The rare fiction and nonfiction films in this compilation offer a time-capsule glimpse of World War I from a variety of fascinating angles. "The Great War" (1914-18) was the first to be extensively recorded by motion picture cameras, and the societal impact of film is keenly evident throughout this international selection. It's amazing, in hindsight, to see Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa cast as an American spy in 1917's "The Secret Game," and even the most inclusive Chaplin collections don't include the bond-drive film included here, featuring Charlie in "Little Tramp" garb, symbolically pummeling the German Kaiser with a giant war-bonds mallet! The filmed log of the German submarine U-35 (from 1917) demonstrates the sub's chilling efficiency at sinking enemy ships, while the 1975 compilation "The Moving Picture Boys in the Great War" puts everything (propaganda, newsreels, authentic battle footage) into sharp historical perspective. Rescued from obscurity, these images are as haunting as they are informative. -Jeff Shannon The astonishing films in this collection show and explain essential news and propaganda functions of the movies during the Great War of 1914-1918. In those days before television and even before radio, fiction films in movie theaters were the most widely shared public experience, while news films were the most potent and detailed public images of armament, military life and even front line action. Some news film was faked and much of it was censored, but some was authentic, obtained at great risk by daredevil combat cameramen. Films include: "Fighting the War" (1916) is the work of 26-year-old American adventurer Donald C. Thompson, who managed to get to France on Canadian credentials with English troops. He photographed some of the most amazing front line films of the entire war. [+]

Perhaps Jean Delannoy's (The Eternal Return) best-loved film, La Symphonie Pastorale remains one of France's greatest contributions to cinema. This sensitive adaptation of Andre Gide's introspective novel is precisely constructed, brilliant.

Generally acknowledged as a bona fide classic, this Francis Ford Coppola film is one of those rare experiences that feels perfectly right from beginning to end-almost as if everyone involved had been born to participate in it. Based on Mario Puzo's bestselling novel about a Mafia dynasty, Coppola's Godfather extracted and enhanced the most universal themes of immigrant experience in America: the plotting-out of hopes and dreams for one's successors, the raising of children to carry on the good work, etc. In the midst of generational strife during the Vietnam years, the film somehow struck a chord with a nation fascinated by the metamorphosis of a rebellious son (Al Pacino) into the keeper of his father's dream. Marlon Brando played against Puzo's own conception of patriarch Vito Corleone, and time has certainly proven the actor correct. The rest of the cast, particularly James Caan, John Cazale, and Robert Duvall as the rest of Vito's male brood-all coping with how to take the mantle of responsibility from their father-is seamless and wonderful. -Tom Keogh.