Star Wars (1977)

Star Wars (1977)

[10] Writer/director George Lucas (American Graffiti) surprised the world with this unassuming and unheralded matinee-style fantasy adventure that, by all industry standards, would be dead on arrival at the box office. But then word-of-mouth catapulted Star Wars to the highest echelons of…
The Hunt for Red October (1990)

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 man before…
Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Conan the Barbarian (1982)

[7] Director John Milius (Big Wednesday, Red Dawn) brings Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian to the big screen with Austrian bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role. The film is an origin story, opening with young Conan witnessing the murder of…
Clear and Present Danger (1994)

Clear and Present Danger (1994)

[5] Harrison Ford returns as Jack Ryan in his second Tom Clancy adaptation, Clear and Present Danger. The story this time puts Ryan in the middle of a secret war between the U.S. government and a Colombian drug cartel. The plot is…
Soul Man (1986)

Soul Man (1986)

[5] C. Thomas Howell (The Hitcher) headlines this politically incorrect comedy about a teen who overdoses on tanning pills to appear black, so he can win a full scholarship to Harvard law school. While hiding his identity from a love interest (Rae…
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

[3] Linda Blair's still got demons, and Richard Burton's trying to figure out what happened to the nice priests who got pea soup all over them in the first movie. Exorcist II: The Heretic is convoluted and esoteric, the action is minimal,…
Field of Dreams (1989)

Field of Dreams (1989)

[9]

This delicate fantasy about regret and second chances casts a powerful spell that brings many grown men to tears before the credits roll.  To that effect, Field of Dreams is a beautiful indictment of the unspoken, unrequited nature of father-son relationships — the main ingredient in any male weepy. It helps that Kevin Costner is the lead.  He has an ‘everyman’ quality that allows everyone in the audience to identify with him.  And he’s surrounded by a stellar supporting cast that includes Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta, and Burt Lancaster.