The opening before the credits is spine tingling! Paul Scofield plays a Nazi officer who loves art and is taking a train filled with stolen French impressionist paintings from Paris to Germany before WWII ends. Interesting philosophical questions are raised about the role of art in defining a national identity, and the value of paintings vs. human lives.

Stars: Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau

Synopsis by IMDB

Nazi Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) and museum curator Mlle.Villard (Suzanne Flon) are admiring Impressionist and Modernist paintings in the Jeu de Paume, in Paris. She thanks him for protecting the art, but he announces that many of them are now going to be taken to Germany.

Col. von Waldheim goes to the headquarters of General von Lubitz (Richard Munch), which is bustling with staff packing or destroying records and organizing the withdrawal from Paris. Von Lubitz considers the cargo “degenerate art,” but Col. von Waldheim succeeds in getting authorization for a train to transport the art by pointing out that the paintings are “as negotiable as gold, and more valuable.”

Railway Superintendent Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster) meets in a river barge with Spinet (Paul Bonifas) to receive the latest instructions from London for the railwaymen working for the Resistance. His last two remaining compatriots are also there: Didont (Albert Rémy) and Pesquet (Charles Millot). Spinet tells them they are asked to delay departure of an armament train by ten minutes so that it will be caught in the saturation bombing of the yard at Vaires at 10:00 o’clock.

Then he introduces another request. Mlle Villard wants the art train stopped. Labiche refuses to “waste lives” on such a project. Mlle Villard shocks even herself when she blurts out: “But they wouldn’t be wasted.” Didont is sorry they can’t help her. He asks hopefully: “Don’t you have copies of them?”

Short of locomotive engineers, Labiche reluctantly decides to assign his aged mentor Papa Boule (Michel Simon) to drive the train taking the art to Germany. In a café, Boule is disappointed not to be given something “important.” When told what his cargo is, the art doesn’t mean much to him, but he remembers fondly a girl he knew who was a model for Renoir. He muses about “the glory of France,” and asks for his change in franc pieces.

The art train is waiting for darkness before departing, when Gen. von Lubitz calls Col. von Waldheim to rescind authorization. Von Waldheim tells him the train has already left, then orders the train under way immediately.

In the yard at Vaires, Pesquet is driving the armoured locomotive for the armament train, and Labiche is supervising in the switch tower. They both create delays. Major Herren (Wolfgang Preiss), overseeing the operations, calls the switch tower in a fury. The camera zooms in on his wristwatch, which reads 10:00 o’clock, and the air raid siren starts.

The railway yard is heavily bombed, and the armament train is destroyed. Labiche sees Papa Boule driving the art train through the conflagration. He signals him to stop, but Boule is determined to barrel on through in heroic fashion.

The train stops at Rive-Reine. Boule has blocked an oil cup with a franc piece, and a main rod bearing has failed, so the engine must return to Vaires. There Maj. Herren finds the oily franc piece in Boule’s pocket. Despite Labiche’s promise to repair and deliver the engine himself, von Waldheim has Boule executed.

Returning the locomotive to the train in daylight, Pesquet and Didont tell Labiche they want to stop the art train, because “Papa Boule wanted it that way.” They are fired on by a lone Spitfire, and narrowly escape by racing into a tunnel. Shaken, Pesquet says this has to be his “last job.”

At Rive-Reine, von Waldheim commandeers Labiche to drive the art train, and sends him to the hotel to rest up until nightfall. Pesquet sets fire to a truck so Labiche can get to the station to make arrangements for sabotage at stations up the line. Since he has to kill a German sentry, he ties up Jacques the Stationmaster (Jacques Marin) so he can claim innocence. Still, Jacques is beaten until he gives a fake description of the supposed saboteur. Labiche gets back to the hotel just as the Germans arrive to look for him, but the hotel owner, a widow named Christine (Jeanne Moreau), convinces them he has been eating in her kitchen.

That night, Labiche (with Didont as fireman) drives the train towards Germany. Each time they pass a station, officers riding in a coach at the tail end cross off the name on a map. At Metz there is apparent bomb damage, and the train is diverted south. At every succeeding station a fake sign is displayed. The train stops at Commercy, where the Germans telephone von Waldheim to reassure him that they have reached St. Avold, the last station before they cross into Germany. In fact, they have gone back west on another line, and are almost back at Rive-Reine.

Jacques and an engineer create a derailment at Rive-Reine. Just outside the town, the art train passes a train waiting on a siding, which then begins following, driven by Pesquet. Labiche and Didont throw their German guard from the engine, uncouple from the train, open the throttle wide, and jump. Labiche is wounded in the leg. The locomotive speeds into the engine already derailed, creating a tangled mess. The rolling train crashes into the engines. Pesquet jumps from his engine, but he is shot running away. His train slams into the rear of the art train. Labiche takes refuge in Christine’s cellar. Jacques (and others) are executed. Christine bemoans “the cost.”

Maj. Herren supervises the clean-up of the wreck. He and von Waldheim hear artillery in the distance: the Germans firing on the advancing Allies.

Labiche and Didont meet with Spinet that night. Labiche is tired of waiting for the Allies, and is ready to “blow it up,” but Didont says they must save the train because of those who have already died for it. Spinet tells them that London wants the train to be marked so it won’t be hit by bombers. They are to paint the roofs of the first three cars white. Jacques’ nephew Robert (Christian Fuin) says he can organize it.

Robert sets off the air raid siren at the station, and work lights are extinguished. Men scramble onto the train and spread paint. Robert is discovered and the lights turned on. Von Waldheim shoots him. The paint is discovered, and Didont is killed.

In the morning, workers scraping the white paint are interrupted by an air raid. When the bombers pass harmlessly over the train, von Waldheim realizes the significance of the paint, and says, “Leave it! Its my ticket to Germany.” He knows he can safely run the train in daylight.

Up the line, Labiche plants an explosive charge under one rail. As the train approaches, he sees that von Waldheim has placed hostages on the locomotive. He is forced to blow the track well before the engine reaches it, giving the driver time to stop before only the first pilot wheel comes off the rail. Maj. Herren organizes the re-railing, and tells von Waldheim to send soldiers ahead to keep Labiche away from the tracks for the next few miles.

Labiche struggles to get well ahead of the soldiers, and has just enough time to remove rail anchors and wedges along one rail length. Maj. Herren, riding the front of the engine, does not see the damage soon enough to stop the engine from coming off the rails. He tells von Waldheim it will now be impossible to continue.

An army convoy passes by on the highway adjacent to the tracks. Von Waldheim steps into the road to stop the traffic, and orders the retreating soldiers to begin loading the paintings onto the trucks. The Major in charge of the convoy countermands von Waldheim’s order, for the sake of his men. Maj. Herren convinces von Waldheim that they have lost. He and the others will join the convoy, but just before they leave, the sergeant signals a machine gunner to execute the hostages.

Von Waldheim remains, alone. When the convoy has passed by, Labiche comes out of the bullrushes and finishes shutting down the engine. Then he sees the bodies of the hostages. He climbs off the engine, and is startled by von Waldheim, who claims such great art will always belong to people who can appreciate it. Labiche looks to the dead hostages and guns him down. As he walks away, the abandoned crates of art lie askew, juxtaposed with the crumpled bodies of the numerous dead.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059825/

Wesley Snipes plays Simon Phoenix, a twentieth-century criminal so violent that he has to be put into a permanent cryogenic stasis. Sylvester Stallone plays a similarly violent cop, John Spartan, who gets the same treatment. When Phoenix is accidentally thawed in a benign and peaceful future, no one can deal with him except a defrosted Spartan. Phoenix wants weapons and the only place he can find them is in a wonderfully conceived futuristic museum.

Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock

Synopsis by IMDB

In the year 1996, Los Angeles has become a crime-ridden hell where street gangs control the city. The most powerful gang leader, Simon Phoenix, has set up the largest and most dangerous territory for himself, with his headquarters inside a large, dilapidated building. When he kidnaps about 30 passengers from a city bus, an LA supercop, John Spartan, whom has a reputation for destroying property while working on cases and a long history of reprimand by his superiors, is sent in to arrest Phoenix and rescue the hostages. Spartan bungee jumps onto the roof of Phoenix’ headquarters and fights his way through the structure, defeating several of Phoenix’ guards. When Phoenix sees Spartan’s approach on his security cameras, he grabs a dagger and punctures several barrels of gasoline, spilling it onto the floor. Spartan arrives and orders Phoenix to reveal the location of the hostages. Phoenix catches Spartan off guard, showing him the pool of gas and brandishing a lit torch. He defiantly refuses to give up the hostages and flicks a lit cigarette toward Spartan, igniting the gas. Spartan grabs Phoenix and runs out of the building while the flames ignite several barrels of C4 explosive. The building collapses just after Spartan makes it to safety.

When Spartan’s captain shows up, he immediately chastises Spartan for destroying the building per his usual methods (hence, his nickname “The Demolition Man”), however Spartan tells him that Phoenix had deliberately rigged the place to explode. Spartan also tells his chief that he’d done a thermal scan of the building and found only Phoenix and his goons there. Phoenix yells that Spartan was wrong and a fire chief suddenly informs them all that they’ve found about 30 bodies in the rubble which can only be the bus passengers. Phoenix claims that he told Spartan about the hostages and that Spartan said he didn’t care. Spartan’s chief tells him to get a good lawyer. Spartan is charged with involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to a 70 year term in a new prison where the inmates are cryogenically frozen. During their incarceration, prisoners are subject to reconditioning to change their behavior.

Thirty-six years later in 2032, the prison is still in operation. Los Angeles has changed considerably, having become a community of peace. The cities of LA, Santa Barbara and San Diego have merged into one giant urban center after a giant earthquake devastated most of Southern California. The San Angeles Police Department hasn’t dealt with a violent crime in over 16 years. The city is led by a seemingly benevolent man named Raymond Cocteau, who is responsible for the society LA has become.

Phoenix finds himself unfrozen for a parole hearing. Though it’s likely he’ll simply be denied, he’s given a chance to speak by Warden Smithers. Phoenix gives the password to unlock his shackles and attacks the guards and Smithers. To get past the prison’s retinal scanners, he tears out the warden’s eye. He steals a car and heads for Los Angeles.

At the SAPD’s HQ, the police force are alerted by their central computer, L7, of a “Code 187” which they don’t recognize but L7 identifies as “MurderDeathKill”. The force is horrified to see that the warden and another doctor of the prison have been killed by Phoenix. They work quickly to locate him and find him on Wilshire Boulevard. At a control kiosk, Phoenix discovers that he has new abilities, such as increased strength, hand-to-hand combat skills and that he can hack the city’s computer system. The officers sent to arrest him are no match and he quickly beats or kills them. He then detonates the batteries in one of their squad cars and escapes. Shocked at the level of violence, the SAPD, led by an officer named Lenina Huxley, decide they have to free John Spartan from his prison sentence to stop Phoenix.

Spartan is thawed and reinstated to the police force. He is also told that his wife was killed in the big earthquake of 2010. His daughter’s whereabouts are unknown. When he asks for a cigarette, he’s told they and a list of foods and vices from the past are illegal because they are unhealthy. He’s also told that he’s had a microchip implanted in his hand so his location can be monitored at all time. Spartan objects immediately, criticizing the plan as fascist. He also scoffs at the police chief’s theory that Phoenix will try to set up a new crime syndicate. Spartan knows that Phoenix’ immediate plan is to arm himself and continue his terrorist activities. When the chief tells him that the only guns left in the city limits are in a museum, Spartan and Huxley go there.

In the museum, Phoenix breaks open a display case and grabs several weapons, including a laser firing rifle. Trapped temporarily in the exhibit, Spartan finds Phoenix and the two battle in a vicious gunfight and hand-to-hand. Phoenix is able to escape through the museum’s roof. He runs directly into Cocteau and tries to shoot him but is unable to pull the trigger. Cocteau tells Phoenix that he should be hunting a man named Edgar Friendly instead of wasting his time terrorizing San Angeles. Spartan catches up but Phoenix escapes again. Grateful that Spartan “saved” his life, Cocteau invites him and Huxley to dinner at Taco Bell, the only restaurant left in the area after and event called the Franchise Wars.

At dinner, Cocteau and his guests grill Spartan about his unruly methods and vulgar language. He takes most of the criticism as a compliment and makes mention of the fact that he was actually conscious during his incarceration and that he remembers seeing his wife outside his ice block. Cocteau dismisses Spartan’s claims. Just then Spartan sees shady-looking people outside the restaurant and runs after them. He takes several of them down but stops when one of them begs him not to hurt him and drops a container of food his group had stolen from the restaurant. Huxley is over-excited, praising Spartan for his ability in hand-to-hand but Spartan scolds her saying that violence isn’t the best solution and that the people he’d roughed up were just trying to get something to eat.

Huxley later takes Spartan to her apartment. Saying that the evening’s violence has her sexually aroused, she politely asks if John will have sex with her. She places a helmet on his head which uses a form of sensory induction to stimulate their brains directly. John is appalled, preferring physical contact. Huxley explains that physical contact and “fluid exchange” are illegal because of sexually transmitted diseases that were worse than AIDS. She asks John to leave her apartment when John makes physical advances. John returns to his apartment and examines a video recording from the museum she’d given him. He sees that Phoenix, when he’d found Cocteau at the museum, had plenty of time to kill Cocteau but didn’t. John grows more suspicious of San Angeles’ benefactor.

The next morning John apologizes to Huxley for his behavior. She forgives him and the two access L7’s records on Phoenix, finding that he’d been given a rehab program to turn him into an even more violent sociopath than he’d been in 1996. Spartan has Huxley take him to Cocteau’s offices where he confronts Cocteau directly, threatening to harm him. Cocteau is still able to conceal his secret: in a later secret meeting with Phoenix, he reveals that he’d altered the villain’s rehab program so he’d murder Edgar Friendly and the rest of Friendly’s mob, who live in the ruins under Los Angeles, where they are poor, starving and steal food. These “Scraps” are a constant annoyance to Cocteau, who wants them wiped out. Phoenix has a small demand of his own: in order to properly do the job, he wants a few of his fellow cryocons released. However, they will not undergo the same rehabilitation conditioning that Phoenix himself did, making them even more dangerous.

Spartan figures out that the reason why the SAPD’s manhunt didn’t find Phoenix is because he’d been hiding under the city. Phoenix meets with the cryocons that he’d gotten Cocteau to release and tells them they have to kill Friendly and then the city will be theirs. Spartan and Huxley find Edgar Friendly, who tells them he’s not a fan of Cocteau’s dictatorship and would rather live his life in abject poverty but still be free. Spartan and Huxley are found by Phoenix and another battle ensues. Phoenix escapes to the surface and steals an SAPD squad car. Huxley & Spartan tear after him in an antique 1970 Oldsmobile 442. During the chase, Phoenix tells Spartan that he’d already killed all the bus passengers in 1996. Phoenix escapes again and Spartan sees Friendly’s mob approaching. They give him weapons to go after Phoenix. At Cocteau’s office, Phoenix introduces him to his freed prisoner horde and has one of them murder Cocteau, throwing his body in the fireplace. Phoenix is granted access to the cryoprison and plans to thaw out more criminals, many of whom were incarcerated by Spartan and haven’t undergone any reconditioning. Spartan goes after Phoenix at the cryoprison after using a stun rod on Huxley to keep her from joining him.

At the prison, Phoenix is finishing the last stages of freeing the prisoners. He kills all the technicians just as Spartan arrives. The two exchange gunfire and fight furiously until Spartan is able to freeze Phoenix. As he swings around on a large crane, he knocks Phoenix’ frozen head off, which shatters on the floor. Spartan runs out of the cryoprison as it explodes.

He meets Huxley and his chief outside. The inhabitants of San Angeles aren’t sure of how to continue their lives since Cocteau is dead but Spartan assures them they’ll be fine. He also looks forward to starting a new romantic relationship with Huxley.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106697