Certified Fresh 1980-1999, a list by dave Miller

7.5

/5963/

71

/103/

69

/65/

3.8

/3862/

100

/41/

87

/180/

78

/25/

4.0

A portrait of the life and career of the infamous American execution device designer Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. Mr. Leuchter was an engineer who became an expert on execution devices and was later hired by holocaust revisionist historian Ernst Zundel to "prove" that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. Leuchter published a controversial report confirming Zundel's position, which ultimately ruined his own career. Most of the footage is of Leuchter, working in and around execution facilities or chipping away at the walls of Auschwitz, but Morris also interviews various historians, associates, and neighbors.

79

7.4

/268002/

73

/6394/

72

/4012/

3.9

/561424/

85

/139/

80

/4007/

76

/35/

4.0

age 17+

Tom Ripley is a calculating young man who believes it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. Opportunity knocks in the form of a wealthy U.S. shipbuilder who hires Tom to travel to Italy to bring back his playboy son, Dickie. Ripley worms his way into the idyllic lives of Dickie and his girlfriend, plunging into a daring scheme of duplicity, lies and murder.

76

7.4

/189637/

76

/7509/

71

/2423/

3.7

/154819/

90

/132/

79

/7307/

70

/28/

3.0

age 10+

For four years, the courageous crew of the NSEA Protector — Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, Lieutenant Tawny Madison, and Doctor Lazarus — set off on a thrilling and often dangerous mission in space ... until their series was cancelled! Now, twenty years later, aliens under attack have mistaken the Galaxy Quest television transmissions for "historical documents" and beam up the crew of has-been actors to save the universe. With no script, no director, and no clue, the actors must turn in the performances of their lives.

83

8.0

/346795/

77

/6300/

77

/3852/

4.2

/513680/

82

/218/

89

/10075/

78

/34/

4.0

age 17+

On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.

80

7.3

/14130/

72

/171/

66

/161/

3.9

/11771/

90

/88/

79

/233/

90

/31/

4.0

For nearly a decade, Gilbert and Sullivan’s collaborations have delighted the English people. But in 1884, as a London heat wave cuts into the theater trade, their latest work, "Princess Ida", receives lukewarm press. In an effort to reconcile their creative differences and drawing inspiration from Japanese culture, they went on to create the hit opera "The Mikado", one of the duo's greatest successes.

82

8.6

/1538540/

86

/31998/

85

/18705/

4.3

/1132476/

78

/134/

94

/31674/

61

/36/

3.5

age 16+

A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.

64

6.3

/10579/

63

/184/

56

/123/

3.1

/2700/

81

/54/

55

/254/

62

/31/

3.0

Two escaped convicts roll into the village of Happy, Texas, where they're mistaken for a gay couple who work as beauty pageant consultants. They go along with it to duck the police, but the local sheriff has a secret of his own.

74

7.2

/37995/

69

/511/

67

/537/

3.6

/19497/

77

/60/

81

/510/

70

/33/

3.5

In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.

69

6.7

/3768/

63

/32/

64

/46/

3.4

/1171/

82

/67/

65

/58/

75

/34/

3.0

age 14+

Whenever trouble strikes in one of her relationships, single mother Mary Jo Walker and her daughter, Ava, pack up and move to another city, a routine Ava is tiring of. This time, they are helped on their move to San Diego by trucker Jack Ranson. While Ava settles in, getting a leading part in the school play, Jack starts dating Mary Jo but soon reveals himself to be controlling and aggressive. Mary Jo prepares to flee again, angering Ava.

68

6.5

/15419/

65

/306/

67

/365/

3.3

/4377/

73

/77/

72

/338/

56

/27/

3.5

Three salesmen working for a firm that makes industrial lubricants are waiting in the company's "hospitality suite" at a manufacturers' convention for a "big kahuna" named Dick Fuller to show up, in hopes they can persuade him to place an order that could salvage the company's flagging sales.

74

7.0

/7313/

70

/99/

66

/77/

3.4

/2753/

86

/50/

76

/171/

75

/31/

3.5

age 14+

This semi-autobiographical film by Barry Levinson follows various members of the Kurtzman clan, a Jewish family living in suburban Baltimore during the 1950s. As teenaged Ben completes high school, he falls for Sylvia, a black classmate, creating inevitable tensions. Meanwhile, Ben's brother, Van, attends college and becomes smitten with a mysterious woman while their father tries to maintain his burlesque business.

78

76

7.5

/12978/

73

/303/

71

/230/

4.1

/37331/

85

/47/

85

/262/

77

/22/

age 17+

James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.

74

7.0

/27345/

70

/588/

66

/318/

3.1

/16456/

78

/72/

76

/1033/

71

/31/

4.0

age 13+

Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford.

85

7.8

/20947/

76

/544/

76

/264/

4.2

/52507/

94

/51/

90

/994/

84

/29/

4.0

American Movie documents the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.

79

7.7

/9760/

74

/150/

74

/187/

3.9

/5238/

96

/46/

90

/269/

73

/22/

3.0

Set in the People's Republic of China during the 1990s, the film centers on a 13-year-old substitute teacher, Wei Minzhi, in the Chinese countryside. Called in to substitute for a village teacher for one month, Wei is told not to lose any students.

85

7.7

/367379/

76

/9490/

74

/4646/

4.1

/477749/

94

/133/

87

/11347/

90

/36/

4.0

age 16+

One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.

83

7.8

/190593/

76

/3346/

75

/1976/

4.1

/125622/

96

/135/

90

/2576/

85

/34/

3.5

age 16+

A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a 60 Minutes exposé on Big Tobacco.

76

7.6

/9725/

76

/306/

73

/90/

3.8

/9669/

82

/66/

83

/459/

73

/23/

3.0

age 16+

A heartfelt documentary focusing on the day-to-day lives of professional wrestlers, some on the rise, some on the wane, and others fighting for their lives.

77

7.8

/8846/

78

/112/

77

/65/

3.7

/3420/

84

/63/

92

/299/

60

/22/

3.0

Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.

79

74

7.7

/14437/

78

/193/

74

/221/

3.8

/6845/

89

/80/

90

/609/

71

/25/

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.

79

8.8

/2558649/

87

/60158/

84

/31221/

4.3

/4703998/

81

/185/

96

/73947/

67

/36/

2.0

age 17+

A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.

86

8.0

/107401/

78

/2053/

77

/1717/

4.2

/148955/

95

/112/

91

/1578/

86

/32/

4.0

age 13+

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

73

6.9

/37638/

65

/740/

65

/479/

3.6

/41489/

92

/86/

78

/725/

73

/32/

3.0

The Limey follows Wilson, a tough English ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine and an army of L.A.'s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened. After surviving a near-death beating, getting thrown from a building and being chased down a dangerous mountain road, the Englishman decides to dole out some bodily harm of his own.

73

7.0

/8713/

68

/79/

62

/111/

3.5

/3157/

88

/40/

71

/110/

72

/34/

3.5

Seventeen and pregnant, Felicia travels to England in search of her lover and is found instead by Joseph Ambrose Hilditch, a helpful catering manager whose kindness masks unsettling secret.

76

7.5

/102924/

73

/2428/

73

/1338/

4.0

/133421/

84

/106/

86

/2130/

68

/31/

3.0

A Black hitman who models after the samurai of old finds himself targeted for death by the mob.

78

7.1

/186491/

70

/4523/

66

/2212/

3.5

/74907/

94

/131/

77

/3831/

82

/34/

4.0

age 16+

A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gold hidden near their base, and they embark on a secret mission that's destined to change everything.

78

7.6

/106867/

76

/2105/

74

/1482/

3.7

/32681/

82

/113/

87

/1687/

74

/30/

3.5

age 16+

The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.

78

7.5

/5973/

76

/99/

73

/89/

3.7

/1347/

87

/54/

91

/126/

73

/19/

3.0

As the denizens of a Tibetan village prepare for their arduous annual trek to exchange salt for grain, the community's allegiances are split between aging chieftain Tinle (Thilen Lhondup) and rebellious young Karma (Gurgon Kyap). Tinle tries to maintain his clout and preserve obedience to ancient customs when Karma challenges the old man's power.

82

7.5

/107147/

74

/2209/

74

/1409/

3.7

/78117/

90

/83/

87

/3504/

86

/33/

4.0

age 17+

A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

70

6.5

/77278/

66

/1695/

62

/916/

3.4

/44495/

83

/110/

61

/1727/

73

/33/

3.5

age 14+

On the verge of bankruptcy and desperate for his big break, aspiring filmmaker Bobby Bowfinger concocts a crazy plan to make his ultimate dream movie. Rallying a ragtag team that includes a starry-eyed ingenue, a has-been diva and a film studio gofer, he sets out to shoot a blockbuster featuring the biggest star in Hollywood, Kit Ramsey -- only without letting Ramsey know he's in the picture.

79

8.2

/1130090/

81

/26682/

79

/12479/

4.1

/1207924/

86

/167/

90

/39164/

64

/35/

3.0

age 14+

Following an unexpected tragedy, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe meets a nine year old boy named Cole Sear, who is hiding a dark secret.

76

7.1

/5356/

68

/30/

69

/46/

3.5

/1145/

80

/45/

83

/136/

71

/28/

4.0

Francis and Blake Falls are Siamese twins who live in a neat little room in a rundown hotel. While sharing some organs, Blake is always fit and Francis is very sickly. Into their world comes a young lady, who turns their world upside down. She gets involved with Blake, and convinces the two to attend a Halloween party, where they can pass themselves off as wearing a costume. Eventually Francis becomes really ill, and they have to be separated. They then face the physical and mental strains that come from their proposed separation.

76

7.5

/416958/

73

/10192/

74

/6746/

4.0

/1135351/

76

/165/

74

/6980/

69

/34/

3.5

age 18+

After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.

69

6.5

/311976/

65

/9712/

64

/5250/

3.3

/857435/

86

/175/

57

/16475/

80

/33/

age 16+

In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.

79

54

7.4

/385/

75

/79/

69

/28/

3.9

/1574/

89

/163/

93

/13432/

A behind the scenes snapshot of the making of one of the greatest films ever made. Filled with trivia, interviews from cast and crew, and more.

77

7.6

/21919/

76

/490/

74

/362/

4.0

/32694/

92

/48/

90

/393/

81

/19/

2.0

age 10+

In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.

74

7.2

/378465/

73

/9650/

72

/6529/

3.7

/1228310/

84

/106/

79

/14725/

68

/34/

3.0

age 13+

London bookstore owner William Thacker's quiet life turns upside down when a chance encounter with famous actress Anna Scott sparks an unlikely romance challenged by their vastly different worlds.

78

7.2

/110591/

70

/2610/

68

/1147/

3.8

/193128/

92

/114/

79

/2577/

83

/33/

3.5

age 16+

Tracy Flick is running unopposed for this year’s high school student election. But Jim McAllister has a different plan. Partly to establish a more democratic election, and partly to satisfy some deep personal anger toward Tracy, Jim talks football player Paul Metzler to run for president as well.

85

7.8

/108720/

77

/1986/

76

/2003/

4.2

/247556/

98

/99/

93

/2326/

87

/34/

3.5

age 17+

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

75

7.2

/79203/

72

/1568/

69

/785/

3.7

/58581/

91

/77/

78

/1777/

74

/29/

3.0

age 18+

A supermarket clerk decides to step in for an absent drug dealer, setting off an explosive, comedic chain of events.

82

8.7

/2218798/

87

/72769/

82

/27199/

4.2

/2497747/

83

/209/

85

/1307885/

73

/36/

3.0

age 15+

Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells the story of a computer hacker who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth.

79

7.4

/14864/

72

/173/

70

/214/

3.8

/7282/

88

/43/

90

/377/

75

/31/

3.5

It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform.

73

6.8

/14270/

67

/161/

63

/190/

3.4

/5216/

86

/57/

65

/147/

71

/28/

4.0

Conflict arises in the small town of Holly Springs when an old woman's death causes a variety of reactions among family and friends.

77

7.6

/305522/

80

/12579/

73

/3258/

3.7

/344263/

82

/103/

93

/23126/

68

/31/

3.0

age 16+

A depressed white-collar worker tries hypnotherapy, only to find himself in a perpetual state of devil-may-care bliss that prompts him to start living by his own rules, and hatch a hapless attempt to embezzle money from his soul-killing employers.

76

7.2

/7262/

70

/144/

67

/108/

3.8

/7672/

90

/49/

89

/181/

72

/21/

3.0

In 1943, while the Allies are bombing Berlin and the Gestapo is purging the capital of Jews, a dangerous love affair blossoms between two women – one a Jewish member of the underground, the other an exemplar of Nazi motherhood.

70

6.8

/17619/

69

/327/

64

/212/

3.2

/7701/

85

/66/

69

/389/

67

/25/

3.0

Sir Robert Chiltern is a successful government minister, well-off and with a loving wife. All this is threatened when Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning evidence of a past misdeed. Sir Robert turns for help to his friend Lord Goring, an apparently idle philanderer and the despair of his father. Goring knows the lady of old, and, for him, takes the whole thing pretty seriously.

76

7.3

/11190/

70

/129/

64

/109/

3.5

/3174/

88

/60/

83

/259/

78

/21/

3.5

The tragic story of world-renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré, as told from the point of view of her sister, flautist Hilary du Pré-Finzi.

71

6.9

/1978/

67

/44/

62

/27/

3.5

/1311/

76

/71/

71

/43/

73

/23/