Oscar Winner: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

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Oscar Winner

Citizen Kane

Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles's 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26, still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions, and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist.

Chariots Of Fire

England's finest athletes have begun their quest for glory in the 1924 Olympic Games. Success brings honor to their nation. For two runners, the honor at stake is a personal honor... and their challenge one from within. Winner of four 1981 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Chariots Of Fire is the inspiring true story of Harold Abrahams, Eric Liddell and the team that brought Britain one of its greatest sports victories.

Chinatown

Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency--and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J.J. Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mold, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery.

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

One of the most popular screen Westerns ever made, this Academy Award-winning classic blends adventure, romance and comedy to tell the true story of the West's most likeable outlaws. No one is quicker than Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) when it comes to get-rich-quick schemes, and his sidekick Sundance (Robert Redford) is a wizard with a gun. When these two bungling train robbers tire of running from the law, they set out for Bolivia with Sundance's girlfriend (Katharine Ross).

Breaking Away

When top-notch cyclist Dave (Dennis Christopher) learns that the world's bicycling champions are always Italian, he attempts to turn himself into an Italian, driving his parents (Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley) crazy. But everything changes after he meets the Italian racing team-an encounter that ultimately leads him and his friends (Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley) to challenge the local college boys in the town's annual bike race.

Bonnie And Clyde

Adrift in the Depression-era Southwest, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker embark on a life of crime. They mean no harm. They crave adventure - and each other. Soon we start to love them too. But nothing in film history has prepared us for the cascading violence to follow. Bonnie And Clyde turns brutal. We learn that they can be hurt - and dread they can be killed. Bonnie And Clyde balances itself on a knife-edge of laughter and terror, thanks to vivid title-role performances by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway and superb support from Michael J.

Annie Hall

Annie Hall is one of the truest, most bittersweet romances on film. In it, Allen plays a thinly disguised version of himself: Alvy Singer, a successful--if neurotic--television comedian living in Manhattan. Annie (the wholesomely luminous Dianne Keaton) is a Midwestern transplant who dabbles in photography and sings in small clubs. When the two meet, the sparks are immediate--if repressed. Alone in her apartment for the first time, Alvy and Annie navigate a minefield of self-conscious "is-this-person-someone-I'd-want-to-get-involved-with?" conversation.

Almost Famous

Audiences and critics alike are raving about this larger-than-life rock 'n' roll favorite that Roger Ebert calls "one of the best movies of the year!" The guys of Stillwater have the sound, they have the look, and Rolling Stone magazine wants their story. For young reporter William Miller, it's the opportunity of a lifetime as he hits the road with his favorite band and discovers the price of fame, the value of family and the limits of friendship.

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