All the President’s Men (1976)

Adapted from the 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, this tells the story of how two Washington Post journalists broke news of the Watergate scandal that ultimately brought down US president Richard Nixon. 

Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford are both at their very best playing the journalists. It’s a fascinating glimpse into another era. In this pre-internet world, they spend most of their time talking to people, phoning people, typing, scrawling in notebooks, chain-smoking and drinking coffee. In our current period of misinformation politics and double-think social media, the 1970s seem relatively straightforward and innocent. 

You wonder if this film could even have been made now: there are no tech giants, no billionaires dictating how people communicate, no car chases, no shootings and no “love interest” – just two writers trying to uncover the truth.

Philadelphia (1993)

Directed by Jonathan Demme, this is an emotional drama starring Tom Hanks as Andy Beckett, a lawyer who is dismissed from his firm for being a gay man with AIDS. Denzel Washington plays Joe Miller, the lawyer who represents him in court. 

The drama comes from two parallel threads. The first details Andy’s swift decline in health. The second deals with Joe having to work through his homophobia and put aside his prejudices to do what he knows is right. Washington is excellent at portraying that conflict. You can see his mixed feelings in every scene, as he slowly comes round to what his conscience is telling him. 

Parts of the film are unusually shot, and especially a section in which Andy enters a heightened state while listening to opera. Later, in the courtroom, unusual camera angles are employed to show his faltering consciousness.

It’s to Demme’s credit that he doesn’t opt for a tragic feel to the inevitable ending. Instead, he introduces a celebratory quality based on the sense of community and family love that the film has successfully established around Andy. 

There’s a strong soundtrack, mixing classical music with new songs written for the film by Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young.

Parenthood (1989)

Brilliant mixture of comedy and drama on the subject of family relationships, directed by the always-reliable Ron Howard. 

Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen are superb as a couple with three children, one of whom is suffering emotional problems. Meanwhile Dianne Wiest is a single mother struggling with two teenage children and her daughter’s relationship with the hopeless Keanu Reeves. Rick Moranis plays a father trying to raise his young daughter as a genius. Jason Robards (who plays Steve Martin’s dad) has to face up to the fact that his other son is addicted to gambling. 

A superbly written script dovetails these characters’ fates and elegantly weaves together multiple narrative threads without letting them get too tangled. 

Some of the scenes are genuinely moving, and there’s no doubting the truth of their insights into human experience, but crucially Parenthood is very funny as well.