Can you identify the movie from the brief, one- or two-sentence description?

Question by David: Can you identify the movie from the brief, one- or two-sentence description?
1. A reporter is assigned to cover a hotel break-in, and he discovers there may be more to the story than meets the eye. Another reporter then joins the case.

2. An Irish gentleman, adventurer, and gambler attemts to elevate himself amongst the English aristocracy. In the end, he leaves England, reluctant and defeated.

3. A freewheeling Bogart fan shoots a cop and spends a few days in Paris with a beautiful American girl.

4. A dogged detective with an estranged third wife chases a veteran, aloof thief in Los Angeles.

5. In the early ’50s, a bored and depressed housewife almost runs away with her young son, but then decides to return home. Decades later, her son, afflicted with AIDS, commits suicide.

6. In her dying moments, an elderly woman leaves her country home to her young female friend. But her stern husband decides to not tell the young woman, whom he later marries.

7. A couple’s son is murdered by his lover’s ex-husband. The father later murders the ex-husband.

8. An isolated and abused child growing up in a poor part of England finds comfort in training a kestrel he found.

9. A businessman is forced to connect with and raise his son after his wife leaves them to find herself.

10. At a mysterious, ghostly hotel, one male guest tells a woman he knows her, but she doesn’t remember. He claims they had an affair once in the Czech Republic.

11. An English philosopher and statesman refuses to say an oath and is executed by Henry VIII.

12. A love triangle blossoms between three students, two female and one male, at a secluded boarding school in a British dystopia.

13. Students at a female boarding school go on a Valentine’s Day jaunt, and a few of them disappear, seemingly into thin air.

14. The Russian Revolution as seen through the eyes of an American journalist and communist activist who died of typhus in Moscow in 1920.

15. A politician’s daughter spirals into drug abuse, while a noble Mexican cop navigates a web of corruption and criminality.

16. An introverted journalist reflects on his youth and London’s glam rock heyday, including the vanishing of a Bowie-esque superstar.

17. Acrophobia, mystery, and lost love prove a dangerous combination for a detective.
2. attempts*

Whoops.
No, 6. isn’t a Bergman film. It’s by a British filmmaker with the initials J.I.

Best answer:

Answer by Heaving Beaver
9. Kramer Vs Kramer (?)

13. Picnic at Hanging Rock

14. Reds

15. Traffic

17. Vertigo (?)

Give your answer to this question below!

6 thoughts on “Can you identify the movie from the brief, one- or two-sentence description?

  1. kls81

    1. All the President’s Men.
    11. A Man for All Seasons.
    12. Never Let Me Go.
    15. Traffic.
    16. Velvet Goldmine

    (I’m sure I can think of some of the others, but these are the ones that were instantly apparent to me.)

    ETA:
    8. Kes.
    7 won an Oscar and is fairly recent (last 20 years), right? I know I know it, but can’t quite get the title. (EDIT: Thank you, Len! I just couldn’t come up with the title — I could even see the darned poster.)

    I am sure I am going to be embarrassed by not picking up on 3 or 4 of the others! And now I’ll proceed to kick myself for Barry Lyndon. Man oh man…

    17. has to be Vertigo. Good call, HB.

    And someone got 6 just as you were hinting. JI = James Ivory.

  2. That Shakespeherian Rag

    5. “The Hours”
    10. This reminds me of “Casablanca” but different… lol
    11. Thomas More, but not sure of the movie.
    12. “Never Let Me Go”
    13. “Picnic at Hanging Rock”
    14. You’re talking about John Reed, but I’m not sure what movie that could be…
    15. “Traffic”
    16. …”Velvet Goldmine”?

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