American Playhouse Theatrical Films
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"Jaime Escalante [is] a math teacher at East Los Angeles' Garfield High School who refuses to write off his inner-city students as losers. Escalante cajoles, pushes, threatens and inspires 18 kids who who were struggling with fractions to become math whizzes"--Container.
3) Safe
Series
Criterion collection volume 739
Language
English
Description
Carol White is an L.A. housewife in the late 1980s who comes down with a debilitating illness. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. A prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what cannot be seen.
Series
Language
English
Description
Acclaimed filmmaker Errol Morris paints a fascinating portrait of four obsessed eccentrics. Morris weaves interviews with a wild animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot designer and an expert on the naked mole rat together with old movies, cartoons and stock footage for a compelling, kaleidoscopic look at the very thin line which separates madness from genius.
5) Ethan Frome
Language
English
Description
Story of a man torn between his joyless marriage to one woman and his lustful desire for another.
Language
English
Description
Brother's Keeper tells the story of the "Ward Boys, " four eccentric brothers who shared the same dilapidated two-room shack for over 60 years. Living in isolation, without heat or running water, these elderly bachelors had virtually no contact with the outside world--until one was found dead in the bed he shared with his brother.
Language
English
Formats
Description
With his wedding a week away, Claudio can't wait to marry the beautiful young Hero. To distract him, his best friend Don Pedro devises mischief: a romantic trap for the sharp-tongued Beatrice and the man she loves to hate, Benedick. Their amusement is almost spoiled by the jealous scheming of Don John, but love and laughter prevail when the local constable unwittingly exposes the plot--and all the trouble proves to be much ado about nothing.
Language
English
Description
Presents the three-generation saga of the Sanchez family as told by the eldest son. From the beginnings of his father's journey from Mexico to California in the 1920s, to his brother Chucho's tragic rebellion of the 1950s, to the stark realities of modern day, the struggle to live the American dream is sometimes darkened but never diminished for Paco Sanchez and his family.
Series
Criterion collection volume 458
Language
Español
Appears on list
Description
Mayan Indian peasants are tired of being thought of as nothing more than manual laborers. They organize an effort to improve their lot in life, but are discovered by the Guatemalan army. After the army destroys their village and family, Enrique and Rosa, a teenage brother and sister, who barely escaped the massacre, decide they must flee to United States. After receiving clandestine help from friends and humorous advice from a veteran immigrant on...
14) Native son
Language
English
Description
Bigger Thomas, the black chauffeur for the wealthy Dalton family, is accused of the murder of the Daltons' daughter Mary. The search for Mary's missing body and Thomas' trial shake the family and the city of Chicago, exposing the fears and prejudices of the late 1940's.
16) Safe
Series
Criterion collection volume 739
Language
English
Description
Carol White is an L.A. housewife in the late 1980s who comes down with a debilitating illness. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. A prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what cannot be seen.
Language
English
Formats
Description
With his wedding a week away, hot-blooded Claudio can't wait to marry the beautiful young Hero. To distract him, his best friend Don Pedro devises mischief: a romantic trap for the sharp-tongued Beatrice and the man she loves to hate, Benedick. Their amusement is almost spoiled by the jealous scheming of the rakish Don John, but love and laughter prevail when the local constable unwittingly exposes the plot--and all the trouble proves to be much ado...
Language
English
Description
A story of violence and desire, of tenderness and compassion, so gripping and moving, which lays bare the trials and sufferings, the yearings and aspirations of three generations of an African American family. The journey of a family from the rural South to "big city" Herlem, seeking both salvation and understanding and of a young boy struggling to earn the approval of a self-righteous and often unloving stepfather
Series
Criterion collection volume 753
Language
English
Description
Examines the roadside murder of a Dallas police officer, and the subsequent arrest and conviction of drifter Randall Adams, who was given a death sentence despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence.