The 25 Best Little Gems

An amazing intimate psychological drama that weaves and reiterates a full panorama of emotional, introspective, and even existential sensations. This movie is about the tragedy wrought by a young, highly intelligent but naive girl and how she attempts to discover redemption, even as the discovery of another world almost identical to earth is announced.

A haunting mystery of the unknown fate of three girls in the turn of the century Australian outback. This movie is full of period ambiance and luscious photography along with memorable soundtrack. A cult classic. Directed by Peter Weir.

One of the most captivating, haunting, eerie movies made starring Pierce Brosnan in one of his finest performances as an anthropologist and the female doctor who has a strange connection to him in her attempts to discover the mystery of this man's demise in the City of Angels (LA).

William Petersen (of CSI fame) provides the best detective, techno-thriller movie made. The original Red Dragon (2002) version.

There are few movies that can boast of exploding on the big screen with as gigantic, emotional, riveting, and value-laden inspiring themes and performances. But The Railway Man takes off from Colin Firth's earlier performance in The King's Speech (2010) with this sensitive and heart-wrenching portrayal in this movie. This more intimate and focused post-war drama is a worthy successor to the bigger scaled, epic version of Saving Private Ryan (1998). It offers up a raw glimpse into the damaging and shocking impact of war, especially on those victims of the Japanese incursion during World War II. This movie is full of innocent romance, war brutality, revenge, and redemption. The A-listed stars including Nicole Kidman become the real characters as the story and their performances break through on the screen to transport the audience on a dramatic and horrifying personal nightmare for both partners. This brilliant film deserved a much wider world recognition than it received. An amazing real life human interest story.

The best sci fi media event yet. This "one season" ABC sci fi television series is a fusion of brilliant sci fi and family drama at its best. Set on a spaceship exploring the solar system, Ron Livingston is given a role of a lifetime as each episode packs a powerful, human interest story with a sci fi backdrop. Along with his sage voice over and with great cinematography, this series offers one of the most meaningful and emotional authentic storylines presented with an honesty that truly captures the essence of filmmaking.

One of the most penetrating presentations of war (World War I) through extended use of actual film footage and live action dramatization. Except for a lack of follow-up to the characters, America’s involvement, and understanding of the war’s relatively quick ending, this series presents the intimate experiences of sex and brutality on and around the fields of battle and the home front.

The experience of a naive, fluent-Japanese speaking Belgian and as a young female gets a massive dose of the Japanese indoctrination working at a huge import-expert corporation. She undergoes the experiential collision between western and eastern cultures. A fascinating, humbling experience that raised the bar from Lost in Translation that came out the same year.

Aptly named, this fascinating, compelling look at the evolution of the humanistic development of artificial intelligence in this sci fi mystery thriller follows in the footsteps of Splice (2010) and pushes the human/techno envelope even further with superb results.

A superb focused and singular performance by Gillian Anderson of X-files fame in this historical drama period piece that reveals the rigid gender roles of high class society of 1907 New York and how one woman experienced the difficult nuanced socially complex expectations of the times.

Scarlett Johansson stars as a recent bachelor graduate in business with a minor in anthropology and voice overs her experience as a nanny in what is one of the best general audience movies that exposes the darker and richer themes of family drama. Even though marketed as a family comedy, this creative movie really is a compelling look at family dynamics with a believable ending.

A Science Fiction Channel Mini-Series from Lionsgate, starring Peter Krause as a police detective in search of his daughter who becomes lost in an room in an alternative reality and he must search for and encounter various individuals with ordinary objects with strange powers. This is an intense character-driven as well as other-worldly driven script that perfectly captures the strangeness and diverse humanity of good and evil.

The best and perhaps most faithful Dracula movie made, starring Louis Jourdan as Count Dracula. A fabulous period piece that perfectly captures Bram Stoker's atmospherics of the time.

Adam Sandler's offers one of his best performances with a great script that has Sandler playing a seriously ill stand-up comic and hires an assistant (Seth Rogan) in this black comedy that that has elements from PUNCHLINE (1988), PHILADELPHIA (1993), THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995), and LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003) and helping to make this one of the best movies of 2009.

A brilliant recreation of a mountain climbing event that went wrong. Some of the most breathtaking and calamitous shots filmed in documentary-like realism, with fantastic continuity and superb sound and music.

This animated short about a clone from the future who contacts her original in the present offers up a simple animation that enhances a solid, emotive, and very appealing story about a cynical fantastic future and using the hopeful present. Oscar nominee.

Woody Allen’s serio-comic, period, romance movie is superb in its photography, directing, and cerebrally witty dialogue and plot. This un-Woody movie demonstrates the wide range that Allen has developed in his ability to present to the audience an intelligent, engaging, and somewhat mysterious romance film.

A remarkable and edgy grown up version of Harry Potter magic that deliberately defies traditional storyline plots incorporating many insidious twists.

One of the best experiential, authentic love stories with a powerful soundtrack without direct action or dramatic thrills that are instead replaced with a more geniune, heartfelt reality of falling in love and addressing the love of the past. 1967 Best Foreign Film Oscar. Anouk Aimee nominated for Best Actress (won Golden Globe) and Director Claude LeLouch for Best Director (and Golden Globe).

A little known sci fi movie of great compelling, intimate reach with a tremendous soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and low-budget sequences that actually present a more captivating authenticity to the movie experience. Andromeda Strain (1971) with a heart and wonder.

Brendan Fraser, Forest Whitaker, Sarah Michelle Geller, Kevin Bacon, and Andy Garcia star in this powerful, dark short drama (90 minutes) about a mobster (Andy Garcia) and his muscleman (Fraser), a banker (Whitaker), a pop star, and a doctor (Kevin Bacon) whose lives partially intersect in both tragedy and hope.

Golden Globe nominee, Jennifer Anniston stars in a bold and impressive performance about a woman suffering from enormous physical pain after a car accident that kills her daughter and suffers through the guilt of a friend’s suicide. Directed with amazing and sustained authenticity.

Partly known as Natalie Wood's last movie (she died tragically during late production) and also as one of the most fascinating examination into virtual reality sci fi movie classic even at this early date. An amazing cinematic experience with a public audience flair (mass movie appeal) and decent storyline about life after death.

Great singing presentation from Jennifer Love Hewitt in this powerful romantic drama that while ordinary for the most part, has a storyline well presented that rends the heart and introduces its audience to one of the most compelling moments of love.

Abrigail Breslin stars in this spooky, horror ghost story who relives her life 24 hours at a time, trapped in a recycled nightmare with a quality minimalist use of special effects rising above the genre with its superior storyline. [Reviewed 1/16/2017]. 9/10.