Natalie Wood

[8] Tension between rival New York City gangs the Jets and the Sharks is wound to a tragic snapping point after one young Jet falls head over heels for the sister of the Sharks’ leader. West Side Story is based on the landmark stage musical featuring music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and exciting dance choreography by Jerome Robbins, who co-directs this film …

[6] Robert Redford and Natalie Wood headline this Tennessee Williams tale adapted by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by Sydney Pollack. Redford plays a railroad representative who comes to a small Mississippi town during the Great Depression to lay off several of the company’s workers. Despite being the bearer of bad news, Redford develops feelings for the local innkeeper’s daughter (Wood), whose mother is essentially …

[6] Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Louise Fletcher, and Cliff Robertson star as scientists who discover how to record and transmit memories and sensory experiences from one person to another, a direct transference from brain to brain. When their technology is given over to the military, they work to sabotage their creation before it can be put to deadly use. Brainstorm is directed by visual effects …

[7] John Ford reteams with frequent leading man John Wayne in what is often considered one of the best Hollywood westerns ever made. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a loner returning home from the Civil War. After his brother’s family is murdered by Camanches, Ethan begins a five-year search for his kidnapped niece (Natalie Wood). Wayne plays more than a charicature of himself for once, bringing …

[4] A man named Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) steps in to replace a drunken Santa in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and does such a good job that Macy’s then hires him to play Santa in their stores during the holiday season. But when they find out he claims to be the actual one-and-only St. Nick, they try to have him institutionalized. Miracle on 34th Street resolves in …

[7] Warren Beatty made his screen debut alongside Natalie Wood in this Elia Kazan film about sexual repression in 1920s middle-America. Beatty and Wood play Bud and Deanie, high school lovers who plan to get married and consummate their growing sexual urges. But their parents and their own conflicted emotions end up tearing them apart, with Bud wandering aimlessly and Deanie landing in psychiatric care. …

[6] Bette Davis stars as a washed-up Hollywood actress desperate to revive her career. You might think the film would be a bit autobiographical, but the screenwriters actually patterned it after Joan Crawford. (And Davis no doubt found some amount of joy in portraying her adversary.) When Davis’ character hits rock bottom, getting jailed after drunk-driving with her Oscar statue, Sterling Hayden pops up playing …

[10] James Dean stars as Jim Stark, an angst-ridden teenager who quarrels with his parents almost as much as he tangles with high school bullies. I normally hate tough guy movies, and I’d normally put teenagers with puffed-out chests in the same group as mobsters — but Rebel Without a Cause doesn’t glorify bravado. The Oscar-nominated screenplay is more concerned about the vulnerable, real person …

[9] A young, lonely widow gains her independence by moving into a seaside cottage where she begins a supernatural relationship with the ghost of a crusty sea captain. As the two begin to fall in love, a flesh-and-blood suitor rivals for her affection. Time goes by and the woman begins to wonder if the old ghost was just a figment of her imagination. As far …