John Boorman's 1985 South American epic never quite gets all of its gears working simultaneously, but it remains an often startling work with an extraordinary performance by the director's own son, Charley Boorman. Powers Boothe plays an American engineer working on a dam project in Brazil. When his young son is seemingly absorbed one day into the dense perils and beauty of the Amazon rain forest, Boothe's character goes on a protracted, 10-year search for him. In the interim, Boorman puts his full storytelling powers to work by characteristically exploring the arcane rhythms and dangers of an indigenous world hidden from ordinary view. Specifically, Boorman leads us into the life of a forest tribe who have assimilated the missing child and who will ultimately send him back with the opposite of his father's pro-development sensibility. The movie is gorgeous to behold, and it's great fun watching Boorman find ever-novel ways of making the same film again and again. But the environmental message and the emotion of the core relationship get in each other's way a bit, preventing the film from uniting on every front. Still, this is a must for Boorman fans. -Tom Keogh.

This 1982, 180-minute television remake of the original MGM feature, produced 30 years before, is the rare makeover of a classic that works quite well under its own steam. Anthony Andrews plays the disinherited knight who returns from the Third Crusades and is determined to raise the ransom to free a kidnapped King Richard (Julian Glover). With his bid rebuffed by his estranged father (Michael Hordern), and the affection of the latter's ward, Rowena (Lysette Anthony), compromised, Ivanhoe looks toward the generosity of the beautiful Rebecca (Olivia Hussey)-whose father (James Mason) he rescued from anti-Semitic Normans-for help. But a plot by faithless friends to discredit Ivanhoe, and his subsequent partnership with Robin Hood (David Robb) to save the day, keep this story from slowing down even for a minute. Originally a miniseries, this production has enough breadth to provide lots of breathing room for the script and cast to mine all the drama they can from Sir Walter Scott's novel. This is also a great-looking movie, with wall-to-wall pageantry, superb costumes-the works. -Tom Keogh.

The 1951 John Huston classic, set in Africa during World War I, garnered Humphrey Bogart an Oscar for his role as a hard-drinking riverboat captain in Africa, who provides passage for a Christian missionary spinster (Katharine Hepburn). Taking an instant, mutual dislike to one another, the two endure rough waters, the presence of German soldiers, and their own bickering to finally fall into one another's arms. This is classic Huston material-part adventure, part quest-but this time with a pair of characters who'd all but given up on happiness. Bogart (a longtime collaborator with Huston on such classics as The Maltese Falcon and Key Largo) and Hepburn have never been better, and support from frequent Huston crony Robert Morley (Beat the Devil, also featuring Bogart) adds some extra dimension and color. -Tom Keogh.