Rebel Without a Cause

(1956; screens Wednesday at 5:20 p.m.)

This sublime melodrama about a juvenile delinquent adrift in a nightmarish '50s suburbia features moody/flashy direction by Nicholas Ray, a fatal game of chicken, a stunning shootout at a planetarium, and riveting performances by James Dean, with Natalie Wood, Dennis Hopper, and Sal Mineo. According to screenwriter Stewart Stern, Mineo's Plato was intended as the first sympathetic homosexual character on the Hollywood screen: note the pin-up of Alan Ladd in his locker.