Stories by @rwhite18

The Heiress (1999)

Catherine, a young woman who stands to inherit her father's large fortune, falls in love when she meets Morris (Montgomery Clift), who gives her the love and affection her father doesn't, and which she desperately needs. Catherine's father (Ralph Richardson), believing Morris is only after the money, tells Catherine she will be disinherited if she marries him. Morris' true intentions are put to the test when he finds out about the amended will.

Election (1979)

Perky, overachieving high schooler Tracy Flick gets on the nerves of social-studies teacher Jim McAllister to begin with, but after she launches her campaign for student-body president and his personal life starts to fall apart, things spiral out of control. In Alexander Payne’s satire Election, the teacher becomes unhealthily obsessed with cutting his student down to size, covertly backing a spoiler candidate to stop her from steamrolling to victory, and putting in motion a series of dirty tricks and reckless promises with uncanny real-world political parallels. Adapting a then-unpublished novel by Tom Perrotta, Payne grounds the absurdity of his central dynamic in the recognizable—the setting is his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, and the accomplished cast is rounded out with nonprofessionals—and distills his closely observed take on deeply flawed humanity to its bitter but stealthily sympathetic essence.

Night and the City (2010)

Londoner Harry Fabian is a second-rate con man looking for an angle. After years of putting up with Harry's schemes, his girlfriend, Mary, becomes fed up when he taps her for yet another loan. His latest ploy, promoting an aging Greek wrestler, goes awry when the wrestler dies and everyone points the finger at Harry. Hiding out in a riverfront barge, Harry sees his grand ambitions spiral into a nightmare of fear and desperation as the underworld closes in.

Pickup on South Street (2023)

On a crowded subway, Skip McCoy picks the purse of Candy. Among his take, although he does not know it at the time, is a piece of top-secret microfilm that was being passed by Candy's consort, a Communist agent. Candy discovers the whereabouts of the film through Moe Williams, a police informer. She attempts to seduce McCoy to recover the film. She fails to get back the film and falls in love with him. The desperate agent exterminates Moe and savagely beats Candy. McCoy, now goaded into action, confronts the agent in a particularly brutal fight in a subway.

Foreign Correspondent (2020)

Crime reporter John Jones is turning in nothing but dull copy. His editor, unhappy with his work, hopes a change of scenery will be the thing Jones needs to get back on track. Re-assigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent, Jones is very much out of his element. When he stumbles on a spy ring, he feels ill-equipped to unravel the truth alone and he seeks help from a beautiful politician's daughter and an urbane English journalist.

Christopher Nolan's Rebecca

A young newlywed arrives at her husband's imposing family estate on a windswept English coast and finds herself battling the shadow of his first wife, Rebecca, whose legacy lives on in the house long after her death.

To Kill a Mockingbird (2002)

Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.

Paul Thomas Anderson's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

In this classic adventure film, two rough-and-tumble wanderers, Dobbs and Curtin, meet up with a veteran prospector, Howard, in Mexico and head into the Sierra Madre mountains to find gold. Although they discover treasure, they also find plenty of trouble, not only from ruthless bandits lurking in the dangerous Mexican wilderness but from their own insecurities and greed, which threaten to bring conflict at any moment.

Paul Thomas Anderson's The Wizard of Oz

Young Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto are swept away by a tornado from their Kansas farm to the magical Land of Oz, and embark on a quest with three new friends to see the Wizard, who can return her to her home and fulfill the others' wishes.

Paul Thomas Anderson's Singin' in the Rain

When the transition is being made from silent films to `talkies', everyone has trouble adapting. Don and Lina have been cast repeatedly as a romantic couple, but when their latest film is remade into a musical, only Don has the voice for the new singing part. After a lot of practise with a diction coach, Lina still sounds terrible, and Kathy, a bright young aspiring actress, is hired to record over her voice.

Paul Thomas Anderson's Gaslight

After the death of her famous opera-singing aunt, Paula is sent to study in Italy to become a great opera singer as well. While there, she falls in love with the charming Gregory Anton. The two return to London, and Paula begins to notice strange goings-on: missing pictures, strange footsteps in the night and gaslights that dim without being touched. As she fights to retain her sanity, her new husband's intentions come into question.

Paul Thomas Anderson's The Earrings of Madame de...

This film follows a pair of earrings as they change hands during a series of betrayals and romances. A French general presents his wife with the pricey jewelry, but she is forced to sell the earrings after she runs into financial trouble. When the general sees them in a shop, he secretly purchases them back for a woman he is having an affair with. Then, after a gambling loss, she pawns them, and an Italian aristocrat buys them for a special Frenchwoman.

Paul Thomas Anderson's The Big Sleep

Private investigator Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired by General Sternwood to help resolve the gambling debts of his wild young daughter, Carmen (Martha Vickers). Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian , provides assistance when she implies that the situation is more complex, and also involves casino owner (John Ridgely) and a recently disappeared family friend. As people linked to the Sternwoods start being murdered, Marlowe finds himself getting ever deeper into the case.

It's a Wonderful Life (2026)

George Bailey has so many problems he is thinking about ending it all - and it's Christmas! As the angels discuss George, we see his life in flashback. As George is about to jump from a bridge, he ends up rescuing his guardian angel, Clarence - who then shows George what his town would have looked like if it hadn't been for all his good deeds over the years.

The Snake Pit (2018)

A detailed chronicle of a woman during her stay in a mental institution. A detailed chronicle of a woman during her stay in a mental institution.

8½ (2003)

Troubled Italian filmmaker Guido Anselmi struggles with creative stasis as he attempts to get a new movie off the ground. Overwhelmed by his work and personal life, the director retreats into his thoughts, which often focus on his loves, both past and present, and frequently wander into fantastical territory. As he tries to sort out his many entanglements, romantic and otherwise, Anselmi finds his production becoming more and more autobiographical.

La Dolce Vita (2010)

In Federico Fellini's lauded Italian film, restless reporter Marcello Rubini drifts through life in Rome. While Marcello contends with the overdose taken by his girlfriend, Emma, he also pursues heiress Maddalena and movie star Sylvia, embracing a carefree approach to living. Despite his hedonistic attitude, Marcello does have moments of quiet reflection, resulting in an intriguing cinematic character study.

Sophie's Choice (2022)

Stingo, a young writer, moves to Brooklyn in 1947 to begin work on his first novel. As he becomes friendly with Sophie and her lover Nathan, he learns that Sophie is a Holocaust survivor. Flashbacks reveal her harrowing story, from pre-war prosperity to Auschwitz. In the present, Sophie and Nathan's relationship increasingly unravels as Stingo grows closer to Sophie and Nathan's fragile mental state becomes ever more apparent.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1955)

When Randle Patrick McMurphy gets transferred for evaluation from a prison farm to a mental institution, he assumes it will be a less restrictive environment. But the martinet Nurse Ratched runs the psychiatric ward with an iron fist, keeping her patients cowed through abuse, medication and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. The battle of wills between the rebellious McMurphy and the inflexible Ratched soon affects all the ward's patients.

On the Waterfront (1964)

Terry Malloy dreams about being a prize fighter, while tending his pigeons and running errands at the docks for Johnny Friendly, the corrupt boss of the dockers union. Terry witnesses a murder by two of Johnny's thugs, and later meets the dead man's sister and feels responsible for his death. She introduces him to Father Barry, who tries to force him to provide information for the courts that will smash the dock racketeers.