An early Alfred Hitchcock effort, when he was still making films in England, The Lady Vanishes begins as an ensemble farce before it settles into the familiar motions of mystery and suspense. The movie opens in a small European hotel, where a band of international travelers vie for limited rooms and meals before leaving on

This lyrical import from director Peter Weir may be a thriller, but it essentially runs on anti-suspense. Set in 1900 in Weir’s native Australia, the film follows a field trip taken by boarding-school girls to the title locale, an isolated, desolate outcropping where the rock formations look like melting faces. When three of the students

Clint Eastwood’s prolific, uneven directorial career unsurprisingly began with a stinker. The story of a disc jockey named Dave Garver (Eastwood) who has a one-night stand with an obsessive listener, Play Misty For Me is a schlocky, laughable precursor to Fatal Attraction. Appreciate the film, then, for its unintentional laughs, which go beyond the dated