The Miracle Maker (2000)

Here's a small miracle in its own right: a simple, modest retelling of the ministry and passion of Christ that does little more than present the bare events of the Gospel narratives, without adornment or invention. Created by a team of meticulous Russian puppeteers working with the BBC, The Miracle Maker is a groundbreaking work of astoundingly lifelike stop-motion animation against authentic-looking Middle-Eastern miniature sets, aided with occasional digital effects. The result is a world of breathtaking authenticity, supplemented with traditional hand-drawn animation for certain sequences.

A stellar cast provides vocal talent, including Ralph Fiennes (Jesus), Miranda Richardson, Richard E. Grant and William Hurt. Fiennes' Jesus is attractive, composed, commanding and compassionate; he can rise to righteous anger but has an acute sense of humor (especially in satirical parables such as the log in the eye).

While it's possible to quarrel with what the film doesn't do (e.g., not depicting the feeding of the 5,000), what it does do is virtually beyond reproach. This is quite simply one of the best dramatizations of the Gospel in any medium. An instant classic, bound to become an enduring Easter favorite.

The Fugitive (1993)

Taut, effective serial-chase story, based on the TV series, of Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford), who is wrongly accused of the murder of his own wife. Kimble spends most of the movie on the run from a crack team of U.S. Marshals commanded by Sam Girard (Tommy Lee Jones, in an Oscar-winning supporting role) and pursuing the one-armed murderer who robbed him of his wife and his life. Ford exudes decency in the role of the innocent man wrongly accused. Kimble repeatedly puts other people ahead of himself, regularly risking capture and even death in order to help others.

Jones plays Girard as a hardboiled, ultra-competent officer whose initial concern is simply to recapture a fugitive but whose canny instincts gradually lead him to put the pieces together. What makes the chase especially thrilling is that both pursuer and pursued are smart, capable and brave; the story doesn't resort either to making the policeman bumbling and inept or the fugitive merely lucky. You admire and root for them both and want them to be allies rather than opponents.

Casablanca (1942)

Bogey is at his best as Rick, an American opportunist in 1940 French Morocco with a gruffly cynical exterior that belies his wary idealism and wounded heart. Ingrid Bergman is luminous as Ilsa, who arrives in Casablanca with resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinrich) but clearly has a history with Rick. Cynicism and self-interest contend with idealism and self-sacrifice as Rick and Ilsa's past weighs against the world's future.

When was the last time you saw a love story in which the hero's rival is admirable and heroic, a melodrama in which the outcome seems genuinely in doubt (because it was, even as the film was shot), a noir-like tale of corruption and cynicism in which every major character, however shady, redeems himself in some way? The problems of three little people may not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but they can sure make for a great film.