Building a DVD library--the Paramount way: almost two dozen Academy Award winners, literary adaptations, comedies, crime films, sports movies, and musicals can provide hours of entertainment during the coming winter months.

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

HAVING CONSIDERED building a DVD library the Warner Bros. way (USA TODAY, March 2003) and the MGM way (July 2003), let's take a look at what Paramount has to offer. As usual, the choices are idiosyncratic, reflecting the personal tastes of the reviewer, but every effort has been made to present a list that should be universally appealing.

Titles from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment that appeared in previous articles--"You Can't Spell Oscar Without DVD" (September 2001) and "You Can't Spell Oscar Without DVD: Part II" (May 2002)--have been omitted. Winners for best picture, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, and/or screenplay were cited for such Paramount major releases as "Terms of Endearment," "An Officer and a Gentleman," "Ghost." "The Godfather," "The Godfather, Part II," "Titanic," "Forrest Gump," "Ordinary People," "Stalag 17," and "A Place in the Sun." Four of them also were cited among the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films: "The Godfather" (number 3), "The Godfather, Part II" (32), "Forrest Gump" (71), and "A Place in the Sun" (92).

Having gotten all these disclaimers off our chest, here are 23 more that warrant inclusion, for one reason or another, in any movie lover's video collection.

More Oscar Winners

The Hours (114 minutes, $19.95) proved a suprising hit in 2002, as this literary work expected to fall into the "chick flick" category demonstrated wide-ranging appeal, garnered near-universal critical acclaim, and gave 2002's "big" pictures a run for their money. Nicole Kidman captured the best actress Academy Award for her portrayal of author Virginia Woolf, sacrificing her usual good looks to hide behind a prosthetic nose so as to resemble the writer more realistically. Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore completed the triptych of Hollywood female superstars as two latter-day women affected by Woolf's book, Mrs. Dalloway, with Moore earning a best supporting actress nomination, losing to Catherine Zeta-Jones ("Chicago"). The movie was topped for best picture by "Chicago"; Ed Harris' bravura turn as a writer dying of AIDS lost out to Chris Cooper ("Adaptation") for best supporting actor; and Stephen Daldry was defeated for best director by Roman Polanski ("The Pianist"). The DVD offers extensive special features, including commentary by Streep, Kidman, Moore, Daldry, and Michael Cunningham, author of the book the picture is based on, plus a quartet of featurettes: "Three Women," "The Mind and Times of Virginia Woolf," "The Music of The Hours." and "The Lives of Mrs. Dalloway."

The Untouchables (119 minutes. $29.99), the 1987 cinematic version of the long-running TV series of the same name, puts considerably more machismo into the story of Federal agent Eliot Ness' efforts to end the career of Prohibition--era ganglord Al Capone, mainly the result of a blistering screenplay by David Mamet and the slam-bang direction of Brian De Palma. Kevin Costner (as Ness) and Robert De Niro (at his scenery-chewing best as a beefed-up, vicious Capone) share top billing, but Sean Connery walked away with the Academy Award, his canny, streetwise cop--one of the few honest ones in Chicago--winning him the best supporting actor Oscar.

Rosemary's Baby (136 minutes, $29.99) does a wonderful job in translating Ira Levin's best-seller about devil worship to the screen, largely due to Roman Polanski, who penned the screenplay as well as directed the movie. Mia Farrow, as the young married woman chosen by Satan's adherents to bear his son, is twitchy even before things start going supernaturally bad for her, but John Cassavetes is superb as her overly ambitious actor husband, willing to sacrifice anything for success. Meanwhile, Ruth Gordon steals the picture with her whining, fingernail-on-the-blackboard voice as the next door neighbor from hell (literally), a role that earned her the best supporting actress Oscar for 1968. There is a "Making of ..." featurette, as well as engrossing interviews with Polanski, production designer Richard Sylbert, and producer Robert Evans.

Chinatown (130 minutes, $19.99), ranked 19th among the American Film Institute's top 100 movies, continues to grow in stature as the years go by. Its complex story of the seamy underside of Los...