The Sixth Sense (1999)

This summer blockbuster, nominated for six Oscars, may be the beginning of a welcome trend away from the excessive blood and gore of most contemporary horror films.

Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (Wide Awake) makes sure that most of the terror takes place in the viewer' s mind, not on screen.

The drama is created by its characters, with scary moments that don't depend on flashy special effects. It assumes an ordered, transcendent universe where the forces of good have power as well as the evil ones. Charity and compassion are shown to make a difference.

Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a child psychologist whose disturbed patient, 8-year-old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), claims to see ghosts.

Cole is being raised by his mom, and Crowe becomes a surrogate father-figure, slowly winning his trust.

The Sixth Sense explores the connections between spiritual and psychological disorders and comes down on the side of the spiritual as the prime behavioral determinant.

Anne of Green Gables 1985

An orphaned girl never has an easy time, especially when the couple which adopts her continually suggests that they could have done better.

The orphan, Anne Shirley (Megan Follows), is raised by Marilla (Colleen Dewhurst) and Matthew Cuthbert (Richard Farnsworth), an elderly sister and brother who own a farm on Prince Edward Island, Canada. The action takes place in the early 1900s, when the rules for children were strict.

Marilla claims she always wanted a boy to help work the land and takes out her disappointment on Anne.

The girl's energetic, youthful behavior disrupts the Cuthberts’ ordered life as she links up with a kindred spirit (Schuyler Grant) and acquires an enemy (Jonathan Crombie).

Unhappy with her freckles and red hair, Anne dyes her locks green to assert her individuality.

Anne of Green Gables, a TV-movie based on Lucy Maud Montgomery's successful series of novels, is a funny, heartfelt, coming-of-age story with a strong moral framework.

Becket (1964)

“Who will rid me of this meddle-some priest?” cries the ambitious political leader when his naked grab for power is challenged by a man of God. The age-old conflict between Church and state was often a life-and-death matter for medieval rulers. England's King Henry II (Peter O'Toole) is always having trouble with the Church and decides to appoint his chancellor and drinking buddy, Thomas Becket (Richard Burton), archbishop of Canterbury. He assumes his old friend will be loyal to him rather than to Rome.

There's talk of war with France and the inevitable corrupt wheeling-and-dealing by the kingdom's rich and powerful. But Thomas proves to be a more formidable adversary to Henry's interests than his pious, bureaucratic predecessors. The Oscar-winning Becket, based on Jean Anouilh's play, is an exciting, subtly drawn study of a personality clash with tragic consequences. Even though it's always clear who's right and who's wrong, both men engage our sympathies.

John Prizer