DV delight: movie madness for the living room: from Clark Gable and James Stewart to Robert De Niro and Tom Cruise, from merry old England to modern America, here are over 20 films worth watching.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.
• Position: Entertainment - Bibliography

IF YOU ARE putting together a personalized DVD library, Columbia TriStar Home Video is a valuable resource. With seven decades of films to choose from, however, boiling down the choices is a daunting task. Yet, we have managed to select nearly two dozen films spanning seven decades, ranging from one of the most-honored Hollywood efforts of all time to the best the small screen has produced. Some were groundbreaking for their era; some became instant classics: some developed a cult following; and all are extremely entertaining.

OSCAR WINNERS

It Happened One Night (105 minutes. $24.95) set a standard that has been duplicated just twice in the 75-year history of the Academy Awards. The 1934 comedy of a cynical reporter accompanying an unsuspecting madcap heiress fleeing her wedding on a cross-country trip swept the best picture, director (Frank Capra), actor (Clark Gable), actress (Claudette Colbert), and screenplay (Robert Riskin) Oscars. It was not until "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in 1975 that another film accomplished that feat, and only "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991) has done it since. Perhaps more important to Hollywood, the movie enthralled Depression-era audiences seeking emotional relief from hard economic times, bringing much needed box office revenue to the studio and triggering a spate of films that showed the wealthy receiving come-uppance from the so-called lower classes. Along with director Preston Sturgis, Capra helmed many of these pictures, which, over the years, have been categorized as Capraesque for their feel good formulate presentations. Possibly the only people displeased with the movie were manufacturers of men's underwear. who watched in horror as Gable peeled off his shirt in one scene to reveal a bare chest. Since the virile actor did not wear an undershirt, ordinary mortals were quick to emulate him, causing the industry even more woe in bad times! Special features on the DVD include a remembrance of the filming of the movie and an audio commentary, both by Frank Capra, Jr., the director's son.

Adaptation (114 minutes, $19.95) is a cinematic oddity, concerning a writer unable to write a screen adaptation of a nonfiction book about an orchid thief. In desperation, he churns out a script about a writer trying to come up with a screen adaptation of a nonfiction book about an orchid thief, interjecting not only the book's author and the thief into the scenario, but himself as the writer trying to ... and so forth in dizzying profusion. Real life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman not only uses himself as the on-screen writer, he introduces his fictional twin brother, a hack writer, as his collaborator. Viewers may wind tip with the inescapable conclusion that Kaufman actually encountered these difficulties in trying to adapt New Yorker writer Susan Orlean's book,

The Orchid Thief for the screen and chose this desperate way out. Nevertheless, the picture earned a 2003 best actor nomination for Nicolas Cage, playing both of the twins, though he (they?) lost to Adrian Brody ("The Pianist"), and a supporting actress nomination for Meryl Streep as the on-screen Orleans, but she was beaten out by Catherine Zeta-Jones ("Chicago"). The Academy even went along with the film's comedic premise by nominating Charlie Kaufman and the fictitious Donald Kaufman for best screenplay based on material previously produced or published, its willingness to go along with the joke ended there, however, as the Oscar went to Ronald Harwood for "The Pianist."

A Man for All Seasons (120 minutes, $27.95) came close to matching "It Happened One Night" when, en route to winning six 1966 Oscars, it missed out in just the best actress category, where it failed to earn a nomination. This literary British historical epic--dealing with the refusal of Sir Thomas More to compromise his conscience and support King Henry VIII's campaign to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled so that he could marry Anne Boleyn--was a seemingly unlikely draw for American audiences. Nevertheless, the film did well at the box office and swept through the Academy Awards, winning best picture, director (Fred Zinnemann), actor (Paul Scofield), and screenplay (Robert Bolt, based on his play), though Robert Shaw as Henry lost out to Walter Matthau ("The Fortune Cookie") for best supporting actor and Wendy Hiller was bested by Sandy Dennis ("Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") for best supporting actress. The film also collected Oscars for costume design and cinematography, and is as gorgeous today as it was almost four decades ago. Still, it is Scofield's masterful performance that stands out most, turning More's intellectual and moral stands into gripping drama.

The Last Picture Show (126 minutes, $19.95), director and co-writer Peter Bogdanovich's evocative portrait of life in a small Texas town during the 1950s, garnered eight 1971 Academy Award nominations, including a pair of dual ones in the supporting actor and actress categories. Veteran western character actor Ben Johnson, as Sam the Lion, the town's poolhall operator and resident conscience, won the Oscar over Jeff Bridges, and Cloris Leachman, best known for her role in TV's "Mary Tyler Moore Show," outpolled Ellen Burstyn. The film, though, lost to "The French Connection" for best picture, and that movie's William Friedkin beat out...