Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

Golightly. Sure, it's dated, but Hepburn's luminous performance, the chic New York settings
and Mancini's swooning score can't fail to cast a spell.
Breaking Away
(Peter Yates, 1979)
Likely a favourite in the Lance Armstrong household, Peter Yates' winning smalltown drama
about a bicycle-racing freak was a surprise sleeper nominee at the 1980 Oscars. Its success
derives from the beautiful interaction between its four bored Midwestern high school grads,
including Dennis Quaid and Jackie Earle Haley.
Breaking the Waves
(Lars von Trier, 1996)
A modern-day melodrama that functions like an emotional mangle, with Emily Watson's
committed acting and von Trier's sadistically tragic story dragging the audience through an
unforgettably harrowing experience. Watson's devout newlywed sacrifices herself for the sake
of her paralysed husband in the belief that God will understand. Her close-knit community
certainly doesn't.
Breathless
(Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
The quintessential Nouvelle Vague romantic thriller following the final days of a car thief who
kills a cop, then hides out with a young American journalist in Paris. Godard's frenetic jumpcuts
and hand-held cameras revolutionised cinema, but Belmondo's provocative antics and
Seberg's final betrayal are what make the film unforgettable.
Brick
(Rian Johnson, 2005)
A teenager plays gumshoe after his girlfriend goes missing amid the complex universe of
cruel one-upmanship, power plays, and exaggerated passions also known as the American
high school. It's the perfect setting for Rian Johnson's delicious detective yarn, which
reinvents the noir film and comes with its own native slang.
Bride of Frankenstein
(James Whale, 1935)
The Monster has mellowed, learned to speak, and is ready for love in James Whale's funny
frightener, which is itself an exotic invention: a sequel that lives up to the original. And it
knows how to keep us wanting more: the titular Bride only gets a few indelible minutes of
screen time.
The Bridge On the River Kwai
(David Lean, 1957)
Forget the bloated and soulless exercises in logistics-management that are Lawrence of
Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. This is Lean's great movie: an action-movie epic, but one
centered around a richly conceived clash of values and codes of honour, which animate Alec
Guinness's British colonel and Sessue Hayakawa's Japanese POW camp commandant.
Brief Encounter
(David Lean, 1945)
Tumultuous passions are kept in check by British reserve as Trevor Howard and Celia
Johnston conduct a properly improper affair against a backdrop of tea rooms and train
schedules. The restraint is almost comical by today's standards, but beneath the chaste
facade, Lean gets to the heart of the matter with an admirable lack of fuss.
A Brighter Summer Day
(Edward Yang, 1991)
Conceived on an awesome scale, this three-hour-plus epic about 60s Taiwanese street gangs
is nothing less than a complete summing up of an entire nation in a single film. Meticulously