Cache (2005)

Thriller Rated R

Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke’s quietly insidious film doesn’t just scare you; it messes with your head. Someone certainly is messing with the central couple (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche), who find a videotape on their doorstep that consists of nothing more than the image of their own home. As more tapes arrive, suspicion spreads. Cache

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Action/Adventure Rated G

Stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen’s special-effects work in the 1950s and ’60s has had a far greater influence than any of the films it was featured in, including this ponderous and hokey take on the ancient Greek myth. Harryhausen’s visuals arrive like blessings from the gods; they’re heavenly creatures in a drama that is laboriously earthbound.

Capote (2005)

Drama Rated R

An astonishingly assured work from first-time feature director Bennett Miller, Capote explores the cost that Truman Capote paid for writing his 1966 nonfiction book In Cold Blood, which chronicled the real-life drama surrounding the murders of a Kansas family. As Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman, who minced his way to a Best Actor Oscar) forms a

Jaws (1975)

Thriller Rated PG

“…terrifies in a way that’s nearly as ruthless as the killer shark it depicts.”

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Drama Rated PG-13

A lark for Steven Spielberg, this is based on the true story of Frank W. Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio), who spent most of the 1960s posing as an airline pilot, an attorney, a pediatrician and a college professor, all while he was between the ages of 16 and 21. It could have been a revealing portrait

Match Point (2005)

Thriller Rated R

One of the rare instances in which Woody Allen strays from the subject of neurotic New Yorkers and their failed romances – and evidence that variety becomes him. Match Point is set in contemporary London, where a former tennis professional (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) becomes involved with a ridiculously rich family. He marries the daughter (Emily

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Family Rated PG

A giggling, sugar-high Johnny Depp may not match Gene Wilder’s performance in the 1971 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s book – Depp projects lunacy, while Wilder embodied it – but he still turns candy maker Willy Wonka into both a faithful reading of Dahl’s creation and an offbeat invention of his own. The same goes

Mean Girls (2004)

Comedy Rated PG-13

Consider this to be 2004’s Heathers, the 1989 touchstone for all movies about high school cliques. It’s not a rip-off but a timely variation – so attuned to the nuances of the teenage world of its time, for girls in particular, that its emotional accuracy qualifies as brilliance. Lindsay Lohan stars as a homeschooled girl

Charlie’s Angels (2000)

Action/Adventure Rated PG-13

The critical lambasting Charlie’s Angels took is a classic case of reviewers not being able to appreciate mindless, harmless fun. Those who called it the worst movie adaptation of a television series must have been on vacation when The Mod Squad came out. This is a wild and witty celebration of all things sleek and

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Drama Rated NR

The sweeping romantic drama that 2001’s Pearl Harbor wanted to be, From Here to Eternity follows the tumultuous lives of three Army men stationed in Honolulu during the days leading up to Dec. 7, 1941. A coiled, volatile Montgomery Clift stars as Robert Prewitt, a young private who loves the Army but can’t quite adjust