At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield and Blake are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers, Blake's own brother among them.

New Orleans is the target for the final thrust of the British in the War of 1812. General Andrew Jackson's (Charlton Heston) dependence on the help of pirate king Jean Lafitte (Yul Brynner) to repel the British is complicated by the Governor's daughter. This spectacular production supervised by Cecil B. DeMille, tells in sweeping action the little-known story of how a pirate turned the tide in America's favor in the War of 1812. Nominated for Best...

Chinese-born, U.S.-raised Billi reluctantly returns to Changchun to find that, although the whole family knows their beloved matriarch, Nai-Nai, has been given mere weeks to live, everyone has decided not to tell Nai Nai herself. To assure her happiness, they gather under the joyful guise of an expedited wedding, uniting family members scattered among new homes abroad. As Billi navigates a minefield of family expectations and proprieties, she finds...

William Garnett (Forest Whitaker) is an ex-con starting life over as a recently converted Muslim. With the help of his determined parole officer (Brenda Blethyn), he gets a job, meets an interesting woman, and keeps his head down. But the town sheriff, Bill Agati (Harvey Keitel), won't leave him alone since Garnett was responsible for killing his deputy. As Agati puts pressure on him, and his old partners in crime hassle him, Garnett slowly starts...

Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America-and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry upke a raisin in the sun."

Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare's most imaginative and exuberant comedies, contrasting two pairs of lovers in a witty and suspenseful battle of the sexes. Attracted to each other, the maddeningly skeptical Beatrice and Benedick are dead-locked in a lively war of words until their friends hatch a plot to unite them. The mutually devoted Hero and Claudio, on the other hand, all too quickly fall victim to a malicious plot to part them. Near-fatal...

Paris 1895. Pierre Louÿs is a Parisian dandy and poet on the verge of fame. Pierre and his friend Henri De Régnier are both madly in love with Marie de Heredia (Noemie Merlant), the cheeky daughter of their mentor. Despite her feelings for Pierre, Marie eventually marries Henri who has a better situation. Badly hurt, Pierre leaves for Algeria where he meets Zohra, a bewitching local girl with whom he shares a tumultuous relationship and a passion...

Twelve-year-old Conor, dealing with his mother's illness, a less-than-sympathetic grandmother, and bullying classmates, finds a most unlikely ally when a monster appears at his bedroom window. Ancient, wild, and relentless, the monster guides Conor on a journey of courage, faith, and truth.

The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

The story of the final weeks leading to the ambiguous disappearance of Maya Dardel, an internationally respected poet and novelist, who lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. Maya announces on National Public Radio that she intends to end her life and that young male writers may compete to become executor of her estate. Men drive up the mountain and are challenged intellectually, emotionally, erotically, until one of them begins to fathom...