Movies - Summary, Director, Stars, Grade

My husband and I don't often agree on TV shows and movies, but we decided last February to start watching a show together every night, and it has become a favorite activity.  So, when we ran out of series, we turned to movies.  There were some classics we hadn't seen and some Academy Award winners and nominees.  We still don't always agree, but we watch together anyway.

Here are the last 13 movies we've watched.

1. Taxi Driver (1976) A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action.   

Directed by Martin Scorse.  

Stars:  Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, and a young Jodie Foster.  

My grade = C

 

2. Carlito’s Way (1993)  A Puerto Rican former convict just released from prison pledges to stay away from drugs and violence despite the pressure around him to lead a better life outside of New York.

Directed by Brian De Palma  

Stars:  Al Pacino, Sean Penn, and Penelope Ann Miller

My Grade = B

3. Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Mentally unstable Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brother-in-law while reality crumbles around her. (Based on a play by Tennessee Williams

Directed by Elia Kazan

Stars:  Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh

My Grade = C

4. North by Northwest (1959) A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt. 

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Stars:  Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason

My Grade = B+

 

5. Seabiscuit (2003) Based on the true story of a Depression-era, undersized racehorse whose victories captured the spirits of a nation. 

Directed by Gary Ross

Stars:  Toby Maguire, Jeff Bridges, and Elizabeth Banks

My Grade = A-

6. The Nest (2020)  Life for an entrepreneur and his American family begins to take a twisted turn afgter moving into an English manor.

Directed by Sean Durkin

Stars:  Jude Law, Carrie Coon, and Oona Roche

My Grade = F

7. Nomadland (2020)  A woman in her 60's has lost everything in the Great Recession, so she goes on a journey through the American West living in her van.

Directed by Chloe Zhao

Stars:  Frances McDormand, David Straithairn, and Linda May

My Grade = F   

8. Lincoln (2012) (We watched half before we realized we'd already seen it, and it was a long movie.) Set during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln struggles with his own cabinet over the decision to empancipate slaves.

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Stars:  Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, and David Straithairn

My Grade = B

9. Green Book (2018)  A working-class Italian-American bounces becomes the driver for an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960's American South.

Directed by Peter Ferrely

Stars:  Viggo Mortenson, Mahershala Ali, and Linda Cardellini

My Grade = B+

10. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) The mostly true story of 7 people on trial for the uprising at the 1968Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Stars:   Sasha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eddie Redmayne, etc.

My Grade = A-

11. The Last Emperor (1987)  The story of the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, the 11th and final leader of the Qing dynasty. The story begins when he becomes emperor at age 3 to his youth in the Forbidden City, and through revolution and captivity.

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Stars:  John Lone, Joan Chen, and Peter O'Toole.

My Grade = A

12. Gandhi (1982)  The story begins when Mohatma Gandhi, a lawyer, is thrown from a South African train for being in a whites-only compartment.  It covers his leadership of the nonviolent independence movement in India against the British all the way to his assasination.

Directed by Richard Attenborough

Stars:  Ben Kingsley, John Gielgud, and Rohini Hattangadi with an appearance by Candice Bergen

My Grade = A

13. Argo (2012)  Acting under the cover of a Hollywood producer scouting a location for a science fiction film, a CIA agent launches a dangerous operation to rescus six Americans in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran in 1979.  Directed by Ben Affleck

Stars:  Ben Affleck, John Goodman, and Bryan Cranston

My Grade = C

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