C. Thomas Howell

They grew up on the outside of society. They weren't looking for a fight. They were looking to belong. In 1960's Tulsa, teenagers come two ways. If you're a "soc," you've got money, cars, a future. But if you're a "greaser," you're an outsider with only your friends...and a dream that someday you'll finally belong. Francis Coppola's powerful film of S.E. Hinton's classic novel captures how it feels to be caught between childhood's innocence and adulthood's disillusionment. The ensemble is a Who's Who of young talents of the past two decades: Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, C.

Three days in the summer of 1863, at a place called Gettysburg. Based on Michael Shaara's book The Killer Angels, this film takes a refreshingly slow, thorough approach to the intricacies of battle. In ordinary circumstances, those intricacies might seem of importance only to fans of military strategy or Civil War enthusiasts, yet in Gettysburg they come across as the very stuff of life, death, and unexpected heroism.

The more you know about the Civil War, the more you'll appreciate Gods and Generals and the painstaking attention to detail that Gettysburg writer-director Ronald F. Maxwell has invested in this academically respectable 220-minute historical pageant. In adapting Jeffrey Shaara's 1996 novel (encompassing events of 1861-63, specifically the Virginian battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville), Maxwell sacrifices depth for scope while focusing on the devoutly religious "Stonewall" Jackson (Stephen Lang), whose Confederate campaigns endear him to Gen. Robert E.