DRIVING MISS DAISY (1989)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Bruce Beresford

An old Jewish lady, (Jessica Tandy) and her African-American chauffeur (Morgan Freeman) in the American South have a relationship that grows and improves over the years.The movie is directly taken from a stage play and it covers over twenty years of the pair's life together as they slowly build a relationship that transcends their differences.

Nominated for 9 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration and Best Costume Design

Won 4, Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Makeup

Jessica Tandy at 80, became the oldest winner of a competitive Academy Award

DVD Special Features:

Three peeks behind the scenes:

The All-New Miss Daisy's Journey
From Stage to Screen
Jessica Tandy: The Theater Legend

Feature Length Audio Commentary by Director Bruce Beresford, Writer Alfred Uhry and Producer Lili Fini Zanuck

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1968)

Directed by Stanley Kramer

A wealthy white couple (Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn) are informed that their daughter's intended is coming to meet them, and he's black (Sidney Poitier)
Scripted in the late 60s, the idea of a bi-racial marriage was still fairly shocking. To smooth this over, the son-in-law to be is a prince and a Doctor, who lives in Switzerland and intends to take their daughter there to live. Set in California, it's not quite a return to Selma, Alabama, but was controversial in its day

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Art/Set Decoration and Best Music (Scoring, Adaptation or Treatment of Music)

Won 2, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay

Spencer Tracy died two weeks after the film was completed and was nominated in the Best Actor category Posthumously

The entire principal cast earned acting nominations

DVD Special Features:

None

BRAVEHEART (1995)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Mel Gibson

Partly historical, partly mythological, story of William Wallace (Mel Gibson), a Scottish common man who fights for his country's freedom against the cruel English ruler Edward the Longshanks (Patrick Mcgoohan), who wishes to inherit the crown of Scotland for himself around the end of the 13th century

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Dramatic Score, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Makeup, Best Costume Design and Best Sound

Won 5, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup and Best Sound Effects Editing


DVD Special Features:

Feature length Audio Commentary by Director, Mel Gibson

OUT OF AFRICA (1985)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Sidney Pollack

Film based on the true story life of Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep), who establishes a coffee plantation in Africa. Her life is complicated by a philandering husband of convenience (Klaus Maria Brandauer), true love, Denys(Robert Redford), troubles on the plantation, schooling of the natives and World War 1

Nominated for 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor,Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Art/Set Decoration, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design and Best Sound

Won 7, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Art/Set Decoration and Best Sound

DVD Special Features:

Feature length commentary with Director, Sidney Pollack

THE FOG (1980)

Directed by John Carpenter

A Northern California fishing town, built 100 years ago over an old leper colony, is the target for revenge by a killer fog containing zombie-like ghosts seeking revenge for their deaths.

No Academy Award Nominations

DVD Special Features:

THE APARTMENT (1960)

Directed by Billy Wilder

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a struggling clerk in a huge New York insurance company. He's discovered a quick way to climb the corporate ladder by lending out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses.
He often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits and one night he's left with a major problem to solve.

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography (Black/White), Best Film Editing, Best Art/Set Decoration (Black/White) and Best Sound

Won 5, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art/Set Decoration (Black/White) and Best Film Editing

DVD Special Features:

None

AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Sam Mendes

Lester (Kevin Spacey) and Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening) are on the outside, a perfect husband and wife, in a perfect house, in a perfect neighborhood. But inside, Lester is slipping deeper and deeper into a hopeless depression.
He finally snaps when he becomes infatuated with one of his daughters friends.
Meanwhile, his daughter Jane is developing a happy friendship with a shy boy-next-door named Ricky who lives with a homophobic father.

Nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Original Score

Won 5, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinamatography

Sam Mendes received the Oscar for his debut film direction

Kevin Spacey joined the rank of only 5 other Actors in Academy history, to have won Oscars in the Actor and Supporting Actor categories.

And the director, Sam Mendes received the Oscar for his debut film direction

Another addition to the group was made in 2001, Denzel Washington (Training Day)


Academy Award wining actors in leading and supporting roles:

Jack Lemmon, 1955 (Best Supporting Actor, MISTER ROBERTS) and 1974 ( Best Actor, SAVE THE TIGER)

Robert De Niro, 1974 (Best Supporting Actor, THE GODFATHER PART 2) and 1980 (Best Actor, RAGING BULL)

Jack Nicholson, 1975 (Best Actor, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST) and 1983 (Best Supporting Actor,TERMS OF ENDEARMENT)

Gene Hackman,1971 (Best Actor, THE FRENCH CONNECTION) and 1992 (Best Supporting Actor, UNFORGIVEN)

Kevin Spacey, 1995 (Best Supporting Actor, THE USUAL SUSPECTS) and 1999 (Best Actor, AMERICAN BEAUTY)

Denzel Washington, 1989 (Best Supporting Actor, GLORY) and 2001 (Best Actor, TRAINING DAY)


DVD Special Features:

Behind the Scenes Featurette - American Beauty, Look Closer

Feature Length Audio Commentary by Director, Sam Mendes and Screenwriter, Alan Ball

TITANIC (1997)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by James Cameron

Fictional romantic tale of a rich girl, Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and poor boy, Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) who meet on the ill-fated voyage of the 'unsinkable' ship"

With 1 billion dollars in worldwide ticket sales, Titanic made the record books as the first film to make a billion and one of the top three of all time - to date

Nominated for 14 Academy Awards( the most by any film in Academy History - equaling the record held by All About Eve in 1950) including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Original Song, Best Art/Set Direction, Best Sound, Best Makeup, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Costume Design

Won 11, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Original Song, Best Art/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Costume Design

Equalled the record of 11 Academy Awards held by Ben Hur (1959)

Record was joined in 2004 by Lord of the Rings:The Return of the King

DVD Special Features:

None

The ROSE TATOO (1955)

Directed by Daniel Mann

An Italian-American neighborhood in Louisiana is disturbed when truck driver Rosario Delle Rose is killed by police while smuggling. His buxom widow Serafina miscarries, then over a period of 3years draws more and more into herself, tries to force her lovely teenage daughter, Rosa to do likewise

Nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography (black and white), Best Film Editing, Best Score (Comedy/Drama), Best Costume Design (Black and White) and Best Art/Set Decoration (Black and White)

Won 3, Best Actress, Best Art/Set Decoration (Black and White) and Best Cinematography (Black and White)

DVD Special Features:

None

GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Victor Fleming

(With uncredited directors - Sam Wood and George Cukor)

One of Hollywood's best loved "Golden Age" films which narrates the love between Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) set against the American civil war. It is the history of a selfish woman who does not want to admit her feelings about the man she loves, and finally loses him.

Nominated for 13 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress(2), Best Writing(Screenplay), Best Cinematorgraphy (Color), Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Effects (Special Effects), Best Original Score and Best Sound Recording

Won 10, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Writing (Screenplay), Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography (Color)

Two Special Awards - A technical award for use of coordinated use of equipment and a honorary award for the use of color in the production



DVD Special Features:


Discs 1 and 2 - The Movie + Audio Commentary with the film by Historian Rudy Behlmer


Disc 3 - About the Movie - The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind, narrated by Christopher Plummer

Restoring a Legend - Chronicles the Film/Video restoration Process

1939 and 1961 Atlanta Premiere Newreels

Prologue from International Release Version

Foreign Language Version Sample Scenes

Historical Short Subject - The Old South


Disc 4 - About the Cast - Melanie Remembers: Reflections by Olivia De Havilland - Exclusive 2004 Documentary

2 Insightful Profiles: Gable, The King Remembered and Vivien Leigh, Scarlett and Beyond

The Supporting Players: Cameo Portraits of an Unforgettable Ensemble

GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT (1947)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Elia Kazan

This film is about a journalist (Gregory Peck) who passes himself off as a Jew to write an article about Semitism in America. He discovers just how this affects him, and the other people in his life. Demonstrates how racism affects a person, especially the subtle forms which may go unnoticed by many in today's world. It also shows how otherwise well meaning people can and do contribute to racism in small, everyday, ways.

Nominated for 8 Academy Awards including, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress(twice), Best Writing (Screenplay) and Best Film Editing

Won 3, Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress

DVD Special Features:

None

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (1958)

Directed by Roy Ward Baker

TITANIC... The greatest sea drama in living memory told as it really happened!

Based on the best selling book by Walter Lord, this is the true story of the R.M.S. Titanic which hit disaster on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic.
The British liner Titanic with 2200 people on board is gashed along 300 feet of its hull by an iceberg. As it starts to sink, the new invention of radio is used to try and summon help, although this is disastrously ignored by the closest vessel.
With lifeboat places for only 1200 people, it is not only women and children first, but also first class before steerage.

No Academy Award Nominations

DVD Special Features:

The Making of A Night To Remember

MRS MINIVER (1942)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by William Wyler

The Minivers, an English "middle-class" family are the centre of this heartbreaking tale of an English town during the early stages of World War II

Nominated for 12 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress x 2, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Writing (Screenplay), Best Cinematography (Black and White), Best Special Effects, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Recording

Won 6, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Writing (Screenplay) and Best Cinematography

DVD Special Features:

Documentary Shorts

Greer Garson's Academy Award Acceptance Speech Footage

MORNING GLORIA (1933)

Directed by Lowell Sherman

Eva Lovelace (Katharine Hepburn), would-be actress trying to crash the New York stage, is a wildly optimistic chatterbox full of theatrical mannerisms. Her looks, rather than her talent, attract interest, but is she destined for stardom or will she fade after the brief blooming of a "morning glory"?

In an illustrious career spanning over half a Century, this was Miss Hepburn's third film, for which she won her first Academy Award as the year's Best Actress.

She would later be awarded a record 12 Academy Award nominations in the same category and won the Oscar, 4 times.

DVD Special Features:

Documentary: Hollywood Remembers Katharine Hepburn

CINEMA PARADISO (1989)

Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

A famous film director returns home to a Sicilian village for the first time after almost 30 years. He reminisces about his childhood at the Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo, the projectionist, first brought about his love of films. He is also reminded of his lost teenage love, Elena, who he had to leave before he left for Rome.

Nominated/Winner of 1 Academy Award, Best Foreign Language Film

DVD Special Features:

None

DONNIE BRASCO (1997)

Directed by Mike Newell

This true story follows FBI agent Joe Pistone (Johnny Depp) as he infiltrates the mafia of New York. Befriending Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino), Pistone (under the name Donnie Brasco) is able to embed himself in a mafia faction lead by Sonny Black (Michael Madsen).
Ruggiero and Pistone become tight as the group goes about collecting money for 'the bosses'. Eventually, the group become big time when Black himself becomes a boss, all the while Pistone collects evidence.
However, the trials and tribulations of the undercover work become more than Pistone can bear. His marriage falls apart and to top it off, the mafia suspect a mole in the organization. The real dilemma is afforded to Pistone, who knows if he walks away from the mafia, Ruggiero will be the one punished.

Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay

DVD Special feature:

The making of Donnie Brasco

OUT OF THE PAST (1947)

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), small-town gas pumper, has his mysterious past catch up with him one day when he's ordered to meet with gambler Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). En route to the meeting, he tells girlfriend, Ann his story in flashback
Jeff was a private eye hired by Sterling to find his mistress Kathie (Jane Greer) who shot Whit and absconded with $40,000. He traces her to Acapulco where the delectable Kathie makes Jeff forget all about Sterling.
Back in the present, Whit's new job for Jeff is clearly a trap, but Jeff's precautions only leave him more tightly enmeshed

No Academy Awards or Nominations

DVD Special Features:

None

FARGO (1996)

Directed by Joel Coen

Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy)'s inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of pregnant Police Chief, Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand)

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing

Won 2, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay

DVD Special Features:

Documentary - "Minnesota Nice"

Charlie Rose Interview with Ethan and Joel Coen + Frances McDormand

Audio Commentary by Cinematographer, Roger Deakins

THELMA AND LOUISE (1991)

Directed by Ridley Scott

Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) are best friends on a desperate flight across the American Southwest after a tragic incident at a roadside bar. With determined detective Hal (Harvey Keitel) on their trail, a sweet-talking hitchhiker called 'J.D.'(Brad Pitt) in their path and a string of crimes in their wake, their journey alternates between a hilarious, high-octane joy ride and an empowering personal odyssey... even as the law closes in.

One of the best written original screenplays of 1990s Hollywood

Nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Actress x 2, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing

Won 1, Best Original Screenplay

DVD Special Features:

Audio Commentary by Director, Ridley Scott

Audio Commentary by Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis and Screenwriter, Callie Khouri

The Last Journey Documentary

Deleted Scenes

Alternate Ending with Director's Commentary

Original Promotional EPK

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by John Ford

The story of a Welsh valley's turn-of-the-century descent from pristine paradise to despoiled coal mining region, is told in flashback form by Huw Morgan, an old man who has decided to leave the valley forever. Huw (Roddy Mcdowall) is the youngest in a family of six brothers and one sister and the film centers on his struggle toward manhood amid conflicting demands of faith, economics, education and family loyalty in a Wales caught in an irreversible shift from a pastoral to an industrialized society.

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Writing/Screenplay, Best Cinematography (Black and White), Best Art Direction- Interior Decoration (Black and White), Best Film Editing, Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture and Best Sound Recording

Won 5, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography (Black and White) and Best Art Direction - Interior Decoration (Black and White)

DVD Special Features:

None

WEST SIDE STORY (1961)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise

Musical adaptation of Shakespeare's famous love story, Romeo and Juliet. The musical set in the late 1950s New York city where rival street gangs (the Jets and the Sharks) battle for territory and respect. Love blossoms between former Jets leader Tony (Richard Beymer), and Maria (Natalie Wood), sister to Sharks' leader Bernardo (George Chakiris), supported by Anita (Rita Moreno)

Nominated for 12 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director x 2, Best Supprting Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Art/Set Decoration(Color), Best Fim Editing, Best Score and Best Sound

Won 11, Best Picture, Best Director x 2, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Art/Set Decoration(Color), Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Score and Best Sound

Academy history was made with two awards presented in the Best Director category

DVD Special Features:

None

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Frank Capra

A spoiled heiress, Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) running away from her family, is helped by a man (Clark Gable) who's actually a reporter looking for a story. But then he falls in love with her

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay

Made Academy History by winning a clean sweep of the main categories for which it was nominated

Was also the first film to win the five major categories, later joined by ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

...And the two leads winning their Academy Awards in the same picture. Later joined by

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Network (1976)
Coming Home (1978)
On Golden Pond (1981)
The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
As Good As It Gets (1997)

DVD Special Features:

Frank Capra Jr. remembers....It Happened One Night

Radio broadcast featuring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert

LA REGLE DU JEU (1939)

Directed by Jean Renoir

Renoir's look at bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II. An assorted cast of characters - the rich and their poor servants - meet up at a French chateau for various reasons and the result is murder

No Academy Award Nominations

DVD Special Features:

Image par image - French television documentary

ELMER GANTRY (1960)

Directed by Richard Brooks

Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) salesman, teams up with Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) evangelist, to sell religion to America in the 1920's. Both are seduced by fame and blind faith over common sense, and fate deals them a crushing blow

Nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Score

Won 3, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay

DVD Special Features:

None

THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)

Directed by John Huston

In Africa during WW1, a gin-swilling riverboat owner/captain,Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary, Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) to use his boat to attack an enemy warship whilst ferrying supplies to villages in East Africa.

Nominated for 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Writing - Screenplay

Won 1, Best Actor

Humphrey Bogart's deserved win prevented an acting sweep by the acclaimed drama, A Streetcar Named Desire(1951)

DVD Special Features:

Feature length audio commentary by Cinematographer, Jack Cardiff

THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE (1961)

Directed by Val Guest

After the super-powers accidentally set off H-bombs simultaneously, the staff at Fleet Street's Daily Express report dramatic changes to the world's climate.
As London swelters and the Thames starts to run dry the paper's staff finally get the Government to admit that the earth's axis has shifted. Eventually they discover that the full truth is far worse.

No Academy Award Nominations

DVD Special features:

An Interview with the late Leo Mckern

Director's feature length audio commentary

KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949)

Directed by Robert Hamer

Louis Manzzini's mother belongs to the aristocratic family, D'Ascoyne.
She ran away with an opera singer and she and Louis were rejected by the D'Ascoynes. Once adult, Louis decides to avenges his mother and his birthright by becoming the next Duke in the family. Murdering every potential successor is clearly the safest way to achieving his goal.

The title refers to the following lines from Tennyson's 1842 poem "Lady Clara Vere de Vere": "Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood."

Alec Guiness famously played eight different members of the family

No Academy Awards or Nominations

DVD Special Features: None

THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS (1946)

Directed by Lewis Milestone

In 1928, young heiress Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) fails to run off with friend Sam Masterson, and is involved in the fatal death of her Aunt. Years later, Sam returns to find Martha the power behind Iverstown and married to "good boy" Walter O'Neil (Kirk Douglas), now district attorney.
At first, Sam is more interested in displaced blonde Toni Marachek than in his boyhood friends but they draw him into a convoluted web of plotting and cross-purposes

Nominated for 1 Academy Award, Best Writing - Original Story

DVD Special Features:

None

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)

Directed by David Lean

The film based on the Nobel prize winning, bestseller by Boris Pasternak, about the life of surgeon-poet Yuri Zhivago before, during and after the Russian Revolution.
Zhivago is torn between fidelity and passion. He is married to a upper-class girl,Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin) who is devoted to him, yet in love with an unfortunate woman, Lara (Julie Christie)
The story is narrated by Zhivago's half brother Yevgraf(Alec Guiness) to a young woman he believes may be the long lost daughter of Lara and Zhivago

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography(Color), Best Film Editing, Best Art/Set Decoration(Color), Best Costume Design(Color) and Best Sound

Won 5, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography(Color), Best Art/Set Decoration(Color) and Best Costume Design

The first film in the Academy's history to win the highest number of Awards in one year, without winning Best Picture.

DVD Special Features:

Doctor Zhivago: The Making of the Russian Epic

Zhivago: Behind the Camera with David Lean

David Lean's Film of Doctor Zhivago

Moscow in Madrid

Pasternak

New York Press interviews with Julie Christie

New York Press interviews Omar Sharif