Fire with Fire (1986)
[7] This is the kind of '80s cheese that works for me. Virginia Madsen plays a girl trapped in Catholic school. Craig Sheffer plays a convict in a correctional camp pretty close to Madsen's school. The two meet in the…
Splash (1984)
[6] Splash is a sweet-enough fantasy rom-com from Ron Howard (his second feature). Tom Hanks stars as a man who falls in love with a mysterious woman who just happens to be a mermaid. Darryl Hannah plays the fish; John…
Behind the Candleabra (2013)
[7] Michael Douglas plays Liberace for director Steven Soderbergh in this fast-paced tragi-romantic-dark comedy about the famed pianist's five-year relationship with a man forty years his senior. Matt Damon plays young Scott Thorson, the naive pretty boy who falls under…
That Forsyte Woman (1949)
[6] Greer Garson stars in this Technicolor costume melodrama about a woman who marries for money instead of love, and later regrets it. I love Garson, and its especially great to see Errol Flynn playing against type as her repressive…
The Governess (1998)
[7] Minnie Driver plays a destitute Jewish woman who poses as a gentile to gain employment as nanny for a rich family in Scotland. While there she falls in love with the children's father and becomes the object of the…
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
[6] Charlton Heston headlines an ensemble cast in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth. We're talking, of course, about the Circus -- and the lives of the people who put it on. Heston plays the owner and manager…
The Danish Girl (2015)
[8] Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) directs this adaptation of David Ebershoff's novel, based loosely on the life of Lili Elbe, one of the first people ever to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) is outstanding…
Henry & June (1990)
[6] Philip Kaufman (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Right Stuff, Quills) directs this adaptation of Anais Nin's autobiography, about her sexual escapades with Henry Miller and his wife June in 1930s Paris. Movies that turn sex into some sort…
Cold Mountain (2003)
[7] Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Talented Mr. Ripley) adapts Charles Frazier's book about a Civil War deserter trying to get back to his lover. The film goes back and forth between the soldier's story and the sweetheart's story. My…
The Constant Gardener (2005)
[6] A British diplomat in Kenya tries to solve the mystery of his activist wife's murder, only to get in over his head with the culprits -- a pharmaceutical company that is intentionally poisoning and killing people. The first third…