#1. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

Storyline: Set in winter in the Old West. Charismatic but dumb John McCabe arrives in a young Pacific Northwest town to set up a whorehouse/tavern. The shrewd Mrs. Miller, a professional madam, arrives soon after construction begins. She offers to use her experience to help McCabe run his business, while sharing in the profits. The whorehouse thrives and McCabe and Mrs. Miller draw closer, despite their conflicting intelligences and philosophies. Soon, however, the mining deposits in the town attract the attention of a major corporation, which wants to buy out McCabe along with the rest. He refuses, and his decision has major repercussions for him, Mrs. Miller, and the town.

Plot Keywords: gambler, prostitute, businessman, bounty hunter, profound, moving, dreamy ...

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#2. Housekeeping (1987)

Storyline: In the Pacific Northwest in 1955, two young sisters, abandoned by their mother, wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.—Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com>; edited by Peter Victor

Plot Keywords: sister, aunt, niece, orphan, woman, neighbor, madcap ...

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#4. Tugboat Annie (1933)

Storyline: Waterfront couple raise their son to be a sea captain. He grows up to be rather snotty and rebels against drunken Beery. Valiant Dressler keeps things moving even as hubby ruins their tugboat business. Dressler dotes on his son and his snooty girlfriend.—Ed Lorusso

Plot Keywords: ship captain, drunk, son, fiancée, boss, mother, rousing ...

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#5. Brother Bear (2003)

Storyline: Kenai, a man who resents bears after a fight with one kills his older brother, is turned into a bear so he can see life from a different perspective. He is visited by the spirit of his older brother, and is told that, if he wishes to be changed back into a human, he must travel to the place where the lights touch the Earth, in other words, the Northern Lights. Fueled by hope, Kenai sets off on his long journey, and, along the way, encounters a younger bear, Koda, who is a chatterbox and a fun-loving spirit; Koda is trying to find his way back to his home, the Salmon Run, which, coincidentally, is right next to where the lights touch the Earth. Koda and Kenai team up, but are hunted by Kenai's other brother, Denahi, who fears that the bear has killed Kenai as well. Along the way, the two bears meet other friends, including two moose, some rams, and some mammoths, with whom they hitch a ride. However, Kenai discovers that he likes being a bear, and realizes that humans aren't only ...

Plot Keywords: native american, brother, bear, village elder, playful, moving, tense ...

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#6. Shoot to Kill (1988)

Storyline: Sidney Poitier returned to the big screen in this action-thriller, after a decade-long absence. When a cunning murderer vanishes into the rugged mountains of the Pacific Northwest, pursuing FBI agent Warren Stantin (Poitier) must exchange familiar city streets for unknown wilderness trails. Completely out of his element, Stantin is forced to enlist the aid of expert tracker Jonathan Knox (PLATOON'S Tom Berenger). The killer has infiltrated a guided hiking trip led by Knox's girlfriend Sarah (Kirstie Alley, at the height of her Cheers fame). Viewers don't know which of the hikers is the killer, and the tension lasts well into the movie.

Plot Keywords: fbi agent, thief, guide, fiancée, jewel thief, boyfriend, confident ...

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#7. Missing Link (2019)

Storyline: The charismatic Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) considers himself to be the world's foremost investigator of myths and monsters. The trouble is none of his small-minded high-society peers seems to recognize this. Sir Lionel's last chance for acceptance by the adventuring elite rests on traveling to America's Pacific Northwest to prove the existence of a legendary creature. A living remnant of Man's primitive ancestry. The Missing Link (Zach Galifianakis).—LAIKA

Plot Keywords: explorer, yeti, adventurer, rival, wealthy man, madcap, amusing ...

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#8. Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

Storyline: It's 1950 on San Pedro Island in the American Pacific Northwest. Commercial fisher Carl Heine Jr.'s dead body is pulled out of the water in a fishing net by his crew, he who died of head trauma. Kazuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. Carl and Kazuo were once friends, had known each other since childhood, but WWII has placed a strain on any sort of relationship between the ethic Japanese and Caucasian populations of the area, the Japanese population which was and is still substantial on the island. Carl had motive regarding a land dispute between the two families, land which Carl's mother eventually sold from under the Miyamotos and which Carl had just repurchased. Evidence also points to Kazuo being on the water with Carl probably sometime during his last voyage, evidence which Kazuo knew would put him in a bad light, adding on top of being Japanese, and thus decided not to disclose to the investigating sheriff at the time he was questioned. Kazuo and his wife Hatsue's fear come ...

Plot Keywords: japanese-american, fisherman, newspaper reporter, wife, love interest, judge, somber ...

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#9. Singles (1992)

Storyline: Romantic comedy about six of Seattle's young people, most of whom live in the same apartment building and whose lives revolve around the city's ever-expanding music scene. The inter-related stories about each character's progress through the singles scene are intriguing and often very funny, and the soundtrack is a grunge fanatic's dream, with the likes of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Mudhoney.

Plot Keywords: friend, young woman, young man, musician, waitress, environmentalist, charming ...

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#10. Pete's Dragon (2016)

Storyline: Pete, a boy, is found in a forest. Apparently he's been living there for six years after an accident took the lives of his parents. A ranger named Grace decides to take him in and when she asks him how he survived all by himself, he says he had a friend, Elliot, with him. He draws a picture of Elliot and it's a picture of a dragon. Grace takes the picture to her father who claims that years ago, he encountered a dragon in the forest. Grace takes Pete back to the forest and he shows them where he lives and Elliot. A man sees Elliot and when he tells about his experience and is not believed, he sets out to prove it by capturing the dragon.

Plot Keywords: woodworker, orphan, daughter, young girl, police officer, charming, cool ...

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#11. River of No Return (1954)

Storyline: Matt Calder, who lives on a remote farm with his young son Mark, helps two unexpected visitors who lose control of their raft on the nearby river. Harry Weston is a gambler by profession and he is racing to the nearest town to register a mining claim he has won in a poker game. His attractive wife Kay, a former saloon hall girl, is with him. When Calder refuses to let Weston have his only rifle and horse, he simply takes them leaving his wife behind. Unable to defend themselves against a likely Indian attack, Calder, his son and Kay Weston begin the treacherous journey down the river on the raft Weston left behind.—garykmcd

Plot Keywords: farmer, son, singer, boyfriend, miner, ex-convict, thrilling ...

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#12. Courage of Lassie (1946)

Storyline: Bill (Pal) gets separated from his litter, making friends with the wild creatures until he's found and adopted by young Kathie Merrick (Dame Elizabeth Taylor). An accident separates him from her, and he's drafted into K-9 duty in the trenches until battle fatigue takes its toll and he turns vicious. And even though he finds his way back home, he may be condemned as a killer.—Kathy Li

Plot Keywords: dog, teen girl, lawyer, dog trainer, hero, soldier, uplifting ...

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#13. Surviving the Game (1994)

Storyline: Jack Mason (Ice-T), who lives on the streets, wants to cease his life when on the same day his two best friends die: his dog and an older man with whom he shared his food and roof. Just in time, Walter Cole (Charles S. Dutton), from a charity organization, can prevent his suicide and also offers him a quite well-paid job as servant for a hunting party in the Rocky Mountains. Mason accepts the job and flies with them to a hut in the wilderness where they prepare everything for the four rich businessmen who want to hunt something special. Mason does not yet know that he is the victim of their sport that should lead to the basic insticts of man, but they did not count on his cleverness.—Volker Boehm

Plot Keywords: homeless person, psychiatrist, oil baron, investor, cia agent, brutal, suspenseful ...

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#14. The Hunted (2003)

Storyline: After a spate of grisly murders performed in an almost ritualistic way, the experienced survival expert and former military instructor, L.T. Bonham, is summoned to track down the elusive and shockingly familiar killer: one of his best pupils, Aaron Hallam. Holed up in the wet and tangled wilderness of Oregon's Silver Falls State Park, Aaron--now a tormented and delusional killing machine--will soon come face-to-face with his grizzled mentor, in a no-holds-barred hand-to-hand combat. Suddenly, age; experience; strength, and the feral will to survive, blur the line between a hunter and his prey. Now, who is the hunted?

Plot Keywords: tracker, fbi agent, assassin, interrogator, trainee, ex-girlfriend, gory ...

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#15. Love at Large (1990)

Storyline: A down and out private detective (Berenger) is asked by a beautiful woman (Archer) to follow her lover (Young) because she thinks he may be planning to kill her. Due to her poor description she's in danger. He ends up following the wrong man, but discovers the wrong man has some sleazy secrets himself. Meanwhile another detective (Perkins) has been hired to follow Berenger, and they eventually decide to work together to find out what is really going on.—Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com>

Plot Keywords: private investigator, client, boyfriend, woman, wife, man, witty ...

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