Seven

You only con the ones you love.
When a veteran grifter loses ten grand of the boss' money on a bad horse tip, his talented young protégé devises a risky scheme to get the money back… Film Noir with a yuletide twist, Seven Times Lucky spins a twisting yarn in which three generations of crooks vie for a coveted prize on Christmas Eve.

One of the brightest nuggets from Disney's golden age, this 1937 film is almost dizzying in its meticulous construction of an enchanted world, with scores of major and minor characters (including fauna and fowl), each with a distinct identity. When you watch Snow White's intricate, graceful movements of fingers, arms, and head all in one shot, it is not the technical brilliance of Disney's artists that leaps out at you, but the very spirit of her engaging, girl-woman character. When the wicked queen's poisoned apple turns from killer green to rose red, the effect of knowing something so beautiful can be so terrible is absolutely elemental, so pure it forces one to surrender to the horror of it. Based on the Grimm fairy tale, Snow White is probably the best family film ever to deal, in mythic terms, with the psychological foundation for growing up. It's a crowning achievement and should not be missed.

Galia, a young woman from Jerusalem, and her boyfriend Oren board a local bus. The bus explodes, leaving Oren in a coma and Galia with severe burns and memory loss; she lacks memory of the day of the terrorist attack and the days leading up to it. The film begins one year after the attack, upon Oren's death. As Galia undergoes physical and mental therapy, she attempts to stitch together the shattered fragments of her life and soul. A necklace sent to her from an unidentified source sets her off on a journey to find the missing pieces of the puzzle from that fateful day.

Description: A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves.Unanimously hailed as one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of the motion picture, Seven Samurai has inspired countless films modeled after its basic premise. But Akira Kurosawa's classic 1954 action drama has never been surpassed in terms of sheer power of emotion, kinetic energy, and dynamic character development. The story is set in the 1600s, when the residents of a small Japanese village are seeking protection against repeated attacks by a band of marauding thieves. Offering mere handfuls of rice as payment, they hire seven unemployed "ronin" (masterless samurai), including a boastful swordsman (Toshiro Mifune) who is actually a farmer's son desperately seeking glory and acceptance. The samurai get acquainted with but remain distant from the villagers, knowing that their assignment may prove to be fatal. The climactic battle with the raiding thieves remains one of the most breathtaking sequences ever filmed. It's poetry in hyperactive motion and one of Kurosawa's crowning cinematic achievements. This is not a film that can be well served by any synopsis; it must be seen to be appreciated (accept nothing less than its complete 207 -minute version) and belongs on the short list of any definitive home-video library.