Production notes

In Pale Rider, Clint Eastwood returned to the saddle after nine years - and Western movies were riding high again. Here the star/director crafted an exciting film in the suspenseful tradition of Shane and High Noon. After corporate mining boss Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart) begins a campaign of terror to drive independent pan miners out of the area, a nameless stranger called Preacher (Eastwood) rides into the underdogs' camp. He becomes their avenger. The tycoon then hires a badge-wearing killer and his duster-shrouded deputies, men loyal to whomever pays the most. LaHood pays gold.

As The Outlaw Josey Wales, Clint Eastwood is ideal as a wary, fast-drawing loner, akin to the Man With No Name from his European Westerns. But unlike that other mythic outlaw, Josey Wales has a name - and a heart. That heart opens up as the action unfolds. After avenging his family's brutal murder, Wales is pursued by a pack of killers. He prefers to travel alone, but ragtag outcasts (including Sondra Locke and Chief Dan George) are drawn to him - and Wales can't bring himself to leave them unprotected. Time called it one of 1976's best movies.

For Norman and Ethel Thayer, this summer On Golden Pond is filled with conflict and resolution. When their daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) arrives, the family is forced to renew the bonds of love and overcome the generational friction that has existed for years. Norman (Henry Fonda) must find his way through his anger and fear of growing old, while Chelsea struggles to rebuild their relationship. Ethel's (Katharine Hepburn) consistent support of her "knight in shining armor" is inspirational in its simplicity. This is a movie to ponder and always keep in your heart.

Eddie Murphy gives the "performances" of his career playing no less than seven roles in this uproarious, Jekyll-and-Hyde comedy from Imagine Entertainment. Murphy stars as Dr. Sherman Klump, a kind, "calorically challenged" genetics professor who longs to shed his 400-pound frame in order to win the heart of beautiful Jada Pinkett. So, with one swig of his experimental fat-reducing serum, Sherman becomes "Buddy Love," a fast-talking, pumped-up, plumped down Don Juan. Can Sherman stop his buff alter ego before it's too late, or will Buddy have the last laugh?

The Net, the first of Hollywood's big cyberthrillers of the mid-1990s, was also the most successful, thanks in large part to the natural appeal of star Sandra Bullock. Still riding high from Speed and While You Were Sleeping, Bullock plays a computer expert victimized by sinister cyberforces who steal her identity for reasons unknown. It's a clever combination of high-tech paranoia and Hitchcockian references (including Jeremy Northam as a romantic stranger named Devlin, after Cary Grant in Notorious).

Neil Simon wrote this 1976 spoof in which virtually every famous fictional detective of the 1930s and 1940s congregate at the home of a mysterious fellow (Truman Capote) to try and solve the mystery of who's trying to kill them all. Simon's jokes are mostly obvious, and the film's real appeal is the clever concept matched with fine--sometimes legendary--actors. Peter Falk plays a very Bogart-like Sam Spade equivalent, James Coco is a Hercule Poirot wannabe, Peter Sellers does a Charlie Chan bit, David Niven and Maggie Smith are reflections of Nick and Nora.... You get the picture.

Boyhood dreams, a bat made from a tree struck by lightning and most importantly, a never-ending passion for the game. Nothing was going to stop Roy Hobbs from fulfilling his boyhood dream of baseball superstardom. Robert Redford stars in this inspiring fable that begins when 14-year-old Hobbs (Redford) fashions a powerful bat from a fallen oak tree. He soon impresses major league scouts with his ability, fixing his extraordinary talent in the mind of sportswriter Max Mercy (Duvall), who eventually becomes instrumental in Hobbs' career.

By George, they've got it! Newly transferred from elements painstakingly restored in 1994, the film version of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady is lavish, loverly and the acclaimed recipient of eight 1964 Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Director (Cukor). Best Actor Oscar winner Rex Harrison reprises his signature stage role of Henry Higgins, the supremely assured phoneticist who wagers that under his tutelage, Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle can pass for a duchess at the Embassy Ball. In one of her best-loved roles, Audrey Hepburn plays Eliza.

Michael Collins, the man and the movie stands tall. The man is a hero whose fighting tactics became a model for other 20th-century struggles, a statesman who negotiated Ireland's break with England, a political martyr slain for the great cause he lived and breathed. Michael Collins roils with the passions of war furiously waged and peace desperately sought. A movie you won't soon forget.

Randy Newman's opening song, "A Fool in Love," perfectly sets up the movie that follows. The lyrics begin, "Show me a man who is gentle and kind, and I'll show you a loser," before praising the man who takes what he wants. Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is the fool in love in Meet the Parents. Just as he's about to propose to his girlfriend Pam (Teri Polo), he learns that her sister's fiancÈ asked their father, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro), for permission to marry. Now he feels the need to do the same thing.