Heat:
When Al Pacino and Robert De Niro square off, 'Heat' sizzles. Written and directed by Michael Mann, Heat includes dazzling set pieces and a bank heist that USA Today's Mike Clark calls 'the greatest action scene of recent times'.

It also offers 'the most impressive collection of actors in one movie this year' (Newsweek). Val Kimler, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore and Ashley Judd are among the memorable supporting players in this tale of a brilliant LA cop (Pacino) following the trail from a deadly armed robbery to a crew headed by an equally brilliant master thief (De Niro).

'Heat' goes way beyond the expectations of the cops-and-criminals genre - and into the realm of movie masterpiece.

Goodfellas:
From Nicholas Pileggi's true-life bestseller Wiseguy, GoodFellas explores the criminal life like no other movie. Directed and co-written by Martin Scorsese, it was judged 1990's Best Picture by the New York, Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics and named to the American Film Institute's Top-100 American Films List. Electrifying performances abound, and from a standout cast that includes Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco and Paul Sorvino, Joe Pesci walked off with the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award.

The Mission:
A visually stunning epic, The Mission recounts the true story of two men - a man of the sword (Robert De Niro) and a man of the cloth (Jeremy Irons) - both Jesuit missionaries who defied the colonial forces of mighty Spain and Portugal to save an Indian tribe from slavery in mid-18th-Century South America.

Once Upon A Time In America:
Outstanding director Sergio Leone (The good, The Bad and The Ugly) strayed away from his western roots in this epic crime drama which was also his final movie before he died in 1989.

Once Upon a Time in America focuses on the rise of two Jewish boys, David 'Noodles' Aaronson (Robert De Niro) and Maximilian 'Max' Bercovicz (James Woods) as they work their way up the organised crime industry in Brooklyn New York, from street thugs to two well respected gangsters, conquering love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss and broken relationships along the way.

Now 30 years on David has returned to Brooklyn to battle his demons and confront the regrets of the life he once led, but will he find forgiveness for the things he once did and can he forgive himself? -M.F.