowa to see ailing brother; very touching) ***
• Sweet and Lowdown (neat Woody Allen about a talented yet self-destructive jazz guitarist. Set in the 20s with Sean Penn.) **
• Talented Mr. Ripley ****
• Third Miracle (a priest full of self doubt investigates a miracle) *
• Titan A.E. (Star Wars-esque animation; great effects) **
• Tao of Steve (fat slacker womanizer with philosophical bent) ***
• Topsy Turvy (the world of Gilbert & Sullivan) ****
• Traffic (drug story with numerous settings & Benicio Del Toro) ****
• Virgin Suicides ***
• Wonder Boys (Michael Douglas is great in this movie.) ****
• Wonderland (dysfunctional family in England; gritty) ***
• You Can Count on Me (Great family drama about two sibling orphans coping differently with adulthood.) ****

• Affliction (starring Nick Nolte, cold, depressing) **
• Antz (Nice animation with Woody Allen) **
• Apostle *
• Buffalo 66 (relentless and raw; NFE) ****
• Bug's Life, A **
• Butcher Boy ****
• Central Station (Brazilian, w/subtitles) ****
• Elizabeth ****
• Enemy of the State *
• Gods and Monsters **
• Happiness (desperation and pedophilia in middle America; very dark and funny) ****
• Henry Fool ***
• High Art (Ally Sheedy as a lesbian junkie photographer in seedy NYC, NFE) **
• Hilary and Jackie ****
• Hurly Burly (based on a play; relentlessly grim; confronts meaninglessness with no answers; NFE) *
• Imposters, The ****
• I Went Down (thick Irish accents, buddy crime story) **
• Last Days of Disco (for fans of Whit Stilman, NFE) ***
• Life is Beautiful (Italian w/subtitles) ***
• Live Flesh *
• Lolita (very faithful adaptation of the Nabakov novel) **
• Next Stop, Wonderland (a depressed 30-something woman's romantic miscues until she finds love) ***
• Opposite of Sex ***
• Out of Sight **
• Pecker (John Waters) **
• Pi (NFE) (b&w independent film about math theorist; NFE) *
• Pleasantville **
• Primary Colors **
• Ripe **
• Rushmore ***

• Shakespeare in Love ****
• Simple Plan ***
• Sliding Doors (light romance) ***
• Slums of Beverly Hills **
• Smoke Signals **
• Spanish Prisoner ***
• There’s Something About Mary (very funny, adolescent, gross humor) **
• Thin Red Line (long, slow, poetic, philosophical war movie) **
• Waking Ned Devine (charming; set in a small Irish town) ***
• Whatever (travails of troubled and bored New Jersey teenage girls) **
• Why Do Fools Fall In Love (boi of a doomed late 50s doowop singing star) *
• Wilde (British bio of Oscar Wilde) **
• Wild Things (real trashy thriller) *Your Friends and Neighbors (emotionally brutal but powerful movie about betrayal, power, and obsession in romance) ***

• Accidental Tourist *
• Accused **
• Apartment Zero **
• Beetle Juice **
• Bird (biopic of jazz great Charlie Parker) *
• Cimena Paradiso (Italian w/subtitles) ***
• Clean and Sober *
• Dangerous Liasons **
• Eight Men Out ***
• High Hopes ***
• Milagro Beanfield War ***
• Mississippi Burning **
• Rain Man ***
• Tequila Sunrise **
• Unbearable Lightness of Being (3 hrs.) ***
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit **

1984

• Blood Simple ****
• Body Double (Brian DePalma; Hitchcockesque) **
• Choose Me **
• Passage to India ***
• Pope of Greenwich Village *
• This is Spinal Tap (rock mockumentary) ****
• Under the Volcano **

• Blade Runner ****
• Diner **
• Eating Raoul (humorous cannibalism) **
• Sophie’s Choice ***
• Verdict, The ***

• Night Moves (Gene Hackman as an LA slueth, 75) ***
• Parallax View (Warren Beatty as a journalist who discovers a conspiracy, 74) ***
• Harold and Maude (1971) ****

• Ali **
• Amelie (Plucky, cute, shy Parisian finds love) ***
• Anniversary Party (LA film types meet for a party; drama ensues) **
• Bridget Jones Diary (light, amusing romance) **
• Deep End ***
• Dish, The (The 1969 moonwalk from the twon and dish that transmitted the video feed to the world) ***
• Focus (anti-Semitism in Brooklyn during WWII) **
• Ghost World ****
• Gift (psychic gets involved with a murder; some creepy scenes) **
• Gosford Park ***
• Hedwig and the Anrgy Inch (transexual rock band-NFE) ***
• In the Bedroom ****
• Iron Monkey (great flying Kung Fu flick; filmed in 93) ****
• Man Who Wasn't There, The ***
• Memento ***
• Me, You, Them (Brazilian story about a poor woman in an isolated area who takes on several husbands) ***
• Mulholland Drive (David Lynch's most recent; strange and confusing but the story is there if you watch closely; NFE) **
• No Man's Land (war satire set during Bosnian war) ***
• Ocean's 11 **
• Planet of the Apes (amusing sci-fi silliness) *
• Pledge (grim murder mystery; Jack Nicholson slowly goes mad) **
• Royal Tenenbaums ****
• Secret Ballot (slow paced Iranian film; I liked it) ***
• Series 7: The Contenders (low-budget, black humor take on reality tv. In this show, the characters must kill each other. Great satire.) ***
• Sexy Beast ***
• Sidewalks of New York (Edward Burns directs and stars in stroies about New Yorkers' dating problems--better than it sounds) **
• Snatch **
• Startup.com (Documentary of entrepreneurs during the Internet craze) ***
• Tailor of Pamana (somewhat entertaining) *
• Time Out (understated French film about a quiet nervous breakdown) ***1/2
• Under the Sand (Woman loses husband and goes through breakdown. French with subtitles) ***
• With a Friend Like Harry ***
• Widow of Saint Pierre ****
• Zoolander (outrageously ridiculous) **

• 42 Up (6th documentary in the series following the lives of a group of British children into adulthood) ****
• American Beauty ****
• American Movie (documentary about Wisconsinite who makes movies against all odds) ***
• American Pie (funny teen flick about teenage boys longing for sex on prom night) **
• Babe, Pig in the City **
• Being John Malkovich ****
• Besieged (set in Rome; almost no dialogue) **
• Black Mask (violent and ridiculous Hong Kong action with Jet Li) *
• Bowfinger (underrated, very funny Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy comedy.) ***
• Boys Don't Cry (one of the year's best, but very violent) ****
• Cookies Fortune (hijinks and family betrayal in a quirky southern town; Altman) **
• Dick (hysterical and underrated Watergate comedy.) ***
• Dreamlife of Angels (Two young, troubled women try to get by; raw and blunt; w/French subtitles) **
• Election (Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon--quirk and funny) ***
• Fight Club (Wild, ridiculous, smart, and fun. Lots of outrageous clothing.) ***
• The General (bio of an Irish mob leader) ***
• Go (20-something drug suspense set in LA; Tarantino-esque) ***
• Green Mile (touching but ridiculous; about 3 hours) **
• Hurricane (bio of boxer Rubin 'Hurricane Carter, wrongly jailed for murder; Denzel) **
• Ideal Husband (witty English comedy based on a play by Oscar Wilde) **
• Insider (Al Pacino, tobacco industry whistleblower scandal) ***
• Iron Giant (very good animation about a gentle visitor from space) ***
• Liberty Heights (Latest Baltimore, 50s-era, family drama and comedy from Barry Levinson) **
• Limbo (John Sayles' latest smart drama. Set in Alaska.) **
• The Limey (kool hardboiled pic about an ex-con Brit who comes to LA to look into his daughter's death.) ***
• Little Voice ***
• Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (wacky British crime caper) **
• Matrix (great special effects; Keanu isn't too annoying) **
• Mifune (Danish w/sutitles) **
• Mumford (a fake psychologist in a small town; quirky) *
• Notting Hill *
• Office Space (very funny office life comedy; story is not great but the bits and characters are) ***
• Outside Providence (coming of age story for a kid from a rough neighborhood) *
• Red Violin **
• Run Lola Run (multiple tellings of a 20-minute crisis in a young German woman's life) **
• Sixth Sense ("I see people, dead people.") ***
• South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (lots of great cursing by kids and satire) ***1/2
• Three Kings (set during the Gulf conflict) **
• Trekkies (hilarious documentary about the people who attend Star Trek conventions) **
• Tumbleweeds **
• Twin Falls Idaho (very odd independent film about Siamese twins) ***
• Winslow Boy (David Mamet scripted and directed; early 20th century family legal battle) ***

• Afterglow **
• Big Night ****
• Boogie Nights ****
• Carrington ***
• Character (Dutch; set in the 1920s; won Academy Award) ***
• Children of the Revolution *
• Daytrippers **
• Deconstructing Harry ***
• Face Off ***
• 5th Element (amusing, fast-paced sci-fi that doesn't take itself seriously) **
• Full Monty ***
• Good Will Hunting **
• House of Yes ***
• Ice Storm (cold, suburban, grim) ***
• Insomnia (intense murder mystery set in Norway) ***
• In the Company of Men (ruthless, misogynistic) ***
• Jackie Brown **
• Koyla (Czech w/subtitles) ***
• LA Confidential ***
• Love & Death on Long Island (John Hurt, Jason Priestley (odd drama about the mid-life crisis of a stuffy british writer; w/gay overtones) ***
• Love Serenade ***
• Men with Guns ***
• Mrs. Bown ****
• My Life in Pink (French, subtitles) ***
• Myth of Fingerprints ***
• People vs. Larry Flynt ***
• Ponette (French w/subtitles) ****
• Rainmaker *
• Ripe ***
• Sweet Hereafter ****
• Ulee’s Gold ****
• Wag the Dog ***
• Wings of the Dove ***

• Crush (Australian) **
• Crying Game ***
• Glengarry Glen Ross ***
• Honeymoon in Vegas *
• Howard’s End **
• Husbands and Wives (Woody Allen) ***
• In the Soup **
• Like Water for Chocolate (Spanish w/subtitles) ***
• Man Bites Dog (Belgian satirical documentary about a fictional serial killer; graphic violence; look for original NC-17 version) **
• Mac **
• Mississippi Masala ***
• Passion Fish **
• Player, The ****
• Resevoir Dogs (very violent) ****
• River Runs Through It *
• Romper Stomper (gang of Australian skinheads; violent) **

• Au Revoir, Les Enfants (French, subtitles) ***
• Angel Heart *
• Barfly **
• Babette’s Feast (Danish w/subtitles) ****
• Broadcast News ***
• Dead, The (John Huston directs a James Joyce story) ***
• Empire of the Sun **
• Evil Dead II (humorous horror, lots of gore) **
• High Tide (Australian; Judy Davis) **
• House of Games **
• Ironweed **
• Matewan ****
• Moonstruck ***
• No Way Out *
• Prick Up Your Ears ***
• Raising Arizona ****
• Sammy and Rosie Get Laid ***
• Stand and Deliver **
• Tin Men **
• Wall Street *

1986

1985

• Brazil ****
• Death of a Salesman (Dustin Hoffman) ***
• Falcon and the Snowman (Sean Penn) ***
• Kiss of the Spider Woman ***
• My Life as a Dog ***
• Pee Wee’s Big Adventure **
• Prizzi’s Honor ***
• Re-Animator (humorous, sci-fi, horror) **
• Witness **

1983

• Big Chill **
• El Norte ***
• Evil Dead (humorous horror, lots of gore) **
• Fanny and Alexander (Swedish w/subtitles; 3 hrs.) ****
• 4th Man (Dutch) **
• King of Comedy, The ****
• Local Hero ****
• Silkwood ***
• Tender Mercies ***
• Year of Living Dangerously ***

• Absence of Malice (Paul Newman, Sally Field) **
• Body Heat ***
• Das Boat (German w/subtitles; American release, “The Boat,” is dubbed with English)
• Gallipoli ***
• Taps **

• Deer Hunter ****
• Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (funny and sexy, w/subtitles) ***
• Pretty Baby ***
• Wedding, A **