Badlands
Terrence Malick 1973 US (2nd time)
A garbage worker and fifteen-year-old magazine addict fall in love and go on a killing spree across the Dakota plains.
Strangely beautiful tale, haunting and lingering in its visual sumptuousness and deadpan handling of violence; a comment on social alienation, the difference between the wild and society, and the myth placed around cool, rebellious figures with seemingly something to say, though they communicate by aimless killing.

Saving Private Ryan
Steven Spielberg 1998 US (Nth time)
Eight soldiers are sent behind enemy lines to rescue a private whose brothers have been killed in combat.
A bravura example of the director's talent and exuberance; the washed-out greens and browns, one minute soaked with rain, the next dry with rubble, and the rumbling sounds of a not-so-distant war are terrifically brought together. The opening and closing scenes in the graveyard may hurt it, but it is no less a masterpiece.

Schindler’s List
Steven Spielberg 1993 US (2nd time)
In WW II, an Austrian businessman saves 1,100 Jews from Nazi concentration camps.
The black and white cinematography masks the differences between the goodies and the baddies here, a complex film about an ultimately righteous man doing good after initial prosperity at labourers' expenses. It is at its best when Neeson and Fiennes, two powerhouse characters with differences of opinion despite being on the same side, fill the screen together. An important, remarkable film, superbly handled and controlled.