Munich in 35mm

Yul Brynner plays a gunslinger leading a septet of strangers to defend a Mexican village against marauders in director John Sturges’ classic Western remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai—a remake that itself inspired three sequels, a TV series, and its own 2016 remake. Brynner’s fellow gunslingers include then-rising stars Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn. Elmer Bernstein received his second Oscar nomination for his rousing score, whose classic main theme became arguably his most popular and widely recognized melody.

The legendary detective Hercule Poirot (an unrecognizable Albert Finney, in an Oscar-nominated performance) finds himself faced with a train full of all-star suspects (including Sean Connery, Anthony Perkins and Vanessa Redgrave) when a notorious gangster (Richard Widmark) is murdered on the Orient Express. Director Sidney Lumet took an unexpected departure from his usual gritty stories of contemporary urban life with this lavish film version of Agatha Christie’s 1934 whodunit. Ingrid Bergman won her third Oscar for her droll supporting performance as an unassuming suspect, and the film’s six nominations included one for composer Richard Rodney Bennett; the three-time nominee contributed an elegant score highlighted by a charming waltz theme for the train itself.

The memoir of Danish author Karen Blixen (published under her pen name Isak Dinesen) was adapted by director Sydney Pollack and screenwriter Kurt Leudtke for this lavish romantic drama, focusing on the years Blixen (Best Actress nominee Meryl Streep) spent running a coffee farm in Nairobi and her relationship with hunter Denys Finch-Hatton (Robert Redford). Out of Africa was nominated for 11 Oscars and won seven including Best Picture, Directing (both for Pollack), Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Cinematography and Sound, with John Barry winning his fourth Oscar for an achingly romantic score.

Terrence Malick adapted James Jones’s 1962 novel, inspired by the author’s experiences serving in World War II’s Guadalcanal campaign, for his first film since his 1978 classic Days of Heaven. Malick assembled an all-star cast (including George Clooney, Nick Nolte and John Travolta) for his unusually contemplative war epic, which received seven Oscar nominations including Directing, Adapted Screenplay (both for Malick) and Best Picture. Nominated composer Hans Zimmer spent nine months working on his evocative score, which he termed the most challenging assignment of his career.

Natalie Portman was nominated for her uncanny performance as Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in this unusual biopic directed by Pablo Larraín (Maria, 2024). The screenplay by Noah Oppenheim is structured around an interview by a magazine journalist (Billy Crudup) and focuses on key events in the First Lady’s life, especially the assassination of her husband. The film was also nominated for Madeline Fontaine’s authentic costume designs and the unsettling score by Mica Levi (Under the Skin, 2013), which used flutes and strings to evoke its heroine’s combination of vulnerability and resilience.

Four veterans return to the jungles of Vietnam in hopes of recovering a buried fortune in director/co-writer Spike Lee’s epic adventure drama, which pays homage to the classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (a favorite of the filmmaker’s) while exploring the rarely told experiences of Black soldiers in the Vietnam War. The top-notch cast includes Sinners supporting actor nominee Delroy Lindo as a proud Trump supporter; two stars of TV’s The Wire, Clarke Peters and Isiah Whitlock, Jr.; and Chadwick Boseman in one of his final performances. The film’s one Oscar nomination was earned by seven-time Grammy winner Terence Blanchard, a regular collaborator of Lee’s, whose bold orchestral score sits comfortably alongside the vintage Marvin Gaye songs that fill the film’s soundtrack.