Arguably the best film by Joel and Ethan Coen, the 1990 Miller's Crossing stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom, a loyal lieutenant of a crime boss named Leo (Albert Finney) who is in a Prohibition-era turf war with his major rival, Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito). A man of principle, Tom nevertheless is romantically involved with Leo's lover (Marcia Gay Harden), whose screwy brother (John Turturro) escapes a hit ordered by Caspar only to become Tom's problem. Making matters worse, Tom has outstanding gambling debts he can't pay, which keeps him in regular touch with a punishing enforcer. With all the energy the Coens put into their films, and all their focused appreciation of genre conventions and rules, and all their efforts to turn their movies into ironic appreciations of archetypes in American fiction, they never got their formula so right as with Miller's Crossing. With its Hammett-like dialogue and Byzantine plot and moral chaos mitigated by one hero's personal code, the film so transcends its self-scrutiny as a retro-crime thriller that it is a deserved classic in its own right. -Tom Keogh.

This 1988 animated feature from Don Bluth (An American Tail) focuses on an orphaned young dinosaur, Littlefoot, who has to make his way to the paradise of the Great Valley in order to survive a plague. Along the way, he meets up with some other dinos from different species, and they all bond and travel together. On the way, they have plenty of adventures. Even with elements of suspense, this is a pretty relaxed movie that isn't in a particular hurry to roll out its story. Kids will like the originality of the concept, and the themes of friendship and cooperation are well woven into the fabric of the entertainment, plus the music is great. Bluth's artwork looks good, though-as always-he never seems to quite catch up with the quality of the Disney machine. -Tom Keogh.

Men of War stars tall, craggy Dolph Lundgren as a down-and-out commando who agrees to do another job because there's nothing else he knows how to do. He assembles a crack team and travels to an isolated Pacific island with orders to secure it for a mysterious business venture. But once there, he discovers an idyllic paradise with peaceful natives who welcome the mercenaries into their village. When Dolph learns what the venture is really about, he decides he's on the wrong side and, with part of his team, fights to defend the island from destruction. The first third of Men of War is drenched in sweaty machismo-the camera constantly lingers over rippling muscles and bruised skin during an endless bar fight. But once on the island, the mercenaries frolic sweetly with native children and the scenery is astoundingly beautiful (and beautifully filmed). A native who speaks English delivers some heavy-handed pacifist speeches. Then, as another team of more ruthless mercenaries arrive, the movie again turns into an ecstasy of gunshots and explosions-only, because of the genuinely charming middle third, there are actually some emotional stakes to the violence. Furthermore, the natives turn out to be not quite as peaceful as they presented themselves, adding some surprising layers to the movie's moral tone (likely due to the hand of co-screenwriter John Sayles, the man responsible for Brother from Another Planet and Lone Star). All in all, better looking and better written than any movie starring Dolph Lundgren has any right to be. [+]

This compelling 1992 drama is often cited as the third film in writer-director Paul Schrader's trilogy of "nocturnal alienation" that includes Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (which Schrader wrote) and American Gigolo. Like those other films, this one deals with a solitary man who works almost exclusively at night, and the film immerses us in the rhythms and psychology of his lifestyle. In this case, Willem Dafoe plays a cocaine addict who has kicked the habit that almost killed him, but still delivers drugs to clients for a dealer (Susan Sarandon) who dreams of opening a legitimate cosmetics business. He meets an old lover (Dana Delany) who fears he will draw her into their old life of drug abuse, but that proves to be the least of their worries. Simultaneously sad, funny, and fascinating, the film inevitably leads to the outburst of violence that has become a kind of signature in Schrader's work. It lacks the visceral impact of Taxi Driver, but few directors can match Schrader's gift for creating fully realized characters on the fringes of a society to which they don't quite belong. Insomnia, in Schrader's world, is a condition suffered by those whose dreams remain elusive, just beyond their grasp. -Jeff Shannon.

Scorned by reviewers when it came out, this concentrated dose of commando death-dealing to legions of Nazi machine-gun fodder has acquired a cult over the years. In 1968 Clint Eastwood was just getting used to the notion that he might be a world-class movie star; Richard Burton, whose image had been shaped equally by classical theater training and his headline-making romance with Elizabeth Taylor, was eager to try on the action ethos Eastwood was already nudging toward caricature. Alistair MacLean's novel The Guns of Navarone had inspired the film that started the '60s vogue for World War II military capers, so he was prevailed on to write the screenplay (his first). The central location, an impregnable Alpine stronghold locked in ice and snow, is surpassing cool, but the plot and action are ultra-mechanical, and the switcheroo gamesmanship of just who is the undercover double (triple?) agent on the mission becomes aggressively silly. -Richard T. Jameson.

This pair of Joe Solomon-produced biker dramas are two of the better examples of the '60s subgenre. Jack Nicholson stars in Hell's Angels on Wheels as a moody cycle-riding gas station attendant adopted by Adam Roarke's gang when he jumps into a friendly bar fight. It's a fairly blatant rip-off of Roger Corman's The Wild Angels, but director Richard Rush (who next teamed up with Nicholson for the counterculture classic Psych-Out) offers up a lifestyle that's less nihilistic than simply meaningless and winds the unlikely friendship between restless Nicholson and rootless Roarke into an inevitable clash over basic philosophical differences (namely, Jack wants Adam's girl, and Adam wants Jack to kowtow to his leadership). William Smith is an unusual hero in Run Angel Run: he's a sellout on the run from vengeful biker clubs up and down the coast. Director Jack Starrett, a former actor in biker movies himself (Hell's Angels on Wheels, among others), creates a taut little picture highlighted by impressive stunts (Smith jumps onto the flat car of a moving train). Smith's brooding, taciturn performance mellows when he takes a job on a rural sheep farm and connects with a career farmer who used to be a barnstorming biker in the 1950s. "I gotta be free man, I gotta fly," confesses Angel, but at what price? Both pictures were cheaply made for quick playoff, but there's an interesting attempt to explore the tension between the thrill of the road and the hollow activity passing for freedom. The set comes in a cool-looking 8 by 12 tin storage container, but the tapes do not have separate video sleeves. -Sean Axmaker.

Has it really been decades since the first James Bond film? Over the course of 19 films and 5 Bonds, the beloved film spy has evolved to keep up with the times, but James Bond is at heart still the same suave, urbane tough guy that Sean Connery established in 1962's Dr. No. The James Bond Story traces the development of the character, interviewing Bond leading ladies Maud Adams and Jane Seymour and Bond actors Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan and exploring the ups and downs of the filmic franchise over the years. Also, director Terence Young, producer Cubby Broccoli, and, of course, Ian Fleming follow the progression of the Bond character from its first onscreen realization through the 2000-model Bond. There's lip service paid to his progress from a womanizing, Martini-swilling Neanderthal in a tux to a somewhat more politically correct man, and the traditional Bond killing gadgets get treatment as well (complete with outtakes and flubs). This is just the thing for Bond fans and of the spy genre in general; an affectionate look at 40 years worth of James Bond. -Jerry Renshaw.

A pre-Phantom Michael Crawford plays Woody, a goofy cartoonist-accidentally-turned-spy in this Cold War-era lark. In Paris visiting his friend, a CIA "file clerk," Woody is sent on a cloak-and-dagger errand and is mistaken for an operative by his beautiful Russian counterpart. She then contacts the agency with the demand that he, and only he, help her defect. Writer adopts comic book persona and voilà: Condorman! This wide-winged hero thwarts the pesky Soviets at every turn. From the old run-down farmer's truck he's driving emerges a flashy race car that outruns a fleet of Russian vehicles. Later, in a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang moment, the car sprouts floaters, allowing the pair to escape their pursuers by sea. Barbara Carrera's Natalia-the true spy of the two-is really just along for the ride. It's Condorman's show, as confirmed by the ending: a shot-filled showdown off the shores of Monte Carlo. -Kimberly Heinrichs.

Set mainly in the Ireland the tourist board didn't tell you about, Into the West is the story of a "traveling" family who have given up their traditional life of roaming, and find themselves trying to make it in the gritty, violent projects of Dublin. Gabriel Byrne is excellent as Papa Reilly, a once-proud father and leader whose grief over his wife's death has turned him into a booze-sodden has-been. His two sons, Tito (Ruaidhri Conroy) and Ossie (Ciaran Fitzgerald), escape the projects on an apparently magical white horse, Tir Na Nog, which leads them back to the West. After being forced to steal the horse back from a wealthy and ruthless horse dealer, they are pursued across the increasingly beautiful landscape by virtually all the policemen in Ireland. The much-loved actor David Kelly (Waking Ned Devine) does a nice turn as the grandfather, and Ellen Barkin is a surprising but believable choice as an old "traveling" friend of Papa Reilly. For better or for worse-mainly better-this is not the story Disney would have told: redemptive and uplifting at the end, it's realistic to the point of ugliness on the way there, with a style of cinematography that the Magic Kingdom has never been able to stomach. The younger brother, Ossie, is supposed to be 7, but the story itself is perhaps more appropriate for somewhat older children. Entertainment Weekly's best family video for 1994. -Richard Farr.