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In his epic masterpiece Gandhi, director Richard Attenborough explores the inspiring, complicated life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Indian lawyer who through ideological conviction and an impassioned sense of political justice went on to become the spiritual leader of a nation and the symbol of its hard-won independence. Ben Kingsley won an Oscar in the title role, and he is supported by an all-star cast that includes Candice Bergen as photographer Margaret Bourke-White and John Gielgud as Lord Irwin. This is a big story to tell, and Attenborough tackles his subject head on, zeroing in on those critical events in Gandhi's life that propelled him along his historic journey: his awakening to the injustice of Britain's resistance to Indian independence; his renunciation of his personal effects; his development of a "passive resistance" strategy in retaliation against the British army (which later inspired Dr. Martin Luther King); and, most memorably, his dramatic fasting in the name of his cause. As Gandhi, Kingsley, turns in an unforgettable performance, cloaking himself in the indomitable spirit of the soft-spoken yet determined pacifist, as he seamlessly evolves from citizen to statesman to modern-day messiah. Bruce Kluger

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David Lean's gripping World War II drama -- winner of Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Screenplay, Cinematography, Musical Score, and Editing -- is every bit as fresh and absorbing today as when originally released in 1957. Its underlying but perceptive commentary on the futility of war never supersedes the narrative, which revolves around a clash of wills between Japanese prison-camp commandant Sessue Hayakawa and British colonel Alec Guinness. Stern, didactic and indomitable, Guinness leads his men in the construction of a bridge, as directed by the Japanese officer, but does so on his own terms. This boosts morale among the British soldiers, who become defiantly proud of their bridge even as British officer Jack Hawkins and American escapee William Holden plot to destroy it. Pierre Boulle's novel is perfectly adapted by blacklisted writers Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, and Lean's direction is absolutely flawless in every respect. You'll always remember two things about this movie: the infectious, frequently whistled "Colonel Bogey March" and Alec Guinness's Oscar-winning performance. The Limited Edition DVD spans two discs and includes an isolated music track, links to DVD-ROM features like screensavers and military plans, as well as exclusive behind-the-scenes documentary material. Ed Hulse

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Decades after its initial theatrical release, Lawrence of Arabia remains the quintessential movie epic: lavish, sweeping, and literate, played against a grand historical backdrop and peopled with sharply drawn characters. The Academy Award winner for Best Picture in 1962, it also earned an Oscar for director David Lean (The Bridge on the River Kwai), whose command of filmmaking technique was never more aptly demonstrated. Peter O’Toole achieved international stardom following his portrayal of T. E. Lawrence, the enigmatic British intelligence officer who participated in a 1916 Arab revolt against Turkish oppressors and became a legendary figure throughout the Middle East. The arduous desert campaign is detailed with scope and style, and though Lean and screenwriter Robert Bolt never quite get a handle on their charismatic but cryptic protagonist, they limn memorable secondary characters like Omar Sharif’s fiery rebel chieftain, Alec Guinness’s crafty Arab prince, and Jack Hawkins’s stolid British general. A meticulously crafted film, truly a feast for the eyes and ears, Lawrence of Arabia is also a rousing adventure guaranteed to stir the emotions. The long-awaited DVD version is newly remastered from fully restored film elements and includes four Lawrence featurettes in addition to original newsreel footage of Lawrence himself, as well as a conversation with director and Lawrence fan Steven Spielberg. Ed Hulse

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This beautifully made, brilliantly acted, and altogether stirring film version of Robert Bolt's 1960 play dramatizes one of history's most infamous clashes between religion and politics. Among the film's many distinctions is Paul Scofield's Oscar-winning performance as Sir Thomas More, the 16th-century English judge and chancellor pressured to endorse the adulterous liaison of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn -- a union that prompts a break with the Catholic Church and the formation of the state-sponsored Church of England. More's personal faith compels him to condemn this expedient, yet too vigorously a protest will undoubtedly lead to accusations of treason and, possibly, even to his death. Henry VIII is wonderfully played by Robert Shaw, who earned an Oscar nomination for his depiction of the colorful king as educated, charming, and sensitive but also volatile, arrogant, and imperious. Also registering strongly among the uniformly superlative cast is Leo McKern, whose Thomas Cromwell is among those putting the squeeze on More, and Orson Welles, whose five-minute turn as Cardinal Wolsey is masterful in its economy of expression. Bolt's screenplay retains everything that made the stage drama so powerful. Consequently, this is a very talky film, but the speeches are so well crafted and delivered that you'll never notice the relative paucity of physical movement. An unalloyed triumph for producer-director Fred Zinnemann (High Noon), this Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1966 has stood the test of time and remains one of the most profound, and compelling, historical dramas ever brought to the screen. Ed Hulse

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It’s not uncommon for a literary classic to arrive on the screen muddled, mangled, or altered beyond recognition. And certainly this flamboyant, musical take on Oliver Twist expands on the source material. Yet, one can’t help but imagine that even Charles Dickens would savor the cinematic delight that is Oliver! right down to its titular exclamation point. Director Carol Reed, skillfully opening up Lionel Bart’s 1960 stage adaptation, wrests once-in-a-lifetime performances from his cast. Mark Lester stars as the workhouse waif who escapes the confines of his orphanage and falls in with a larcenous band of street urchins. His best pal is the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), an impudent, cunning little rascal who is the right-hand man, so to speak, of wily old Fagin (Ron Moody in an Oscar-nominated performance). Lester is simultaneously mischievous and angelic as Oliver; Wild invests the Dodger with a self-assuredness far beyond his years; Moody portrays Fagin without the malignance usually associated with that character; and Oliver Reed plays Bill Sykes with all the menacing ferocity one expects of that unregenerate evildoer. The songs -- including “Food, Glorious Food,” “Consider Yourself,” “I’d Do Anything,” and “You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two” -- remain fresh and lively. Reed’s adroit handling of Vernon Harris’s screenplay doesn’t miss a beat. Every opportunity to punch up a scene is taken, and it’s hard to imagine how Oliver! could possibly have turned out better. The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences had the same opinion, awarding the film six Oscars, including Best Picture of 1968. Some films retain their excellence but show their age. Oliver! isn’t one of them -- you’ll find it just as exhilarating today as audiences did back in the '60s. Ed Hulse

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A gritty melodrama brimming with brilliant performances and seething with anger and desperation, On the Waterfront made a big splash in 1954, three years after its director Elia Kazan and star Marlon Brando had teamed up to film Tennessee Williams' A Street Car Named Desire. The story focuses on the collision between a corrupt union controlling the New Jersey port and one of its rank-and-file members, a boxer turned stevedore, Terry Malloy (Brando). The film solidified Brando's status as the king of American method acting. His famous "I coulda been a contender" monologue, spoken in the back of a taxi where his character confronts his older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger), is practically revered as a sacred text. The essence of cool, Brando's incomparably masculine style combined a sexy, knowing swagger with wry humor, jazzy timing and an aching vulnerability. The film boasts several other outstanding performances, including Karl Malden's outspoken priest and Lee J. Cobb's nasty union boss, while Leonard Bernstein's magisterial music contributes richly to the film's over-the-top naturalism. Bernstein's work earned an Academy Award nomination, one of 12 for the picture, which cleaned up on Oscar night with eight wins. Monica McIntyre

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Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men is a roman à clef inspired by the career of Louisiana governor Huey Long. Broderick Crawford won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Willie Stark, a backwoods Southern lawyer who wins the hearts of his constituents by bucking the corrupt state government. Journalist Jack Burden (John Ireland) is impressed by Willie's seeming sincerity, and aids Stark on the road to political power. Once he's reached the governor's mansion, however, Willie proves himself to be as dishonest and despotic as the crooks whom he's replaced. He also cheats shamelessly on his wife with both his campaign manager (Mercedes McCambridge, another Oscar winner) and with Anne Stanton (Joanne Dru), the sister of idealistic doctor Adam Stanton (Sheppard Strudwick). Fiercely protective of his power, Willie organizes a fascistic police force and arranges for "accidents" to befall those who oppose him; even so, he retains the love of the voters by lowering the poverty level, improving the school system, and financing building projects. Even when Willie all but orchestrates the suicide of Anne's uncle, a highly respected judge (Raymond Greenleaf), those closest to him are unable to escape his power and the charismatic hold he has over people. Stockton, CA, stands in for the unnamed state capitol where most of the film's action occurs. In addition to its Oscars for Crawford and McCambridge, All the King's Men won the Best Picture prize. Warren's novel would later be adapted into a stage play, a TV special, and even an opera. Hal Erickson

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The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma in 1943, where a battle of wills rages between camp commander Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) and newly arrived British colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness). Saito insists that Nicholson order his men to build a bridge over the river Kwai, which will be used to transport Japanese munitions. Nicholson refuses, despite all the various "persuasive" devices at Saito's disposal. Finally, Nicholson agrees, not so much to cooperate with his captor as to provide a morale-boosting project for the military engineers under his command. The colonel will prove that, by building a better bridge than Saito's men could build, the British soldier is a superior being even when under the thumb of the enemy. As the bridge goes up, Nicholson becomes obsessed with completing it to perfection, eventually losing sight of the fact that it will benefit the Japanese. Meanwhile, American POW Shears (William Holden), having escaped from the camp, agrees to save himself from a court martial by leading a group of British soldiers back to the camp to destroy Nicholson's bridge. Upon his return, Shears realizes that Nicholson's mania to complete his project has driven him mad. Filmed in Ceylon, Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary British filmmaker David Lean, and Best Actor for Guinness. It also won Best Screenplay for Pierre Boulle, the author of the novel on which the film was based, even though the actual writers were blacklisted writers Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, who were given their Oscars under the table. Hal Erickson

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It was Richard Attenborough's lifelong dream to bring the life story of Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi to the screen. When it finally reached fruition in 1982, the 188-minute, Oscar-winning Gandhi was one of the most exhaustively thorough biopics ever made. The film begins in the early part of the 20th century, when Mohandas K. Gandhi (Ben Kingsley), a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of "passive resistance," endeavoring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed. In the horrendous "slaughter" sequence, more extras appear on screen than in any previous historical epic. The supporting cast includes Candice Bergen as photographer Margaret Bourke-White, Athol Fugard as General Smuts, John Gielgud as Lord Irwin, John Mills as the viceroy, Martin Sheen as Walker, Trevor Howard as Judge Broomfield, and, in a tiny part as a street bully, star-to-be Daniel Day-Lewis. Gandhi won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director. Hal Erickson

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Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s objections. To keep Ellie from marrying this lothario, her father has been holding her prisoner aboard his yacht. But Ellie bolts from the yacht, swims ashore in her clothes, and eventually slips onto a Greyhound bus bound for New York. Aboard the bus is newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who has recently been fired for drinking on the job. Peter gets the last seat on the bus -- but when he gets up to argue with the bus driver, Ellie takes his seat. Since it is the last seat on the bus, they have to share it. When Ellie has her purse stolen and she refuses to report it, Peter begins to suspect something. The next morning, they both miss the bus after a leisurely breakfast, and Peter reveals that he knows her identity. She makes a deal with him: if he helps her get to New York, he can write a scoop about her for his paper. Peter thinks she is a spoiled brat, however, and refuses a monetary bribe: "I'm not interested in your money or your problem. You, King Westley, your father -- you're all a lot of hooey to me!" But as they travel northward and engage in a series of misadventures, the gruff newspaperman and the spoiled rich girl, thrown together by circumstances, fall in love with each other. This movie set the pace for the "screwball" comedy, the witty and romantic clash of temperaments between a man and a woman mismatched in both personality and social position, a type of movie often associated with Katherine Hepburn in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and, with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957), among others. The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Paul Brenner

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This sweeping, highly literate historical epic covers the Allies' mideastern campaign during World War I as seen through the eyes of the enigmatic T. E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole, in the role that made him a star). After a prologue showing us Lawrence's ultimate fate, we flash back to Cairo in 1917. A bored general staffer, Lawrence talks his way into a transfer to Arabia. Once in the desert, he befriends Sherif Ali Ben El Kharish (Omar Sharif, making one of the most spectacular entrances in movie history) and draws up plans to aid the Arabs in their rebellion against the Turks. No one is ever able to discern Lawrence's motives in this matter: Prince Feisal (Alec Guinness) dismisses him as yet another "desert-loving Englishman," and his British superiors assume that he's either arrogant or mad. Using a combination of diplomacy and bribery, Lawrence unites the rival Arab factions of Feisal and Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn). After successfully completing his mission, Lawrence becomes an unwitting pawn of the Allies, as represented by Gen. Allenby (Jack Hawkins) and Dryden (Claude Rains), who decide to keep using Lawrence to secure Arab cooperation against the Imperial Powers. While on a spying mission to Deraa, Lawrence is captured and tortured by a sadistic Turkish Bey (Jose Ferrer). In the heat of the next battle, a wild-eyed Lawrence screams "No prisoners!" and fights more ruthlessly than ever. Screenwriters Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson used T. E. Lawrence's own self-published memoir The Seven Pillars of Wisdom as their principal source, although some of the characters are composites, and many of the "historical" incidents are of unconfirmed origin. Two years in the making (you can see O'Toole's weight fluctuate from scene to scene), the movie, lensed in Spain and Jordan, ended up costing a then-staggering $13 million and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. The 1962 Royal Premiere in London was virtually the last time that David Lean's director's cut was seen: 20 minutes were edited from the film's general release, and 15 more from the 1971 reissue. This abbreviated version was all that was available for public exhibition until a massive 1989 restoration, at 216 minutes that returned several of Lean's favorite scenes while removing others with which he had never been satisfied. Hal Erickson

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Adapted by Robert Bolt and Constance Willis from Bolt's hit stage play, A Man for All Seasons stars Paul Scofield, triumphantly repeating his stage role as Sir Thomas More. The crux of the film is the staunchly Catholic More's refusal to acknowledge King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw)'s break from the church to divorce his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn (an unbilled Vanessa Redgrave). Sir Thomas willingly goes to the chopping block rather than sacrifice his ideals. Director Fred Zinnemann retains the play's verbosity without sacrificing the film's strong sense of visuals. The impeccably chosen cast includes Wendy Hiller as Sir Thomas' likably contentious wife Alice, John Hurt as the deceitful Richard Rich (More's put-downs of this despicable character provide some of the film's biggest laughs), Orson Welles as a dour Cardinal Woolsey, Leo McKern as the ambitious Thomas Cromwell, and Susannah York as More's daughter Margaret. The "Common Man," an important bridging-the-scenes character in the original play, is removed from the film version, which does just fine without him. A Man for All Seasons won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, as well as seven British Film Academy awards. Hal Erickson

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Inspired by Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, Lionel Bart's 1961 London and Broadway musical hit glossed over some of Dickens' more graphic passages but managed to retain a strong subtext to what was essentially light entertainment. For its first half-hour or so, Carol Reed's Oscar-winning 1968 film version does a masterful job of telling its story almost exclusively through song and dance. Once nine-year-old orphan Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) falls in with such underworld types as pickpocket Fagin (Ron Moody) and murderous thief Bill Sykes (Oliver Reed), it becomes necessary to inject more and more dialogue, and the film loses some of its momentum. But not to worry; despite such brutal moments as Sikes' murder of Nancy (Shani Wallis), the film gets back on the right musical track, thanks in great part to Onna White's exuberant choreography and the faultless performances by Moody and by Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger. The supporting cast includes Harry Secombe as the self-righteous Mr. Bumble and Joseph O'Conor as Mr. Brownlow, the man who (through a series of typically Dickensian coincidences) rescues Oliver from the streets. Oliver! won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and a special award to choreographer Onna White. Hal Erickson

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Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart).

Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). Hal Erickson

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Robert Benton's Oscar-winning adaptation of Avery Corman's bestseller takes on contemporary problems of divorce and shifting gender roles, as a jilted husband learns how to be a nurturing father. Manhattan housewife Joanna Kramer (Meryl Streep) walks out on her workaholic ad man husband Ted (Dustin Hoffman), leaving their young son Billy (Justin Henry) in Ted's less than capable hands. Through trial and error, Ted learns how to take care of Billy, devoting more energy to his family than to his work, and finally losing his high-powered job because of his new priorities. When Joanna returns with her own lucrative job and the intent to take custody of Billy, Ted finds employment that won't interfere with his paternal duties. Even though he proves that he can do it all, Joanna still wins in court. Joanna, however, rethinks her desires when she finally grasps how close father and son have become. Addressing the male side of the self-actualization question, previously explored from the female perspective in such 1970s movies as An Unmarried Woman (1978), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), and The Turning Point (1977), Kramer focuses on Ted's evolution from absent parent to ideal father, as he learns to balance domestic and professional lives in the shifting late-1970s social landscape. Joanna's attempt to achieve the same, however, gets buried; only Streep's sensitive performance prevents Joanna from seeming an unsympathetic harridan. Critics praised the film's realistic depiction of Ted's travails, as well as the three lead actors' work; and audiences, perhaps facing the same questions of divorce and self-realization, turned it into a box-office smash. It went on to win five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Lucia Bozzola

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Nobody in Hollywood except director Elia Kazan wanted to make On the Waterfront and they're still fighting about it over a half-century later. When Kazan first started pitching Budd Schulberg's story about life and death on the New Jersey docks, even 20th Century Fox -- which had allowed him to make fiercely realistic and gritty movies dealing with anti-semitism (Gentleman's Agreement), the threat of a bubonic plague epidemic in New Orleans (Panic In The Streets), and the life of a Mexican revolutionary (Viva Zapata) -- wouldn't go near the story about union corruption. Every studio was fearful of what Hollywood and allied unions might do if word got around that someone was making a movie on that subject. Kazan, however, was lucky enough to find producer Sam Spiegel, who had a contract to make films for Columbia independent of Harry Cohn's veto. Between the two of them and Schulberg, and with Marlon Brando in a role previously earmarked for Frank Sinatra, they came up with a movie that confronted audiences with the brutality and corruption that permeated much of the labor movement in the United States and the fact that people in very high places benefitted from that corruption. More than that, or the savagery of the action, On the Waterfront became a source of unending vexation in Hollywood's political wars. Kazan had been branded an informer for "naming names" of suspected Communists and Communist sympathizers before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and On the Waterfront, with its story of a corrupt union stooge who informs on his former organization, was taken as Kazan's defense of his actions. It became the only cinematically respected anti-Communist film ever to come out of Hollywood. It wasn't perfect by any means -- the ending is too neat and unbelievable -- but it stood as a landmark of realistic, topical filmmaking, carrying a load of personal and ideological messages that are still being fought over a half-century later, as witnessed by the controversy surrounding the presenting of an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement to Kazan in 1998. Bruce Eder

Product Details

• UPC: 043396278851
• Source: SONY PICTURES
• Region Code: 1
• Language: English
• Editions: Special Packaging
• Time: 25:31:00
• Sales Rank: 13,349

This set contains DVDs which may be available separately:

• It Happened One Night
• All the King's Men
• From Here to Eternity
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Oliver!
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
• A Man for All Seasons
• On the Waterfront
• You Can't Take It with You
• Gandhi

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