Author: Sean Burns

Larry Cohen’s 1976 cult favorite is a cuckoo-bananas mash-up of cop movie, supernatural thriller, and religious meditation.

This 1979 comedy-drama is a real oddity: a film about a woman from a writer known for his stories about men, from a director known primarily as a screenwriter, with a serious supporting turn from one of the era’s biggest comedy stars.

Oliver Stone’s early, angry chronicle of a war correspondent under fire boasts a ferocious energy and an electrifying performance by James Woods.

Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 adaptation of Miles Franklin’s novel provided early breakthrough roles for both Judy Davis and the late, great Sam Neill.

The 1987 screwball comedy is a Swiss watch of comic precision.

Raoul Walsh’s chronicle of the Prohibition era is a thrilling American epic in miniature.

Robert Zemeckis’s 1980 flop really is the kind of comedy they don’t make any more — because no one is redeemed, and no lessons are learned.

The New Orleans-set erotic thriller still sizzles with the scorching chemistry of stars Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin.

John Sturges’s masterful mash-up of Western, film noir, and social commentary is a lean, mean, 81-minute masterclass in Hollywood craft.

John Schlesinger’s 1985 spy thriller boasts fine performances from Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn, and a refreshingly cynical view of the American intelligence apparatus.

Marlon Brando’s sole directorial effort remains a fascinating and occasionally confounding conflation of the old and the (then-) new.