Such a simple idea--yet so fiendishly complex in the execution. 24, as surely everyone knows by now, is a thriller that takes place over 24 hours, midnight to midnight, in 24 one-hour episodes (well, 45-minute episodes if you extract the ad breaks). Everything to take place in real time--on-screen and off-screen time the same--which means no flash-backs, no flash-forwards, no nice handy ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Carlos Bernard, Dennis Haysbert, James Morrison

Ever since this convoluted thriller dazzled audiences and critics in 1995 and won an Oscar for Christopher McQuarrie's twisting screenplay, The Usual Suspects has continued to divide movie lovers into opposite camps. While a lot of people take great pleasure from the movie's now-famous central mystery (namely, "Who is Keyser Söze?"), others aren't so easily impressed by a movie that's too ...

Manufacturer: MGM Entertainment
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro
Directed By: Bryan Singer

A strong candidate for possibly the most entertaining and enjoyable film ever made by a Hollywood studio, North by Northwest is positioned between the much heavier and more profoundly disturbing Vertigo (1958) and the stark horror of Psycho (1960). In the corpus of Alfred Hitchcock films it shows the director at his most effervescent in a romantic comedy-thriller that also ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll
Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock

"The book was better" has been the complaint of many a reader since the invention of films. The Green Mile is Frank Darabont's second adaptation of a Stephen King prison drama The Shawshank Redemption was the first) and is a very faithful adaptation of King's serial novel. In the middle of the Depression, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) runs death row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary. Into ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, James Cromwell
Directed By: Frank Darabont

For the Hollywood remake rule, which dictates that an update of an older film be inferior to the original in almost every aspect, The Thomas Crown Affair stands as a glorious exception. The original 1968 film, starring a dapper Steve McQueen and a radiant Faye Dunaway, was a diverting pop confection of mod clothes and nifty break-ins, but not much more. John McTiernan's new version, though, ...

Manufacturer: MGM Entertainment
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, Denis Leary, Ben Gazzara, Frankie Faison
Directed By: John McTiernan

Another John Grisham legal thriller comes to the screen, pairing Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts in a film directed by Alan J Pakula, who is known for dark-hued suspense pictures such as Klute, The Parallax View, All the President's Men, and Presumed Innocent. The Pelican Brief isn't up to the level of those films, but it is a perfectly entertaining movie ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Sam Shepard, John Heard, Tony Goldwyn
Directed By: Alan J. Pakula

Essex Boys constructs a fictional story around the infamous Range Rover murders in Rettenden, Essex, in which three local drug dealers were found blasted to death by shotguns. Driving for ex-con Jason Locke (Sean Bean) was just another job for Billy Reynolds (Charlie Creed-Miles). But fresh out of a five-year stretch, Locke is looking to make up for lost time and begins a turf war. He ...

Manufacturer: Pathe Distribution
Starring: craig fairbrass, Alex Kingston, Charlie Creed-Miles, Tom Wilkinson, Larry Lamb

With its high-intensity plot about an attempt to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle, the bestselling novel by Frederick Forsyth was a prime candidate for screen adaptation. Director Fred Zinnemann brought his veteran skills to bear on what has become a timeless classic of screen suspense. Not to be confused with the later remake The Jackal starring Bruce Willis (which ...

Manufacturer: Uca
Starring: Edward Fox, Terence Alexander, Michel Auclair, Alan Badel, Tony Britton
Directed By: Fred Zinnemann

An absolute stunner of a movie, Memento combines a bold, mind-bending script with compelling action and virtuoso performances. Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, hunting down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The problem is that "the incident" that robbed Leonard of his wife also stole his ability to make new memories. Unable to retain a location, a face, or a new clue on his own, ...

Manufacturer: Pathe Distribution
Starring: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Junior, Russ Fega
Directed By: Christopher Nolan

"I see dead people," whispers little Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), scared to affirm what is to him now a daily occurrence. This peaked nine-year old, already hypersensitive to begin with, is now being haunted by seemingly malevolent spirits. Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is trying to find out what's triggering Cole's visions but what appears to be a psychological manifestation ...

Manufacturer: Hollywood Pictures Home Video
Starring: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Donnie Wahlberg
Directed By: M. Night Shyamalan