RKO 281 (1999), Barbary Coast (1975), The Servant (1963), Subspecies (1991), Dogville (2003), The Scarlet Empress (1934), Bitter Victory (1958), Danton (1982) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Power Struggle movies.
Storyline: During the French Revolution, French national Lucie Manette (Dorothy Tutin) meets and falls in love with Englishman Charles Darnay (Paul Guers). He is, however, hiding his true identity as a member of the French aristocratic Evrémonde family, whom he has denounced in private. The Marquis St. Evrémonde (Sir Christopher Lee) in particular was a cruel man. Those he wronged have vowed to see the end of the family line at any cost. Lucie's father Dr. Alexandre Manette (Stephen Murray) was imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years because of actions of the Marquis. Into their lives comes English barrister Sydney Carton (Sir Dirk Bogarde), who enjoys his alcohol to excess. Carton earlier defended Darnay in a trial on trumped up charges of treason. Carton doesn't really like Darnay in part because Carton also loves Lucie, he realizing that that love is unrequited. But Carton does eventually learn of Darnay's true heritage at a critical time. Carton takes extraordinary measures to ensure Lucie's happiness during this time, which has the potential to be explosive if others also found out about Darnay's true identity.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: aristocrat, soldier, duchess, marquis, doctor, attorney, chilling ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1500, Duke Cesare Borgia hopes to marry his sister (widowed by poison) to the heir apparent of Ferrara, which impedes his conquest of central Italy. On this delicate mission he sends Andrea Orsini, his cousin Angela's lover and nearly as unscrupulous as himself. En route, Orsini meets Camilla Verano, wife of the count of Citta' del Monte (Borgia's next intended conquest); and sentiment threatens to turn him against his deadly master, whom no one betrays twice...—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: ambassador, nobleman, count, wife, sister, thrilling, italy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is an office worker whose life is going nowhere. After his estranged father is murdered, he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie), who recruits him into the Fraternity, a secret society of assassins which takes its orders from Fate itself. Fox and Sloan (Morgan Freeman), the Fraternity's leader, teach Wesley to tap into dormant powers. Though he enjoys his newfound abilities, he begins to suspect that there is more to the Fraternity than meets the eye.
Plot Keywords: assassin, father, killer, secret police, leader, coworker, brash ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The Zero Hour is a gritty, fast-paced heist film. Set in Caracas during the 24 hours of a controversial medical strike, the film tells the story of Parca (The Reaper) a feared hit man that is forced to take an elite hospital hostage in an attempt to save his wounded girlfriend. The police don't take long to arrive, and with them, a circus of media and onlookers. Parca soon becomes an unlikely hero, a "champion for the poor," until his stunt begins to divide the entire nation and violence begins to spread within the hospital and throughout the city, putting everything, including his girlfriend and her child, in dire jeopardy. A love story told in the midst of chaos, The Zero Hour is a timely and universal story about the mythic rise to power and the inevitable fall from grace.—Luis Auvert
Plot Keywords: patient, serial killer, teamwork, doctor, rival, victim, gripping ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The newly-named Emperor Maximillian, the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire, arrives in Mexico in the early 1860s with his wife Carlotta to face popular sentiment favoring Benito Juarez and popular demand for democracy. With an elite group of Mexican monarchists, Maximillian tries to appease the democratic Mexicans but he fails. Abraham Lincoln continues to support Juarez and asks the French to withdraw support for Maximilian. Carlotta goes to France to plead with Napoleon III, to no avail.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: emperor, empress, president, rebel, soldier, napoleon iii, tense ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A girl is saved by a miracle after she falls from a cliff in the Argentine Andes, and is blessed with healing powers. A shrine is built on the site, and a whole city grows around it, rich with gold from the grateful worshipers. Ruiz, an evil and sadistic general, captures the city, confiscates the gold, and closes the shrine. But the Gaucho, the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws, comes to the rescue.—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>
Plot Keywords: leader, general, young woman, bandit, villager, priest, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Mrs. Julie Wardh returns to Vienna with her husband Neil Wardh, who is an investor in Wall Street. Julie and Neil have been married for one year but they do not love each other. Julie has a trauma from her former boyfriend Jean, who was a sadistic man. While Neil has meetings in Austria, Julie spends the vacation with her friend Carol Brandt. They go to a party where Carol introduces her handsome cousin George Corro, who has just inherited a fortune with her. When Julie sees Jean in the party, she decides to leave the place. Soon Julie, who is neglected by Neil, has a love affair with George. Meanwhile a serial-killer that kills women with a razor blade is terrifying Vienna and the inspector has no lead to follow. When Julie is blackmailed because of her love affair with George, she suspects Jean might be the blackmailer. Carol decides to go to the meeting with the blackmailer and is killed. Julie believes that Jean might be the wanted killer and decides to leave Vienna and Neil to go to Spain. Will she be safe and loved?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Keywords: friar, outlaw, crusader, love interest, sheriff, confident, intense ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Disgusted with the policies of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell plans to take his family to the New World. But on the eve of their departure, Cromwell is drawn into the tangled web of religion and politics that will result in the English Civil War.—Marg Baskin <marg@asd.raytheon.ca>
Plot Keywords: king charles i, earl, queen, prince, general, patriotic, powerful ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: China is plunged into strife as feuding warlords try to expand their power by warring over neighboring lands. Fuelled by his success on the battlefield, young and arrogant Hao Jie sneers at Shaolin's masters after killing a rival warlord on their temple grounds. But the glory comes before a fall. His own family is wiped out in an unexpected turn of events and Hao is forced to take refuge with the monks. As the civil unrest spreads and the people suffer, Hao and the Shaolin masters are forced to take a fiery stand against the evil warlords. They launch a daring plan of rescue and escape.
Plot Keywords: general, monks, cousin, thrilling, refuge, temple, control ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: On his way home to West Texas, Tom Buchanan rides into the Californian border town of Agry, and into a feud between several members of the Agry family. In helping out a Mexican seeking revenge on one of them, Buchanan finds himself against the whole family.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: mercenary, patriarch, bar owner, judge, sheriff, prisoner, thrilling ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A gangster movie where all the gangsters are played by children. Instead of real bullets they use "splurge guns" that cover the victim in cream. The story tells of the rise of "Bugsy Malone" and the battle for power between "Fat Sam" and "Dandy Dan".
Plot Keywords: boy, girl, gangster, amusing, fiery, madcap, rousing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A small airplane crashes in the sweltering deserts of southern Africa hundreds of miles from civilization. As parallels are drawn between the stranded group of seven passengers and a nearby pack of savage baboons, one of the men's survivalist nature gets the better of him, as he decides his chances of survival would be better if the other men were eliminated one-by-one.—Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net>
Plot Keywords: engineer, divorcée, pilot, german, leader, survivor, wild ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: For the most part, the documentaries of Emile De Antonio tend to be abstract and withdrawn from any sense of personal expression or feeling. Point of Order and In the Year of the Pig may have dialectic meanings that show the radical left wing politics of De Antonio, but the viewer never actually sees the soul of De himself. After a brilliant and subversive career, De died in 1989, but he first completed his final act to the play of his life- Mr. Hoover and I. Mr. Hoover and I is an autobiography, there is no way around that, but it is a different form of autobiography. It is a biography of images and explanations all told behind the backdrop of the life of J.Edgar Hoover and why not. It is Hoover and the establishment that he represents that De fought for so many years against. Although De's life had taken many different shapes- from art patron to radical filmmaker- one thing always haunted him- the spectre of the establishment, an establishment that personified itself through Hoover. Where the attacks of In the Year of the Pig and Point of Order arise from an intellectual sense of montage- the attacks in Hoover are direct. This is De telling us what he believes, not relying on a montage of found army footage. Hoover presents the side of De we never see- the man- the man who loves his wife (wives), has his haircut, likes to poke fun at himself ("anyone who knows me, knows that the only time I empty my wallet is at a bar" on charges that he donated money to Soviet causes), and most of all is a many of passion for what he believes in. Knowing that De passed away only months after finishing Hoover, it almost brings tears to the eyes of harden De fans for it wasn't until he left us that we got to see the real Emile De Antonio.
Plot Keywords: federal agent, documentarian, government official, fbi director, brooding, dense, profound ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: New York gangster Ben Bugsy Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womaniser with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.
Plot Keywords: mobster, mistress, gangster, daughter, actress, bugsy siegel, confident ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: An announcement that the venerable Bunker Hill Military Academy, a 141 year old institute, is to be torn down and replaced with condos sets off the young cadets led by their stodgy commander. Under the command of a student cadet major, the cadets seize the campus, refuse entry of the construction crews and ultimately confront the real military.
Plot Keywords: student, army colonel, headmaster, cadet, real estate developer, soldier, emotional ...
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