The Apartment (1960), Citizen Kane (1941), Toy Story (1995), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), The Last Picture Show (1971), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), A Christmas Story (1983), The Night of the Hunter (1955) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Christmas Present movies.
Storyline: Just before Christmas, Lee Leander is caught shoplifting. It is her third offense. She is prosecuted by John Sargent. He postpones the trial because it is hard to get a conviction at Christmas time. However, he feels sorry for her and arranges for her bail; he also ends up taking her home to his mother for Christmas. Surrounded by a loving family (in stark contrast to Lee's own family background), they fall in love. This creates a new problem: how do they handle the upcoming trial?—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>
Plot Keywords: morality, christmas present, gift, perfume, corset, dance, wedding dress ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: When his mother, who has sheltered him his entire 40 years, dies, Elling, a sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin in his 40s. After two years, the men are released and provided with a state-funded apartment and stipend with the hope they will be able to live on their own. Initially, the simple act of going around the corner for groceries is a challenge. Through a friendship born of desperate dependence, the skittish Elling and the boisterous, would-be lover of women, Kjell Bjarne, discover they can not only survive on the outside, they can thrive. But as their courage grows, the two find oddball ways to cope with society, striking up the most peculiar friendships in the most unlikely places.
Plot Keywords: mental illness, cafe, cake, cambodia, car repair, cell phone, champagne ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1947, Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was Hollywood's top screenwriter until he and other artists were jailed and blacklisted for their political beliefs. TRUMBO (directed by Jay Roach) recounts how Dalton used words and wit to win two Academy Awards and expose the absurdity and injustice under the blacklist, which entangled everyone from gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) to John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger.
Plot Keywords: communist, gossip columnist, gossip, film industry, screenwriter, communism, hollywood california ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Eva Khatchadourian's a mother to piece together her life following an incident cause by her strange child, Kevin. Once a successful travel writer, s she's forced to take whatever job comes her way, and in spite of the increasingly bizarre and dangers things Kevin says or does. But Kevin's behaviours is only getting worse.
Plot Keywords: psychopath, defiance, mental illness, mass murder, sociopath, archery, prison visit ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: It is the 70s and a group of very different individuals live together as a community. One of the members sister, Elisabeth needs a new place to stay with her children after having had enough of her alcoholist and abusive husband. Elisabeth is neither a socialist, feminist or into the green movement but ends up loving living in the community where they all learn from eachother. The film makes a little fun of people with strong ideals and "square" minds whether they be vegans, communists or people who absolutely disgust vegans or socialists, in the end the message of the film is that people can grow and gain from bonding with eachother. It also shows how we need to shape up a little for this to work, either through working with own behaviour that affects other people badly (like alcoholism or abuse) or the need to set up own boundaries and not let other people walk all over oneself.
Plot Keywords: commune, marital separation, coming of age, lesbian, loneliness, soccer, male genitalia ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The bitter, cynical and lonely Barbara Covett is a tough and conservative teacher, near to retirement, who is loathed by her colleagues and students. In the loneliness of her apartment, she spends her spare time writing her journal, taking care of her old cat Portia and missing her special friend Jennifer Dodd. When Sheba Hart joins the high-school as the new art teacher, Barbara dedicates her attention to the newcomer, writing sharp and unpleasant comments about her behavior and clothes. When Barbara helps Sheba in a difficult situation with two students, the grateful Sheba invites her to have lunch with her family. Sheba introduces her husband and former professor Richard Hart, who is about twenty years older than she; her rebellious teenager daughter Polly; and her son Ben that has Down's Syndrome. Barbara becomes close to Sheba, but when she accidentally discovers that Sheba is having an affair with the fifteen year-old student Steven Connolly, Barbara sees the chance to ...
Plot Keywords: teacher student relationship, pedophile, sex with a minor, age difference, based on novel, scandal, secret ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Rural Australia in the late nineteenth century: Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) and his men capture two of the three Burns brothers, Charlie (Guy Pearce) and Mike (Richard Wilson). Their gang is held responsible for attacking the Hopkins farm, raping pregnant Mrs. Hopkins and murdering the whole family. Arthur Burns (Danny Huston), the eldest brother and the gang's mastermind, remains on the loose and has retreated to a mountain hideout. Captain Stanley's proposition to Charlie is to gain pardon and, more importantly, save his beloved younger brother Mike from the gallows by finding and killing Arthur within nine days.
Plot Keywords: gang, hideout, outlaw, whiskey, siege, lynch mob, flogging ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Released from prison apparently under a New Year amnesty, a criminal tries to pick up the threads of a life changed not only by his daring plan to rob a jewellers in out-of-season Cannes but by someone special he met there.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: friendship, year 1968, newspaper article, year 1967, antique dealer, visitor, visit ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: After his wife, Alice, tells him about her sexual fantasies, William Harford sets out for a night of sexual adventure. After several less than successful encounters, he meets an old friend, Nick Nightingale - now a musician - who tells him of strange sex parties when he is required to play the piano blindfolded. All the men at the party are costumed and wear masks while the women are all young and beautiful. Harford manages to find an appropriate costume and heads out to the party. Once there, however, he is warned by someone who recognizes him, despite the mask, that he is in great danger. He manages to extricate himself but the threats prove to be quite real and sinister.
Plot Keywords: orgy, password, prostitute, sexual fantasy, group sex, masked ball, extramarital affair ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jane, a young French woman, pregnant and unmarried, takes a room in a seedy London boarding house, which is inhabited by an assortment of misfits. She considers getting an abortion, but is unhappy with this solution. She falls into a relationship with Toby, a struggling young writer who lives on the first floor. Eventually she comes to like her odd room, and makes friends with all the strange people in the house. But she still faces two problems: what to do with her baby, and what to do with Toby.—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>
Plot Keywords: unplanned pregnancy, soap, suitcase, boarding house, black cat, unwed pregnancy, lesbian ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Married couple Pete and Ellie Wagner, feeling a void in the marriage, visit a foster care center. Two social workers, Karen and Sharon, guide the hopeful parents on the steps to getting into becoming adoptive parents. The couples are brought to a fair where they have the chance to go up to kids that they are interested in adopting. Pete and Ellie walk by the teenagers, although Ellie shows hesitance over raising a teen, but one of the teens, Lizzie, informs Ellie that they all know no one wants to adopt the teens. Pete and Ellie talk to Karen and Sharon over potentially taking in Lizzie. The social workers inform the couple that Lizzie's mother is a drug addict who is currently in jail, and she set their home on fire because she left the crack pipe lit. It also turns out that Lizzie has two younger siblings, Juan and Lita. Although this seems like more of a challenge for Pete and Ellie, they agree to meet the siblings. Pete and Ellie have Thanksgiving dinner with Ellie's family, where...
Plot Keywords: court hearing, pinata, amusement park, nightmare, punched in the face, christmas present, cardboard box ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In Harlem, 1987. Sixteen year old Claireece Jones - who goes by her middle name Precious - is illiterate and overweight. She is pregnant with her second child, both children fathered by her biological father, who has continually raped her since she was a child, but who she doesn't see otherwise. Her infant daughter, Mongo - such named since she has Down Syndrome - lives with Precious' grandmother. Precious lives with her mother Mary, who abuses Precious both physically and emotionally. Mary does nothing but smoke, watch television and collect welfare through fraud (as she doesn't ever look for a job) and believes that education does nothing for Precious, who she would rather also collect welfare if only to bring money into the household. To escape her life, Precious often daydreams of herself in glamorous situations. Because of her current pregnancy, Precious' principal transfers her into an alternative school. In dealing with the school's sympathetic teacher Miss Blu Rain, Precious ...
Plot Keywords: lesbian couple, lesbian, bad mother, teacher student relationship, female protagonist, mother daughter relationship, black american ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In London, the young Paul Grahame lives with his upper class, but financially broken family. His wasteful mother Hester Grahame is a compulsive buyer, spending all the family money on new expensive dresses, jewels, and objects for their house. His father Richard Grahame is a gambler, losing money in the horse races. His uncle Oscar Cresswell is permanently covering the Grahame family debts. When the servant Bassett is hired, Paul finds that he can predict the winner of the horse races by rocking his wooden horse. Paul asks Bassett to become his partner. The two of them bet their money on the races. Paul wants to prove that he is lucky in order to silence the house, which perpetually whispers to him that it needs more money.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Keywords: death of son, christmas tree, cigar smoking, death, doctor, dog, drinking ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Betty Anne Waters (Swank) is a high school dropout who spent nearly two decades working as a single mother while putting herself through law school, tirelessly trying to beat the system and overturn her brother's (Rockwell) unjust murder conviction.
Plot Keywords: year 1995, year 2001, year 1992, church, death of grandfather, dead mother, stabbing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In World War II, the sanitation engineer and family man Kurt Gerstein is assigned by SS to be the Head of the Institute for Hygiene to purify the water for the German Army in the front. Later, he is invited to participate in termination of plagues in the concentration camps and he develops the lethal gas Zyklon-B. When he witnesses that the SS is killing Jews instead, he decides to denounce the genocide to the Pope to expose to the world and save the Jewish families. The idealist Jesuit priest Riccardo Fontana from an influent Italian family gives his best efforts being the liaison of Gerstein and the leaders of the Vatican.
Plot Keywords: ss, vatican, ss officer, german army, jew, pope, priest ...
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