Turning 80 years old this year is everybody’s favorite deer, Bambi. This film marked the 5^th animated offering from Walt Disney Animation and has remained a staple of beloved children’s movies for many generations, despite the horrific death of Bambi’s mother. And with the shocking ending of the film, when Bambi’s father reveals his identity, this family friendly movie is a LOT for young children to deal with. 

Adapted from the 1923 novel by Austrian author, Felix Salten, Bambi: A Life in the Woods, is a coming-of-age story about the life of a baby roe deer throughout his childhood years. As the roe deer was a species native to Europe, it was changed to a mule deer from Arrowhead, California for the big screen, to be more relatable to U.S. audiences. The film garnered three Academy Awards – Best Sound, Best Song, and Original Music Score.

Celebrating its 60^th anniversary is the classic film, To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted from Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.  The film stars Gregory Peck and Mary Badham and marked the onscreen debut of Robert Duval. 

The film earned three Academy Awards including Best Actor for Gregory Peck and amassed eight nominations including Best Picture.  In the role of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in Alabama who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman, Peck told EW magazine, in 1988, ‘I must have had at least 50 men over the years tell me that they became lawyers because of that film.  They were young when they first saw it, and they became determined to serve the cause of justice and fight against bigotry and intolerance.”

It’s hard to believe it was 40 years ago when the world first set eyes on an E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, an odd but adorable looking alien who was left behind on earth and endeavors to find his way back home. It stars a young boy, Elliot (Henry Thomas) who befriends E.T., and along with his friends and family including little sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore) they help their new friend return home.

The story was based on an imaginary friend Steven Spielberg created as a child in order to cope with his parents’ divorce. The film captured the hearts and imaginations of viewers and became the highest grossing film of all time for eleven years until Spielberg eclipsed that number with Jurassic Park, in 1993.   Spielberg told USA Today of casting a then six-year-old Barrymore, after an exhaustive search.

“Drew came into my office and took over the meeting by storm!” Spielberg recalls, speaking at the “E.T.” 40th-anniversary celebration at the 11th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in April. “She stormed the citadel of my office at MGM. She really did.”

It was 25 years ago when Leonardo DiCaprio declared himself the ‘king of the world’ in the juggernaut blockbuster, Titanic. Released in 1997 on a budget of $200 million, at the time it was the most expensive film ever made. This epic romance and disaster movie was written, produced and directed by James Cameron which included historical facts and a fictional love story between DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s characters who fall in love on the ship despite their contrasting social classes. At the time DiCaprio was known predominately for working in gritty or indie fare such as This Boy’s Life (1993), and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, which earned him nods for Best Actor for the Oscars and Golden Globes.  He also starred in The Basketball Diaries, in 1995, and moved into leading man terrain in Romeo + Juliet, in 1996. But Titanic, the highest grossing movie at the box office, would make him an international star. He earned another Golden Globe nod for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama. 

During an HFPA press conference in 1997, DiCaprio said, “I’ve not liked huge blockbuster action films simply because to me they’ve lacked content as far as the story is concerned but when I read Titanic it was a completely different situation.  I recognized it as having so many themes for humanity and being such an intricate and interesting story that I didn’t want to discriminate against it because it was big.  I’m extremely glad I did, and I would definitely do it again.  Not to say the movie wasn’t one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, but when you go through something like that and you look back on it, it’s even more rewarding in the end.”

Commemorating its ten-year anniversary, political thriller Argo was directed, co-written and starred Ben Affleck, for which he won a Golden Globe for Best Director as well as Best Picture, and an Academy Award for Best Picture. Centered on real events and people, the film chronicles the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 when 66 Americans were taken hostage. Affleck plays extractor Tony Mendez who heads up the mission to rescue them. 

Affleck said during an HFPA press conference, in 2012 to promote the movie, “I didn’t know anything about the mission, but I knew about the hostages. When I got the script and cracked it open, I thought, ‘This is insane.’ Then I looked it up on the internet and found out it was true. So, I called [producers] George [Clooney] and Grant [Heslov] and said, ‘I gotta do this!’ And two months later I was prepping the movie.