King and Country

One of a cluster of late-1970s films about the Vietnam War, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now adapts the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness to depict the war as a descent into primal madness. Capt.…Read More

Based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel by Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago covers the years prior to, during, and after the Russian Revolution, as seen through the eyes of poet/physician Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif).…Read More

Oliver Stone's breakthrough as a director, Platoon is a brutally realistic look at a young soldier's tour of duty in Vietnam. Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a college student who quits school to volunteer for the Army in the late '60s.…Read More

Adapted from a novel by Jacques Prevert, Port of Shadows (Quai des brumes) stars that eternal victim of society, Jean Gabin. Having deserted the French army, Gabin ducks into a back alley and meets the lovely Michelle Morgan. He becomes her champion by taking on her evil "protectors" (Michel Simon, Pierre Brasseur), but loses his last bid for freedom--and his life--in the process. Irredeemably gloomy, Port of Shadows was a primary influence in the "film…Read More