The touching biodrama of the troubled artist Vincent Van Gogh, from his first paintings to his death. Kirk Douglas ("The Bad and the Beautiful," "Gunfight at O.K. Corral") delivers a brilliant Oscar-nominated performance as the tragic Dutch painter. Anthony Quinn ("Lawrence of Arabia," "Zorba the Greek") won his second Oscar for his role as Van Gogh's friend and fellow painter, Gauguin. Directed by Oscar-winner Vincente Minnelli ("Gigi," "An American in Paris") and nominated for four Academy Awards. Acclaimed actor/producer John Houseman ("The Paper Chase") produced. With actual footage of rarely-seen Van Gogh paintings. Leonard Maltin calls it "an exquisite color production."

A troubled detective falls in love with a prostitute while stalking Jack The Ripper: a deranged royal physician who conspires with Masons to conceal a wayward prince's marriage to a commoner.

Christian, a young wannabe Bohemian poet living in 1899 Paris, defies his father by joining the colorfully diverse clique inhabiting the dark, fantastical underworld of Paris' now legendary Moulin Rouge. In this seedy but glamorous haven of sex, drugs and newly-discovered electricity, the poet-innocent finds himself plunged into a passionate but ultimately tragic love affair with Satine, the club's highest paid star and the city's most famous courtesan. Their romance is played out against the infamous club - a meeting place of high life and low, where slumming aristocrats and the fashionably rich mingled with workers, artists, Bohemians, actresses and courtesans.

With dizzying cinematic tricks and astonishing performances, Francis Coppola's 1992 version of the oft-filmed Dracula story is one of the most exuberant, extravagant films of the 1990s. Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder, as the Count and Mina Murray, are quite a pair of star-crossed lovers. She's betrothed to another man; he can't kick the habit of feeding off the living. Anthony Hopkins plays Van Helsing, the vampire slayer, with tongue firmly in cheek. Tom Waits is great fun as Renfield, the hapless slave of Dracula who craves the blood of insects and cats. Sadie Frost is a sexy Lucy Westenra. And poor Keanu Reeves, as Jonathan Harker, has the misfortune to be seduced by Dracula's three half-naked wives. There's a little bit of everything in this version of Dracula: gore, high-speed horseback chases, passion, and longing.

Set in the mountains of Spain during the Spanish Civil War, Cooper plays Robert Jordan, an absinthe swilling demolition expert sent to blow up a bridge with a ragtag band of loyalists. He falls in love with a Spanish girl named Maria and ultimately gets crushed by his horse after blowing up the bridge.

During the late 19th century, famed monster hunter Dr. Gabriel Van Helsing (Jackman) heads to Eastern Europe to battle with Count Dracula (Roxburgh), the Wolf Man (Kemp), and Frankenstein's Monster (Hensley). By his side is the ravishing Anna (Beckinsale), a member of a family committed to ridding the world of evil.

In Manhattan, the British limousine driver Alfie (Jude Law) who lives as a Don Juan, having one night stands with all of them and without any sort of commitment, is surrounded by beautiful women, most of them clients. His girl-friend and single-mother Julie (Marisa Tomei) is quite upset with the situation. Alfie has a brief affair with Lonette, and the consequences of his act forces Alfie to reflect and wonder about his life style.

Vin Diesel is no James Bond, and he doesn't want to be. That's why XXX announced Diesel as the adrenalin-junkie Bond of the PlayStation generation, copying the Bond formula so shamelessly that this action-packed silliness would be a Bond movie if it starred Pierce Brosnan. Reuniting Diesel with his Fast and the Furious director Rob Cohen, XXX has an attitude (if not a brain) all its own, plucking Diesel's Xander Cage from his celebrity as an extreme sports renegade, recruited by a National Security Agency big shot (Samuel L. Jackson) to foil a nasty Czech villain (Marton Csokas) who's eager to depopulate Prague with remote-controlled biological weaponry. Toss in a sulky, sultry Russian agent (Asia Argento) and you've got extreme Bond-age for anyone who thinks tuxedos are passé. With a handful of eye-popping action sequences, XXX launched a movie franchise with a cool guy, another cool muscle car, and plenty of box-office sizzle. --Jeff Shannon

When Scotty's German online pen pal suggests they meet, he initially freaks out. But then he discovers that she's gorgeous, and heads out with three friends after graduation to meet her. As they travel across Europe, the four friends have comical misadventures.

Murder by Numbers probes the disturbing psychology of two teenaged murderers and the cleverness of their crime. Like Hitchcock's Rope and other films inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s, the film intensifies as it explores the repressed (and subtly homosexual) tensions between high-school outcasts Richard (Ryan Gosling) and Justin (Michael Pitt), who randomly kill a woman to enact an amoral philosophy--and to tease a savvy homicide detective (Sandra Bullock) with misleading clues. While clashing with the by-the-book procedure of her partner (Ben Chaplin), Bullock gives one of her best performances in a role that comes with its own set of psychological hurdles. It's comfortable territory for Reversal of Fortune director Barbet Schroeder, who draws fine work from his cast while proving that there's no such thing as a perfect crime.

This is the biographical account of the tempestuous, taboo-shattering love affair between two 19th century French poets--Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis) and Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio

Directed by Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa, The Secret Garden), Total Eclipse begins in 1870 when the newly married Verlaine is 24 and Rimbaud is 17. The volatile combination of their reckless passions, idiosyncratic talents, and obnoxious egos is a recipe for disaster--and l'amour fou--culminating in a two-year prison term for Verlaine who was convicted of sodomy. DiCaprio's work in this film (as well as This Boy's Life, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, and The Basketball Diaries) proves he is a serious actor who's interested in risky, challenging work--not just the matinee idol he became in the wake of Titanic.

A semi-scandal upon its release in 1978, this Louis Malle film is set in a turn-of-the-century, New Orleans bordello and focuses on a girl named Violet (then-child actress Brooke Shields) whose imminent twelfth birthday signals her "readiness" to become a career prostitute. Typical of Malle, the outwardly forbidden nature of the story and relationships within are morally obscured by the immediate experiences and unqualified urges of the characters. The little heroine brings a distinctly youthful and innocent view to the milieu, and the introduction of a photographer (Keith Carradine)--who eventually marries Violet--in the brothel carries the suggestion that there is art and beauty to be explored there. Susan Sarandon is beguiling as Violet's mother, who seems to unfold in the cameraman's presence. The film moves a little stiffly, a little slowly, possibly from a heavy emphasis on period art direction and Sven Nykvist's moody if gorgeous photography.

Descend into the dark world and tragic life of the melancholy author who is the uncontested master of the macabre, and hear excerpts from his famous works.

When you get to the biography page, scroll down and check #13 to download The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe from Amazon.com

He captured the imagination of millions and helped launch a generation of readers and writers on fantastic voyages of the mind.

When you get to the biography page, scroll down and check #22 to download The Extraordinary Voyages of Jules Verne from Amazon.com.