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The old quip goes that we and our English cousins are separated by a common language, but there's little doubt that the movies have actually brought us together.

Ben Bradlee’s death on Tuesday at age 93 truly feels like the passing of an era. Thus it seems only fitting to revisit the movie that immortalizes him, the times he lived in, and the heroic stand he took: Alan J. Pakula’s “All The President’s Men” (1976).  This riveting, true-life story centers on the history-making reporting by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) back in 1972, as they track a tiny, throwaway story about a bungled burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate building. That story eventually leads all the way up to the office of the President, and topples Richard Nixon. Guiding the process with a steady hand throughout is Bradlee (played by Jason Robards, who won an Oscar for this). It was inspired casting, but the gifted Robards fully earns his statuette. “All the President’s Men” milks all the inherent suspense around the unfolding mystery of the Watergate scandal, and the parlor game of guessing the real-life identity of key intel informant “Deep Throat” (Hal Holbrook). Stars Hoffman and Redford also work off each other beautifully. But for anyone interested in the machinery of free speech in this country, watch the movie again for those memorable scenes between Robards’s Bradlee and his editorial staff. 

Frank Pavich’s documentary, “Jodorowsky’s Dune,” tells the remarkable story of director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failure to make an adaptation of the sci-fi classic, “Dune.” But it’s also about the eternal conflict between art and commerce in Hollywood, and what can happen when an artist’s uncompromising vision of a film causes those opposing forces to collide.  In the end, what was to be Jodorowsky’s crowning achievement instead became a heartbreaking episode that truncated his career as a director.  The director and his producing partner, Michel Seydoux, had secured the rights to Frank Herbert’s wildly popular book and raised about $10 million to produce it. Jodorowsky was ecstatic, even manic. He scoured Europe for the finest artists to visualize the narrative he had pouring out of his mind. Every character, costume, spaceship, and set was meticulously designed and catalogued.

We had a varied crop of great movies in 1978. Some I saw right away; I vividly recall, for instance, being traumatized by “The Deer Hunter.” Others I missed and only experienced years later.