Skyfall (2012)
[9] It's so refreshing to watch heroes and villains who are over the age of 40. Skyfall repeatedly suggests that sometimes older is better, and as a middle-aged film fan, I couldn't agree more. Daniel Craig's third turn as James…
Aliens (1986)
[10] Writer/director James Cameron accomplishes a rare feat with a sequel that doesn't shame the original and succeeds on its own merits. Aliens is so different in tone than the original Alien, I think of it as a sequel only…
The Right Stuff (1983)
[7] Writer/director Philip Kaufman chronicles the birth of the U.S. space program in The Right Stuff, beginning with the breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Based on Tom Wolfe's…
Hugo (2011)
[8] In 1931 Paris, an orphaned boy named Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lives in a train station and gets caught up in a mystery involving a broken automaton and a cranky old toy-maker (Ben Kingsley). With the help of an adventurous…
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
[7] Writer/director Steven Spielberg follows up his immensely successful Jaws with this tale of extra-terrestrials and government conspiracy. Richard Dreyfuss stars as a family man whose encounter with a UFO brings him into contact with a grieving mother (Melinda Dillon)…
U-571 (2000)
[8] Matthew McConaughey leads a U.S. submarine crew into hostile waters to board a stranded World War II German sub carrying an Enigma cipher machine, technology that the U.S. could use to decipher German communications. But once the Americans arrive…
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
[8] Alec Baldwin takes on the mantle of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan in the action-thriller The Hunt for Red October. One of the joys of this movie is seeing Baldwin, previously known mostly for co-starring in Beetlejuice, become a leading…
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
[8] Gary Oldman takes a stab at one the most enduring characters in film history with Bram Stoker's Dracula. In a script that follows the classic novel as well as historical findings about one 'Vlad the Impaler', Oldman's Dracula uses…
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
[8] Russell Crowe stars as a British naval captain pushing his ship's crew to the breaking point in pursuit of the Acheron, a stealthy French vessel he's been ordered to track and destroy. The plot of Master and Commander isn't…
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
[8] Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas star in this true story adaptation about two man-eating lions who killed dozens of railroad workers in Tsavo, Kenya, in the late 1800s. Kilmer plays a bridge engineer who enlists Douglas, a world-famous big…