All About Eve
In this story of fame, ambition, and betrayal, aspiring actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) manages to enter the inner circle of her idol, aging Broadway star Margo Channing (Bette Davis). Eve becomes Margo's understudy for a play directed by Margo's fiancé, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill). Eve has an aggressive agenda: She wants to be a star and is willing to do whatever it takes to reach the top, including attempts to seduce Bill and a married playwright (Hugh Marlowe), whose wife (Celeste Holm) had supported her earlier. A cynical theater critic (George Sanders) oversees it all and is amused by Eve's remarkable rise.

And Then There Were None
An Agatha Christie tale told four times on film, this is still the best. Ten guests on an isolated island are murdered one by one. The only clue is a children's nursery rhyme. A black comedy-mystery with terrific performances, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE is adapted beautifully by acclaimed French director Rene Clair.

Arlington Road
A history professor (Jeff Bridges) with a 9-year-old son is attempting to move forward with his life one year after his wife, an FBI special agent, died in a shootout with a family of right-wing survivalists. His area of academic expertise is urban terrorism, a specialty that leads him to develop unusual suspicions about the bland, white-bread suburbanites (Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack) who live next door. Is the specter of his recent past causing him to become unhinged — as his patient girlfriend (Hope Davis) suspects — or are his too-perfect neighbors up to something sinister?

Basic Instinct
While investigating a mysterious death, San Francisco cop Nick Curran (Douglas) finds himself in a deadly triangle with two beautiful but dangerous women.

The Big Sleep
Chandler's first novel introduced private detective Philip Marlowe, and THE BIG SLEEP set the standard for private detective movies. Down-at-the-heels private eye Marlowe gets the assignment to clean up after the daughters of a dying millionaire, but dead people have a nasty habit of trailing in their wake. The famously tortuous story line (Hawks supposedly asked Chandler to clarify a plot point about the murder of the family chauffeur; the novelist hadn't a clue as to who did the deed) seems beside the point when Bogart and Bacall are onscreen. The final release was recut to include more of their scenes together. A must! Remade in 1978.

The Birds
People in Bodega Bay, Calif., experience a frightening attack of murderous, vicious birds.

Blood Simple
Joel and Ethan Coen's 1984 black comedy neo-noir stars Frances McDormand as an adulterous wife, Dan Hedaya as her husband, and M. Emmet Walsh as a detective who is hired by the husband to gather evidence of the infidelity and kill the two lovers.

The Bourne Identity
A man (Matt Damon) fished out of the Mediterranean Sea awakens from a coma-like state, discovers he has been shot several times, and has microfilm implanted in his body. But he has no idea who he is. Soon he becomes the target of international terrorists, and the only person who may hold the answers to his true identity is a woman who knows his past (Franka Potente).

Cape Fear
This good vs. evil thriller casts Mitchum as sadistic ex-con Max Cady determined to wreak revenge on the family of Sam Bowden, the good small-town lawyer who put him in jail years earlier. Stripped of legal recourse, the civilized Bowden is slowly forced to lower himself to Cady's bestial level to protect his family. Based on "The Executioners" by John D. MacDonald.

Cape Fear
Ex-con Max Cady comes calling on Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), the public defender who was assigned to his case years before, because he buried a piece of evidence that could have freed Cady. He proceeds to stalk and terrorize Bowden and his family (Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis).

The China Syndrome
A modern nightmare nearly becomes reality in this timely, tension-filled story about an "incident" at a nuclear power plant. Jane Fonda stars as Kimberly Wells, an ambitious TV reporter covering a story on energy sources who is present at a nuclear plant when a startling accident occurs that nearly causes the meltdown of the reactor. A newsreel cameraman accompanying Wells, played by a determined Michael Douglas, captures the incident on film--but the television station won't air the footage. Though the plant's corporate heads are quick to deny the possibility of any real danger, Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon), the plant's veteran engineer, discovers faulty equipment at the plant. Attempting to tell others about his findings, Jack soon realizes that someone is trying to kill him to keep him quiet, leading him to an act of utter desperation. The film is a marvel to behold--at turns gripping, stirring, exhilarating, and maddening, with fabulous performances, especially by Lemmon, who is simply marvelous. In a bizarre bit of synchronicity, the film was produced just before the March 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

Chinatown
Private investigator Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to tail her husband, who mysteriously winds up dead, launching Gittes into a case that involves corrupt authorities, water diversion, and even shadier dealings.

The Day of the Jackal
In 1963, a highly trained assassin known only as the Jackal is hired by a group of Frenchmen who want President Charles de Gaulle killed. The hit man assumes three identities, one stolen from a person who died in 1931, to execute his murderous plan.

Dead Again
L.A. private dick Mike Church (Kenneth Branagh) runs into a woman who can't remember anything (Emma Thompson). He begins to have strange dreams (or are they flashbacks?) about a previous life, in which he was a composer who murdered his wife.

Dial M for Murder
A young playboy plots to have his rich wife killed so that he'll inherit her fortunes. When the killing goes wrong, however, he has to face a ruthless police interrogation by a savvy detective.

Double Indemnity
An insurance representative becomes involved with a woman's scheme to kill her husband and collect on his life-insurance policy.

Fatal Attraction
Successful businessman Dan (Michael Douglas) has a brief, one-night fling with a woman he meets at a cocktail party named Alex (Glenn Close). Little does he realize that she's not really what one would call "mentally stable" — she keeps hounding him, trying to continue their relationship and threatening him. Things keep getting crazier and crazier, and Alex goes to more and more extreme measures to keep Dan in her life, while Dan tries to hide his indiscretion from his wife (Anne Archer) and daughter.

The French Connection
Gene Hackman stars as a police detective tracking down a shipment of unusually pure heroin set to be sold in New York City.

The Game
A rich businessman (Michael Douglas) is given a gift by his wayward brother (Sean Penn): a gift certificate for the Game. After the businessman signs up for his game, not really knowing what it entails, odd things start going wrong and people begin trying to kill him. As stranger and stranger events happen, he tries to figure out who's behind the game and end it.

Gaslight
The first and in some ways superior version of Patrick Hamilton's stage play "Angel Street," this British production is set in London where a beautiful heiress is menaced into madness by her calculating, jewel-hungry husband.

In Cold Blood
Based on the book by Truman Capote, the story is a quasi-documentary about the 1959 murder of the Clutter family by killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith in Holcomb, Kan.

In the Heat of the Night
The year is 1966 and a white man in the fictional town of Sparta, Miss., has just been murdered and robbed. The small town's small-minded police chief (Rod Steiger) arrests a black suspect (Sidney Poitier) at the train station — the suspect has a wallet full of money and is headed out of town. The suspect soon reveals himself to be a homicide detective from Philadelphia, however, and the two men work together to solve the murder.

Journey Into Fear
Joseph Cotten is an American naval engineer returning to the US from Istanbul during the second world war. After an attempt is made on his life, the Turkish secret police remove him from the train he had been traveling on, and put him on a ship--leaving his wife to travel on her own. But suddenly he finds himself surrounded by the Germans. Rather than be killed, he agrees to become their prisoner. Now he must plot his escape.

L.A. Confidential
Based on James Ellroy's noir crime novel, the story is set in '50s Los Angeles, with the dark side of Hollywood and its inhabitants ever lurking in the background. Three police officers — one (Russell Crowe) aggressive and tough, the other (Guy Pearce) rigid and ambitious, and the third (Kevin Spacey) a flashy cop taking bribes from a tabloid publisher (Danny DeVito) — are assigned by their captain (James Cromwell) to investigate a massacre at an all-night coffee shop that's not as cut-and-dried as it appears. While chasing leads, Office White (Crowe) meets and falls for a prostitute (Kim Basinger) who works for a man (David Strathairn) who runs a call-girl service in which young women undergo plastic surgery to make them look like movie stars. These characters, as well as members of the police department, fall under suspicion.

The Maltese Falcon
The first movie version of Dashiell Hammet's "The Maltese Falcon."

The Manchurian Candidate
Former infantryman Bennet Marco (Frank Sinatra) is haunted by nightmares about his platoon having been captured and brainwashed in Korea. Gradually, he comes to believe that Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), who served with him in the war, has been brainwashed and plans to assassinate a presidential candidate.

Marathon Man
Marathon Man is the story of an doctoral student (Dustin Hoffman) who inadvertently gets caught up in a web of mistaken identities, double-crosses and Nazi war criminals (Laurence Olivier) after his brother is killed.

Memento
An insurance investigator (Guy Pearce) loses his short-term memory when he sustains a head injury during his wife's murder. He can now remember things only through notes, photographs, or writing them on his body. As he tries to track down his wife's killer despite his handicap, the movie's story moves backward in time to retrace his steps with him.

Murder on the Orient Express
Directed by Sidney Lumet, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS is the definitive adaptation of Agatha Christie's classic mystery, which finds fastidious detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) investigating the murder of an unsavory millionaire among the passengers of a luxury train. This stylish thriller crackles with witty dialogue, moody period-piece atmosphere, and superb performances from an all-star ensemble cast that includes Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Ingrid Bergman (who won an Academy Award for her role).

North by Northwest
Benign ad exec Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) gets mistaken for a man named George Kaplan, leading to his kidnapping and various attempts on his life. While fleeing from the cops, who are also after him for some reason, he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who helps him as he tries to figure out what's going on.

Notorious
NOTORIOUS is Alfred Hitchcock's classic romantic espionage thriller, with passionate, brilliant performances by Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, featuring one of the most famous screen kisses in film history. At the end of World War II, American military intelligence drafts the alluring daughter (Bergman) of a convicted Nazi to infiltrate a band of nefarious Germans who have fled to Brazil. She is teamed with a dashing but chilly agent (Cary Grant) with whom she falls deeply in love. Because of her past, however, the rigid and judgmental agent refuses to trust her--and their relationship falls completely apart when she agrees to marry the ringleader of the Germans (Claude Rains) in order to have better access to information. The marriage touches off an intricate downward spiral of deceit and betrayal, leaving Bergman trapped in the home of an enemy. If her husband ever discovers the truth about her mission, her life will be in mortal danger. Punchy dialog animates this action-driven thriller that maintains its suspenseful drama to the very end.

Psycho
The plot of this landmark thriller concerns Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a lonely, skittish proprietor of the Bates Motel and quite a mama's boy. Things get creepy, to say the least, once Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) appears, flush with cash and on the run after an impulsive theft. When she goes missing, the cops show up asking questions.

Rear Window
Photographer L.B. Jeffries, bedridden with a broken leg, spends his days peering into his neighbors' apartments with his binoculars. In particular, he keeps an eye on a traveling salesman, whose wife mysteriously disappears, leading Jeffries to suspect foul play.

Rebecca
A shy young woman (Joan Fontaine) marries a dashing widower (Laurence Olivier) after they fall in love while vacationing in the Riviera. But once the couple moves into the man's English estate, the new bride finds that the estate's servants don't take too kindly too her. In fact, they're openly hostile. The reason for this is only revealed when the second wife finds out what happened to the first.

Se7en
Two New York City homicide detectives, one (Morgan Freeman) about to retire, the other (Brad Pitt) new on the job, are pulled into the dark world of a serial murderer who kills those he believes ignore the seven deadly sins. The crimes escalate and even the younger cop's wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) is in danger of becoming a victim.

Shallow Grave
Three roommates pick a fourth to share their spacious apartment. When the trio finds the new guy dead from a drug overdose along with a suitcase full of money, they decide to keep the cash. But first, they must discreetly (and gruesomely) dispose of the body, which leads to suspicions of betrayal and, ultimately, paranoia.

The Silence of the Lambs
Jonathan Demme's frightening psychological thriller, based on Thomas Harris's bestseller, is about an FBI agent (Jodie Foster) who tries picking the brain of an intelligent psychopath/cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in hopes of solving a series of grisly murders. A critical and commercial success, Lambs is one of the most superbly-crafted, suspenseful films ever, and became just the third film in the history of the Oscars to sweep the top five major awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally).

Single White Female
Allison Jones (Bridget Fonda) seems to have found a perfect, tidy, considerate roommate in Hedra Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh). But what starts with a few borrowed clothes turns into a nightmare of assumed identity and psychosis.

The Spanish Prisoner
In The Spanish Prisoner, Joe Ross (Campbell Scott) has invented something he calls "the process," which he promises will make his company an absurd amount of money. His boss calls a meeting in the Caribbean to discuss it. While there, Joe meets a mysterious businessman (Steve Martin), who asks him for a favor. Later, Joe begins to think that both his boss and the businessman are involved in an elaborate con, but he's unsure who is conning whom.

Strangers on a Train
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, quickly became one of Alfred Hitchcock's most successful thrillers and remains one of his most popular films. En route from Washington, D.C., champion tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets pushy playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker). What begins as a chance encounter turns into a series of morbid confrontations, as Bruno manipulates his way into Guy's life. Bruno is eager to kill his father and knows Guy wants to marry a senator's daughter (Ruth Roman) but cannot get a divorce from his wife, Miriam (Laura Elliot). So Bruno suggests the men swap murders, which would leave no traceable clues or possible motives. Though Guy refuses, it will not be so easy to rid himself of the psychopathic Bruno. The film is tightly paced and disturbing from beginning to end, an effect heightened by Hitchcock's inventive camera work, including a terrifying sequence shot through a pair of eyeglasses that have been knocked to the ground.

Sunset Boulevard
Billy Wilder's film noir classic won an Academy Award for best screenplay in 1951 and was nominated for 10 other Oscars. William Holden plays Joe Gillis, a broke, down-on-his-luck screenwriter whose fortunes change when fate leads him to the Sunset Boulevard mansion of retired silent screen star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). When she learns Joe's a writer, she invites him to live with her and help rewrite her "comeback" script. Joe begins to feel trapped, and his friendship with a script reader who wants to collaborate makes him realize he's wasting his time. But Norma is borderline delusional in how she sees herself and her relationship with Joe, and her possessiveness leads to tragedy.

The Thin Man
THE THIN MAN is the first installment in one of the most successful detective serials in film history, based on the 1932 novel by Dashiell Hammett about stylish sleuthing spouses Nick (William Powell) and Nora Charles (Myrna Loy). Powell and Loy's quick-witted repartee set a Hollywood tradition in their crackling debut as they investigate the disappearance of a wealthy inventor. A blockbuster hit in 1934, THE THIN MAN's convoluted mystery plot moves at a rapid-fire pace that will delight modern viewers. Director W.S. Van Dyke's fast but loose methods helped stars Powell and Loy create great verisimilitude in their marital relationship in spite of the highly stylized script. Even the couple's pet dog, Asta, brings home a finely tuned performance, and the supporting roles are filled with a crew of comical characters. THE THIN MAN must not be missed by fans of the detective genre.

The Third Man
A pulp western writer (Joseph Cotten) travels to post–World War II Vienna to meet an old friend, but when he gets there, he discovers that his friend has been murdered.

To Catch a Thief
Cary Grant plays John Robie, a retired cat burglar living on the French Riviera who's a suspect in a string of recent jewel heists. As Robie searches for the real thief, he finds he's the object of affection from an American heiress (Grace Kelly) who's in Europe trying to find a husband. The gorgeous backdrop helped the film win an Academy Award for Best Color Cinematography.

Touch of Evil
Vargas (Charlton Heston), a Mexican narcotics officer, and his American bride (Janet Leigh) have their honeymoon interrupted when a car explodes at the U.S.-Mexico border. Quinlan (Orson Welles), a gruff and legendary local cop, takes over the investigation, which becomes more complex when Vargas is threatened by the family of a man he plans to testify against, his wife is kidnapped, and he discovers Quinlan is corrupt.

The Usual Suspects
Police investigating an exploded boat on a San Pedro, Calif., pier discover 27 bodies and $91 million worth of drug money. The only survivors are a severely burned and very scared Hungarian terrorist and a crippled con man, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey, in an Oscar-winning role). Kint is pressured into explaining exactly what happened on the boat. His story begins six weeks earlier with five criminals being dragged in for a lineup by New York police looking for suspects in a truck hijacking.

The Vanishing
In this remake of the Dutch original, Kiefer Sutherland plays a man searching for his girlfriend (Sandra Bullock), who disappeared from a gas station after they had a fight three years ago. He eventually comes to suspect that a man named Barney (Jeff Bridges) has kidnapped her.

Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock's psychological suspense thriller is about Scottie Ferguson, an acrophobic detective (Jimmy Stewart) hired by an old friend (Tom Helmore) to tail his wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), whose erratic behavior has her husband concerned. After following her daily, Scottie begins to fall for this mysterious woman, and eventually the two meet. They become lovers, but her subsequent death sends him into a tailspin … until he meets Judy (also Novak), a dead ringer for Madeleine.

Wait Until Dark
A blind woman (Audrey Hepburn) is confronted by a strange man (Alan Arkin) in her apartment. He claims to be seeking a doll stuffed with heroin.

Witness
Australian Peter Weir's first Hollywood film tells the story of John Book (Harrison Ford), a Philadelphia cop whose life is altered while trying to help Rachel (Kelly McGillis), an Amish woman, and her son Samuel (Lukas Haas), who witnesses a murder in a Philadelphia train station bathroom. After discovering that the murder was committed by a member of his force, Book travels to Lancaster County with Rachel and Samuel and poses as a member of the Amish community to hide from his murderous police peers. While there, love blooms between Rachel and Book, and he finds himself drawn in by the honesty and simplicity of the old-world Amish lifestyle. Fine performances and beautiful cinematography are prevalent throughout.