Fire in the Sky, a TV movie about a comet hitting Phoenix, AZ. Came out in the late 70s IIRC.
The Day After (again) and its half-sibling Special Bulletin.
V if mini-series count.
If mini-series, the bbc’s Jekyll.
Definitely second the Librarian movies. Very entertaining and imo on par with some of the Indiana Jones movies.
That last scene with her squatting, tapping the knife into the floor and smiling that weird-teeth smile is something that really stuck with me.
The Four Feathers, starring Beau Bridges and Jane Seymour, was actually more faithful to the book than any of the theatrical films I have seen.
Spectre, one of Gene Roddenberry’s wierder creations. The SciFi Channel occasionally shows this in late-night or early-morning, although their copy seems to be missing the second-to-last reel.
KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park is rumored to be one of the worst movies ever made. In a class with Ed Wood and Ewe Boll movies. However, when I was nine years old, I enjoyed it.
ETA: The Jack Palance version of Dracula
ETA: The Louis Jordan version of Dracula
I’m pretty fond of The Fifth Missile, a cold-war thriller about a nuclear sub crew gone mad.
It’s a miniseries, but I love The 10th Kingdom.
I have seen four made-for-TV-movies which have had a lasting impact on me. Unfortunately, I can remember the name of only one of them, Duel, which has already been mentioned. I’ll describe the other three; maybe someone will be able to identify them.
One, which I saw about 30 years ago, was based on a true story and concerned an American who was enamoured of the Communist Revolution and in the early 1930s took his family with him to live in the USSR. The movie deals with his disallusionment and the subsequent 20 year struggle to be allowed to leave and return to the US.
The second, which starred Robert Mitchum, I saw about 20 years ago. It, too, was based on a true story and dealt with a man who was broken out of prision by his three teen-age sons and their subsequent pursuit by the police. It was moving and tragic.
The third one I saw about five years ago and dealt with a commerical passenger plane, flying over the Pacific, which loses communication with the ground and is then tracked by the US Air Force which has orders to shoot it down. The tension was unblievable!
If mini-series count, The Stand.
Born Innocent, in which Linda Blair of Exorcist fame portrays a misunderstood delinquent teenager.
Another vote for Duel.
- Tribes. *
Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor is really good, and partly fills a void Hollywood had (although we still need the *feelgood *movie about Benedict Arnold).
I also fondly recall The Dropout Father although I haven’t seen it in 27 years.
I’ll add another vote for Trilogy of Terror which was the very first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title.
I remember blubbering to Death Be Not Proud; a real tear jerker starring the ever so dreamy (to my 9 year old self anyway)Robby Benson.
And who can forget John Travolta as The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. I can still remember the commercial they showed umpteen times where an angsty bubble boy says “I just want to be like a man”. Oy.
If we’re going for miniseries, I nominate Roots.
Dang! I forgot Sunshine, a 1973 Canadian made-for-TV movie, and the greatest tearjerker of all time! It’s about a young mother dying of cancer who records a kind of audio journal on cassettes for her very young daughter to remember her by. At one point, a burglar breaks into their home and steals the tapes (among other things) and she goes on TV to beg him to return the tapes. So there I am, sitting a biker bar, crying my ass off when the burglar returns the tapes, and there’s these big, hairy, mean-looking men all around staring at me like I’d gone crazy.
Currently it’s only available on bootleg discs.
A Killer in the Family (1983).
Based on the true story of the Tison gang’s 1978 crime spree. Quite an impressive cast.
There’s a true-crime book, The Last Rampage, that tells the full story.
*The Night Stalker *and its sequel, The Night Strangler, which introduced us to Darren McGavin’s Carl Kolchak.
Before I forget, does anyone else remember The Sole Survivor, with William Shatner? The ghosts of a WWII bomber crew haunt the wreckage of their plane in the Libyan desert, waiting for someone to find their remains…
How quickly you forget Shogun!
I was also going to mention The Thorn Birds and The Stand. They’re remaking It into a feature film, rated R, so let’s see how far they get away with that (Beverly’s gangbang may not translate well into film.)
And I got my first Patrick Swayze crush from North and South.
No, you wouldn’t. I rented it from Netflix and it holds up well!
I came to post ERS and Duel.
The Inspector Morse series. Although each episode was originally broadcast in the USA by PBS in 2 parts, they were originally TV movies and eventually A&E aired them that way. Damn good series, and John Thaw and Kevin Whately were perfect casting choices.
Guyana Tragedy, with Powers Boothe as Jim Jones. I saw this when it came on. I would have been a young teen so I can’t imagine (or remember) why my parents let me watch it.
I second The Stand if mini-series count.
Martin Sheen made a string of good television movies back in the early seventies: The Andersonville Trial, Goodbye, Raggedy Ann, Mongo’s Back in Town, Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol, No Drums, No Bugles, That Certain Summer, Letters from Three Lovers, Message to My Daughter, The Execution of Private Slovik, The Story of Pretty Boy Floyd, The California Kid, Sweet Hostage, The Last Survivors, and The Missiles of October.