1. HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (John Ford; 1941) 4 stars

Based on Richard Llewellyn's stirring memoir of his Welsh boyhood, this is one of the great John Ford films. A multiple Oscar winner (it beat out "Citizen Kane"), this is a strong, lyrical, deeply moving family saga set in an era of labor turbulence and social change. (available on DVD and video)

2. THE BICYCLE THIEF (Vittorio De Sica; 1948) 3 stars

De Sica's simple Italian art-house flick about the impoverished Roman worker who has his bicycle -- his only means of transportation for his job putting up movie posters around town -- stolen and who then combs the city with his young son, desperate to find it. It demonstrates how a movie devoid of big-name stars and heavy production costs can open your eyes and wring your heart. (Italian, subtitled.) (Video)

3. SOUNDER (Martin Ritt; 1972) 4 stars

This 1972 low-budget adaptation of William Armstrong's children's novel of the same name -- scripted by Lonne Elder III and beautifully directed by Ritt -- was one of the most affecting movies of a great Hollywood year and one of the finest dramatic movies about poor black life in the rural South ever created. (Video)

4. PELLE THE CONQUEROR (Bille August; 1987) 4 stars

August's adaptation of Martin Anderson Nexo's semi-autobiographical novel, a landmark of Danish literature, follows the painful childhood of a Swedish immigrant boy, Pelle, and his elderly, exhausted but loving father (a magnificent performance by Max Von Sydow). Focusing on Pelle and his father, peasants working for a profligate farmer, August and his brilliant cinematographer, Jorgen Persson, make this an epic of landscape and seasons. (Danish and Swedish, subtitled.) (Video)

5. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (Roberto Benigni; 1998) 3 1/2 stars

Set in World War II Italy , this film is a deeply moving blend of cold terror and rapturous comedy. Writer-director-star Benigni plays a high-spirited Jewish-Italian bookseller named Guido, a Chaplinesque figure who leads a fairy-tale existence until the Nazis arrive in 1943 -- and the mass internment of Italy's Jews begins. (Italian, subtitled.) (Video/DVD).

Michael Wilmington is the Chicago Tribune movie critic.