Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie: America’s pure product and the gift of a young virgin

The Innocents: a great ghost story and an inspired rendering of Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw”

Haunting, powerful, passionate: Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence

On its 75th anniversary, John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon is still a marvel of tough, sardonic suspense

Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans

Five chilling true-crime classics that capture primal American fears

The Heiress: William Wyler unveils the psychological ferocity of Henry James’s Washington Square

The primal pull of Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter

Cocktails, wisecracks, and murder: The Thin Man’s married couple for the ages

Gleaming surfaces and twisted depths: Laura’s mirror-world of wayward desire

Love amid the treetops: the lyrical abandon of Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan’s Tarzan and Jane

The Incredible Shrinking Man: A cinematic nightmare both all-American and Kafka-esque

Purple Noon: A superior take on The Talented Mr. Ripley

Dark, sexy, funny: What makes Out of Sight the best film version of an Elmore Leonard novel

Faith and faithfulness in John Huston’s Wise Blood

Tinseltown meets the Great White Way: Classic musicals that thrived on stage and screen