D: John Woo. Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung, Teresa Mo, Philip Chan, Anthony Wong, Kwan Hoi-Shan, A-Lung. Stylish, ultra-violent story of police inspector (Yun-Fat) who teams up with a mysterious hit man (Leung) to stop a gang of arms dealers. Standard plot of revenge and male bonding is springboard for unbelievable action sequences that are bloody, comic, and hypnotic. Yun-Fat is a perfectly assured hero, and director Woo (who wrote the original story) appears as a bartender.

D: Federico Fellini. Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Barbara Steele, Rossella Falk, Madeleine LeBeau, Caterina Boratto, Edra Gale, Mark Herron. Fellini’s unique self-analytical movie casts Mastroianni as a filmmaker trying to develop a new project, amid frequent visions and countless subplots. A long, difficult, but fascinating film, overflowing with creative and technical wizardry. Certainly one of the most intensely personal statements ever made on celluloid. Screenplay by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi. Oscar winner for Costume Design and as Best Foreign Language Film. Reworked as a Broadway musical, Nine, which was filmed in 2009.

D: Peter Greenaway. Helen Mirren, Michael Gambon, Tim Roth, Richard Bohringer, Alan Howard. Another stylish, challenging piece of cinema from Greenaway that’s set in a plush gourmet restaurant and details the various relationships between the title characters. This parable about love, revenge, and, most of all, greed is both funny and horrifying—and right on target. However, those who do not appreciate Greenaway’s cinematic sensibility may be put off. Sacha Vierny’s cinematography is an asset. Technovision. [NC-17 and R-rated versions are available]