Grandparents First Issue 21 Spring 2012: Fill & Download for Free

Well, I’ll toss this out to see what people think. They might not be the biggest, but…Lies and Consequences in Our Past 15 WarsMonday, May 28, 2012 By David Swanson, War Is a Crime | News AnalysisAFGHANISTANPrior to 2001, the Taliban was willing to turn Osama bin Laden over to a third country if he was promised a fair trial and no death penalty, and if some evidence of his guilt of crimes were offered. In 2001, the Taliban warned the United States that bin Laden was planning an attack on American soil. In July 2001 the United States was known to have plans to take military action against the Taliban by mid-October.When the United States attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, the Taliban again offered to negotiate for the handing over of bin Laden. When President George W. Bush refused, the Taliban dropped its demand for evidence of guilt and offered simply to turn bin Laden over to a third country. Bush rejected this offer and continued bombing. At a March 13, 2002, press conference, Bush said of bin Laden "I truly am not that concerned about him."[i] When President Barack Obama announced, in May 2011, that he had killed bin Laden, the war didn't even slow down.Bin Laden, as a justification for the longest war in U.S. history, had always had weaknesses. As with Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gadaffi or Manuel Noriega, past U.S. support for bin Laden had to be kept out of the discussion. And a crime had to be transformed into an act of war. A crime by a non-state group was used to implicate the nation of Afghanistan, even though 92% of Afghans not only didn't support the crime of 9-11, but they have to this day never heard about it.[ii]If bin Laden was not the reason for over a decade of war in Afghanistan, perhaps al Qaeda more generally was the cause. When President Obama continued the war in 2009 and tripled the number of U.S. troops in it, he and his subordinates argued that if the Taliban had power it would work with al Qaeda, and that would allow al Qaeda to endanger the United States. Some of the same officials who made this claim, including Richard Holbrooke, at other times admitted that al Qaeda had virtually no presence in Afghanistan, that the Taliban was not likely to work with al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda could easily plan attacks on the United States in a dozen nations other than Afghanistan, just as the 911 attack had been planned, in part, in Europe and the United States.[iii]And of course recruitment for such attacks could only be boosted by the continuation of a U.S. war on Afghanistan. Most experts believe that the war is making the United States less liked and less safe. From 2001 to 2007, there was a sevenfold increase in fatal jihadist attacks around the world, a predictable if tragic result of the Global War on Terror. The U.S. State Department responded to this dangerous escalation in terrorism by discontinuing its annual report on terrorism.[iv] By 2012, Obama was proposing to include the Taliban in a peace process.If bin Laden and al Qaeda and terrorism were not the reasons for the war, maybe the war was intended to spread democracy, human rights, and economic benefits. Maybe the war was philanthropy. But the United States has claimed to be building nations in dozens of places and never succeeded yet.[v] The Afghan government propped up by the U.S. occupation supports wife-beating and barely even pretends to hold legitimate elections. It is extremely difficult to bring people rights and freedoms while bombing them and kicking in their doors at night. While U.S. media only mentions U.S. deaths and suffering, never showing images of the suffering of Afghans in this war, the pretense that the war is for the benefit of Afghans is thin. Nearly 2,000 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan, as compared to tens of thousands of Afghan men, women, and children. The United States doesn't even count the number of people it kills, a seemingly necessary step if we actually wanted to calculate whether we are bestowing more benefit than harm. In fact, a strong majority of the people of the United States wants the war ended, as does a majority of Afghans. But racial and religious bigotry allow many in the United States to hold the self-deceptive belief that Afghans can gain from a war they oppose, since they just don't know any better. In fact, many Americans blindly accept that the U.S. government or president knows best even if their policies appear to us to be the most extreme folly.If the war is based on lies and making us less safe, at least we can take comfort in the fact that it is succeeding. Or can we? Why is it taking so long? In April 2012, echoing numerous other reports, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis made public the results of 250 interviews with U.S. soldiers and Afghans around the country over two year-long deployments. Davis concluded that all claims of success and progress have been dishonest: "Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth," he wrote, "when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable."As the U.S. public has turned against the war, many members of Congress have depicted themselves as opponents and critics of the war, while still in many cases continuing to vote for its funding. A Congressional report in 2010 documented payoffs made by the U.S. to the Taliban for the safe passage of goods through Afghanistan, payoffs that amounted to either the first or second largest source of income for the Taliban, the other being opium. Afghans, including those fighting for the Taliban, often signed up for training and pay from the United States and then departed, sometimes repeating the process a number of times. The United States has been funding, training, and arming both sides of the war.[vi]Every week or two there has been an atrocity story in the media. Soldiers cut off fingers. Or they shot children from a helicopter. Or they shot up a bunch of women and then dug the bullets out with knives to cover up the crime. Or they urinated on corpses or burned corpses or burned Korans. It is always something. And it is always lied about to the extent possible by the United States and NATO, with NATO serving as protection from Congressional oversight. A pattern has developed of the U.S. military passing the buck to NATO, NATO denying everything, NATO revising its lies as new evidence emerges, and NATO finally admitting the crime, with the blame going to a few rogue "bad apples." But you cannot have a war without atrocities, and the atrocities are the least of it. The urination on corpses is not as serious a crime as the creation of the corpses in the first place.The U.S. military lied about football star Pat Tillman's death to his family at his funeral, for purposes of propaganda, but what would have been unusual would have been telling the truth.[vii] Wars cannot exist without lies, and lying is the norm.Myths about how a recent escalation in Iraq had turned a bad war into a good and successful war were applied by Obama to the completely different context of Afghanistan, in combination with familiar rhetoric about supporting troops, as if the war were for their benefit, and as if they had volunteered to be in it, even though they were being endlessly redeployed to a war that had nothing to do with the responsibilities they had signed up for and sworn an oath to, and even though their top cause of death was suicide. Sending more troops into war so that previous troops should not have killed themselves in vain is a hopeless endeavor. Escalating hopeless wars, supposedly in order to end them, actually serves only two purposes: it allows a president to appear more militaristic, and it enriches war profiteers. The escalation in Afghanistan has not improved the situation, quite the reverse."We did not choose this war," said Obama on May 1, 2012, as if the crime of 9-11 had been continually compelling him to fight a war in Afghanistan year after year. But the war was not defensive. Afghanistan was not attacking the United States. The war was not authorized by the United Nations. And it was not declared by Congress, as no war has been since 1941. When Russia began talking about a preemptive strike against U.S. missile bases on Russia's western border in May of 2012, there was nothing the United States could say against the justifiability of such an act. Not after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and the threats being made toward Iran.The tissue of lies surrounding the war on Afghanistan is typical. Libya, despite its use as a model for future "humanitarian wars," is no different.LIBYAThe United States and Europe had been arming and working with Muamar Gadaffi in Libya for years, up to shortly before "intervening" against him in 2011. U.S. and British spy agencies had worked with Gadaffi's torturers and killers.Gadaffi had given up his nuclear program. His subsequent fate (butchered and displayed in a meat locker), along with the fate of the nation of Iraq, sends a strong message to other nations already inclined to believe that only nuclear weapons will protect them.But Gadaffi had displeased the West and displeased the Arab dictatorships. He was unreliable. He wanted too much of Libya's wealth for Libyans. He was too independent. He even called the Saudi monarch the worst thing in the book: "made by Britain and protected by the U.S." And he made that remark in Qatar, another nation that became his enemy.The Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt was out of control. Nonviolent movements were overthrowing dictators. Something had to be done. Violence by protesters in Libya provided an opening -- for the Gulf dictatorships and for U.S.A./NATO. Violent engagement in Libya, supposedly on behalf of the Arab Spring, provided cover for violent crackdowns on nonviolent protesters in Bahrain and Yemen. It was opponents of the Arab Spring who helped to arm the rebels in Libya -- and later in Syria -- but not just to arm them, also to control them. This began under the banner of humanitarianism.Between February 15th and 19th, according to Human Rights Watch, 104 protesters were killed in Libya. Protests did not remain nonviolent. Rebels burned down a police station in Dernah and executed 50 "African mercenaries" in Al Bayda'. On February 21st the Libyan air force attacked Benghazi. Reports vary as to whether the targets were military or civilian. By February 24th Benghazi residents were lining up to be issued guns looted from the army and police. Gadaffi's troops tried to take Az Zawiya on March 1st and Misrata on March 6th but the rebels held off the attacks. Gadaffi's troops did take Az Zawiya on March 7th, and the loss of life was about eight people. Thirty-three died on March 5th in Az Zawiya, eight of them Gadaffi's soldiers. And 21 were killed in Misrata on March 6th by Gadaffi's army shelling. But Gulf and NATO nations' media began talking about 50,000 dead and a genocide underway. The number came from Sayed al-Shanuka, a Libyan member of the International Criminal Court who had defected. There was no explanation of where or how the 50,000 had been killed.On April 10th, Human Rights Watch reported on the dead in Misrata. The highest numbers came from Dr. Muhammad el-Fortia who claimed there were 257 dead, with only 22 percent of them women -- suggesting that fighters had been targeted rather than homes. By the middle of June credible reports claimed 10,000 had been killed over four months by both sides, including by NATO's bombing. NATO, dominated by the United States, entered the war on the pretext of protecting civilians from mass slaughter. There is no solid evidence that slaughter would have occurred. Some observers believe the rebels had the upper hand. The rebels were, in any event, very well armed. There were other options available, as well. The African Union had been proposing a peace settlement, one that Gadaffi might have agreed to.But NATO immediately abandoned humanitarian rescue as the goal of its mission, replacing it with the need to overthrow Gadaffi. General Khalifa Belqasim Hifter was brought in from his home in Virginia by the CIA to lead the rebels, along with other CIA-friendly Libyans. Obama, Sarkozy, and Cameron published an essay on April 15th announcing their plan to overthrow Gadaffi, something the United Nations did not authorize. U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel Locklear admitted in May to Congressman Mike Turner (R., Ohio) that NATO was trying to assassinate Gadaffi.The New York Times admitted to "scores" of dead from NATO strikes unacknowledged by NATO. Over 600,000 civilians fled the country, including 100,000 Libyans, while another 200,000 Libyans were internally displaced. NATO had bombed the city of Tripoli for months, occasionally apologizing for the deaths of civilians, but leaving many observers with the impression that the goal was "shock and awe" -- or "terror bombing" as opposed to "precision bombing." Among the targets were media outlets, in which journalists were killed by NATO's missile strikes.Because cruise missiles and drones did the dirty work, U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser Harold Koh told Congress that the war was neither a war nor even "hostilities" (the language in the War Powers Act). If no U.S. pilots or soldiers were at risk, then the bombs were not hostile. They were friendly explosions.There are echoes here of the first aerial bombing in world history, the Italian bombing of Tajura and Ain Zara in 1911. The bombing, the Italian air force said, had "a wonderful effect on the morale of the Arabs." The 2011 version had a less-than-wonderful effect on the U.S. Constitution, because of course Congress did not offer any resistance. Discussions of a possible war on Iran in 2012 left both Congress and the United Nations to one side. Pentagon head Leon Panetta told the U.S. Senate that President Obama could go to war in Syria or elsewhere without Congress, without the United Nations, and with or without NATO.The ICC disgraced itself as well. Lead investigator Luis Moreno-Ocampo made statements as if they were indisputable about alleged crimes by Gadaffi, including claims about mass-rape and the handing out of Viagra to troops, stories pushed at the same time by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. Eventually Amnesty International investigated and found no grounds for the accusations. Moreno-Ocampo did not investigate NATO's crimes in Libya, any more than he has ever done so in Iraq or Afghanistan. On January 19, 2012, the Arab Organization for Human Rights, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and the International Legal Assistance Consortium reported that NATO had targeted civilian areas and committed war crimes.Toward the end of the war, the rebels displaced the entire population of the town of Tawergha. All 30,000 people are now gone. The rebels had deemed the town's residents' skin too dark. Libya is now smuggling arms to Syrian rebels. Tribes are at war in Southern Libya. The new transitional Libyan government is not representative, democratic, stable, protective of civil rights, or productive of economic rights. Libya is plagued by the resentment and instability that come with violent change. Gadaffi's death did nothing to prevent this inevitable outcome. And unlike the outcome of homegrown violence, which would have been bad enough, the current state of affairs in Libya is one in which the nation suffers from foreign control.The West could have left Libya alone in 2011. Or it could have left Libya alone for decades. Or it could have done good by Libya, economically and politically rather than seeking to exploit Libya's oil. Come the crises of 2011, the United States could have aided the nonviolent protesters in Bahrain rather than approving of a Saudi crackdown and sending over a U.S. cop to lead the cracking of skulls. Instead, the people of the nations of Western Asia learned that the West will only aid violent campaigns, and then only if it, too, favors the overthrow of one of its former puppets. Oil now flows from Libya to the West for free, as repayment apparently for "regime change services."[viii]DRONE WARSThe bombing of Libya was intense and sustained, but U.S. drones are also being used to kill in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. They are used to kill individuals, including U.S. citizens, including children, including both identified individuals and people targeted because of a pattern of behavior that is deemed suspicious, and of course including many people who simply happen to be too close to an intended or accidental target. If drone strikes are law enforcement, the president or his designate is judge, jury, and executioner. The U.S. Congress and public are left in the dark. The nation where the strike is made is violated. If drone strikes are war, they are war with one army safely ensconced thousands of miles from the battlefield, and the other army blindfolded and handcuffed on the battlefield with their wives and children and grandparents along.In February 2002, a drone pilot thought he'd killed Osama bin Laden, but it turned out to be an innocent man. Expert observers, including Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer representing drone victims, believe the vast majority of drone victims are not the individuals who were targeted. Noor Behram, who photographs drone victims, says, "For every 10 to 15 people, maybe they get one militant." President Obama has instructed the government of Yemen to keep a reporter locked up whose crime appears to be having reported on the victims of a U.S. drone strike. Over a million people, by Amnesty International's estimate, have fled the areas of heavy drone bombing in Pakistan.Drones have killed Americans in "friendly fire," including on April 6, 2011, in Afghanistan. Afghans have killed CIA drone pilots and other U.S. officials inside their offices. Even drone "pilots" working in the United States can commit suicide. They are suffering extremely high rates of stress and burnout, according to the Air Force. A Pakistani who tried to blow up a car in Times Square in 2010 said it was revenge for drone attacks. Eventually, blowback for drone attacks may come in the form of drone attacks. U.S. companies sell drones to democracies and dictatorships alike. Al Qaeda stole a crashed U.S. drone from Yemeni police in February 2011. And in December 2011, Iran captured a U.S. drone a decade after the CIA had given Iran plans to build a nuclear bomb, any possible progress on which the drone was no doubt supposed to be spying on.While initially cheaper than manned planes, unmanned drones require many more personnel: 168 people to keep a Predator drone in the air for 24 hours, plus 19 analysts to process the videos created by a drone. And to make matters worse, they tend to crash. They even "go rogue," lose contact with their "pilots" and fly off on their own. The U.S. Navy has a drone that self-destructs if you accidentally touch the space bar on the computer keyboard. Drones also tend to supply so-called enemies with information, including the endless hours of video they record, and to infect U.S. military computers with viruses. But these are the sorts of SNAFUs that come with any project lacking oversight, accountability, or cost controls. The companies with the biggest drone contracts did not invest in developing the best technologies but in paying off the most Congress members.[ix]IRAQ IIThe normalization of war lies in recent years, and the acceptance of the idea that war criminals should go on book tour rather than on trial, of course begins with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. And that war began with the promise that it would be free and easy. Dick Cheney said U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators, while Ken Adelman promised a cake walk.President George W. Bush had decided on the war and sought ways to get it started for many months, while publicly pretending to be striving to avoid a war. Vice President Cheney pressured the CIA to fudge the facts, and set up an even more compliant "intelligence" operation within the Pentagon. Secretary of State Colin Powell made a war sales pitch to the United Nation despite his own staff having warned him that many of the claims he would be making were not backed up by the evidence. The U.N. refused to authorize the war, but Bush launched it anyway, resulting in over a million deaths and over 4 million people displaced from their homes, along with such complete devastation of Iraqi society that commentators began popularizing the term "sociocide." This disaster cost the U.S. trillions of dollars in direct expense and indirect economic impact.[x]This war, like all wars since 1928, violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and like most wars since 1945, violated the U.N. Charter. But it went further than that in damaging the rule of law. Bush persuaded Congress to issue vague and general "authorizations to use military force," violating the limitations placed on presidential war making by the Constitution and even by the War Powers Act. Bush also violated the authorization by submitting false information to Congress, not to mention by claiming in a "signing statement" that Congress had no power to authorize him to do anything. Those and many other false claims about Iraqi weapons and ties to terrorism, made by Bush and his subordinates, violated the Anti-Conspiracy Statute, as well as the False Statements Accountability Act. It is also illegal under treaties the United States is party to for one nation to invade another in order to control its resources.[xi]And then there were all the subordinate war crimes that came along with the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq: targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, using antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely settled urban areas, using white phosphorous as a weapon, using depleted uranium weapons, employing a new form of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs, collectively punishing populations including by blocking roads and electricity and water, by planting bombs in farm fields, by demolishing houses, by plowing down orchards, by detaining people without charge, imprisoning children, torturing, raping, and murdering captives. An increased use of mercenaries created a force lacking even the pretense of accountability to any body of law.[xii]Equal to the mendacity of the public relations campaign that launched the Iraq war was the campaign that escalated it and claimed some benefit from that "surge" in 2007-2008. Just as the Vietnamese would have agreed to the same terms prior to the saturation bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong as after, the Iraqis would have accepted the treaty that Bush and Maliki finally came up with had it been proposed prior to the escalation. The "benchmarks" that Congress expected Bush to meet by 2007 were not met by then or by 2008 or by 2009. There was no oil law, no de-baathification law, no constitutional review, no provincial elections, and no improvement in electricity, water, or other basic measures of well-being. Only agreement to leave produced what the escalation had merely delayed. Claims for the "surge" were downsized to include only a reduction in violence, but the timing coincided with a long-term downward trend in violence, the relatively small "surge" actually increased violence in some areas, and violence went down most dramatically where troops were withdrawn, or where they ceased provocative raids on homes, not where troops were added. Violence really dropped off when Bush committed the United States to full withdrawal in 2011.[xiii]BOSNIADishonesty about wars did not begin with our 43rd president. In 1995, President Clinton announced that he would "help the people of Bosnia to secure their own peace." Almost two decades later, U.S. and other foreign troops have never left , and the place is governed by a European-backed Office of High Representative.[xiv] U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia gave NATO a reason to exist after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was also not unrelated to lead, zinc, cadmium, gold, and silver mines, cheap labor, and a deregulated market. In 1996 U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown died in a plane crash in Croatia along with top executives for Boeing, Bechtel, AT&T, Northwest Airlines, and several other corporations that were lining up government contracts for "reconstruction." Enron, the famously corrupt corporation that would implode in 2001, was a part of so many such trips that it issued a press release to state that none of its people had been on this one. Enron gave $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1997, six days before accompanying new Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor to Bosnia and Croatia and signing a deal to build a $100 million power plant. The annexation of Kosovo created a militarized buffer between Yugoslavia and the projected route of an oil pipeline through Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania. The pipeline is being built, with U.S. government support, to provide the United States and Western Europe with access to oil from the Caspian Sea. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said in 1998: "This is about America's energy security. It's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right." [xv]IRAQ IFar-fetched claims of humanitarian intention did not begin with Bill Clinton either. On October 9, 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl told a U.S. congressional committee that she'd seen Iraqi soldiers take 15 babies out of an incubator in a Kuwaiti hospital and leave them on the cold floor to die. Some congress members, including the late Tom Lantos (D., Calif.), knew but did not tell the U.S. public that the girl was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, that she'd been coached by a major U.S. public relations company paid by the Kuwaiti government, and that there was no other evidence for the story. President George H. W. Bush used the dead babies story 10 times in the next 40 days, and seven senators used it in the Senate debate on whether to approve military action. Thus was born the Gulf War, a war that would never really end, but would be radically expanded in 2003.[xvi]PANAMAWhen Bush the Elder had first sought, among other things, to prove he was no "wimp" by attacking Panama in 1989, the most prominent justification was that Panama's leader was a mean, drug-crazed, weirdo with a pockmarked face who liked to commit adultery. An article in the New York Times on December 26, 1989, began:"The United States military headquarters here, which has portrayed General Manuel Antonio Noriega as an erratic, cocaine-snorting dictator who prays to voodoo gods, announced today that the deposed leader wore red underwear and availed himself of prostitutes."Never mind that Noriega had worked for the CIA, including at the time he'd stolen the 1984 election in Panama. Never mind that his real offense was refusing to back U.S. war making against Nicaragua. Never mind that the United States had known about Noriega's drug trafficking for years and continued working with him. This man snorted cocaine in red underwear with women not his wife. "That is aggression as surely as Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland 50 years ago was aggression," declared Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger of Noriega's drug trafficking. The invading U.S. liberators even claimed to find a big stash of cocaine in one of Noriega's homes, although it turned out to be tamales wrapped in banana leaves. And what if the tamales really had been cocaine? Would that, like the discovery of actual "weapons of mass destruction" in Baghdad in 2003 have justified war?[xvii]DOMINICAN REPUBLIC AND GRENADAOften one of the initial excuses for military action is to defend Americans in a foreign country who have supposedly been put at risk by recent events. This excuse was used, along with the usual variety of other excuses, by the United States when invading the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, and Panama in 1989. In the case of the Dominican Republic, U.S. citizens who wanted to leave (1,856 of them) had been evacuated prior to the military action. Neighborhoods in Santo Domingo where Americans lived were free of violence and the military was not needed in order to evacuate anyone. All the major Dominican factions had agreed to help evacuate any foreigners who wanted to leave.In the case of Grenada (an invasion that the United States banned the U.S. media from covering) there were supposedly U.S. medical students to rescue. But U.S. State Department official James Budeit, two days before the invasion, learned that the students were not in danger. When about 100 to 150 students decided they wanted to leave, their reason was fear of the U.S. attack. The parents of 500 of the students sent President Reagan a telegram asking him not to attack, letting him know their children were safe and free to leave Grenada if they chose to do so.In the case of Panama, a real incident could be pointed to, one of a sort that has been found anywhere foreign armies have ever occupied someone else's country. Some drunk Panamanian soldiers had beaten up a U.S. navy officer and threatened his wife. While President Bush claimed that this and other new developments prompted the war, the war plans had actually begun months prior to the incident.[xviii]President Lyndon B. Johnson's invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 used the pretense of American lives at risk. But that justification had been cooked up as a substitute for a claim of combating communism, which Johnson knew to be baseless and couldn't be sure would fly. In a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann later explained that the U.S. ambassador had asked the head of the Dominican military if he'd be willing to play along with the alternative lie:"All we requested was whether he would be willing to change the basis for this from one of fighting communism to one of protecting American lives."[xix]VIETNAMThe greatest war fraud perpetrated by LBJ was, of course, Vietnam. He built on what had already been done during President John F. Kennedy's presidency. Kennedy's subordinates in Vietnam wanted an expansion of the U.S. presence there, but believed the public and the president would resist. General Maxwell Taylor and Walt W. Rostow wondered how the United States could go to war while appearing to preserve the peace. While they were pondering this, Vietnam was suddenly struck by flooding. The U.S. quickly sent in troops to save Vietnam from natural disaster.[xx]The big escalation, however, came after a fictional attack on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 4, 1964. These were U.S. war ships off the coast of North Vietnam that were engaged in military actions against North Vietnam. President Johnson knew he was lying when he claimed the August 4th attack was unprovoked. Had it happened, it could not have been unprovoked. The same ship that was supposedly attacked on August 4th, had damaged three North Vietnamese boats and killed four North Vietnamese sailors two days earlier, in an action where the evidence suggests the United States fired first, although the opposite was claimed. In fact, in a separate operation days earlier, the United States had begun shelling the mainland of North Vietnam. But the supposed attack on August 4th was actually, at most, a misreading of U.S. sonar. The ship's commander cabled the Pentagon claiming to be under attack, and then immediately cabled to say his earlier belief was in doubt and no North Vietnamese ships could be confirmed in the area. President Johnson was not sure there had been any attack when he told the American public there had been. Months later he admitted privately: "For all I know, our navy was just shooting at whales out there." But by then Johnson had the authorization from Congress for the war he'd wanted.[xxi]Vietnam is a prominent example of another type of war lie as well. Peace offers have been rejected and hushed up prior to or during World War II, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other wars. In Vietnam, peace settlements were proposed by the Vietnamese, the Soviets, and the French, but rejected and sabotaged by the United States. The last thing you want when trying to start or continue a war — and when trying to sell it as a reluctant action of last resort — is for word to leak out that the other side is proposing peace talks.[xxii]The War on Vietnam may have killed 4 million civilians or more, plus 1.1 million North Vietnamese troops, 40,000 South Vietnamese troops, and 58,000 U.S. forces.KOREAThe forgotten war in Korea, however, was the war that did away with Congressional declarations and established war as a permanent industry and global project, with the heavy taxes that go along with funding that. Americans were told that North Korea had attacked South Korea and had done so at the behest of the Soviet Union as part of a plot to take over the world for communism. In fact, the evidence suggests that the South was the aggressor. But, whichever side attacked, this was a civil war. The Soviet Union was not involved, and the United States ought not to have been. South Korea was not the United States, and was not in fact anywhere near the United States, yet this war was advertised as "defensive."The War on Korea saw the deaths of an estimated 500,000 North Korean troops; 400,000 Chinese troops; 245,000 - 415,000 South Korean troops; 37,000 U.S. troops; and an estimated 2 million Korean civilians.WORLD WAR IIThe war that has been used to justify later wars more than any other, and to justify massive military spending in anticipation of its repetition, is World War II. More than a few paragraphs are needed to persuade most Americans that there were better alternatives that could have been taken immediately prior to, in the decades preceding, and during the conduct of World War II. What can be easily reviewed is the fact that the war propaganda was chock full of lies.On September 4, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a "fireside chat" radio address in which he claimed that a German submarine, completely unprovoked, had attacked the United States destroyer Greer, which — despite being called a destroyer — had been harmlessly delivering mail. Really? The Senate Naval Affairs Committee questioned Admiral Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, who said the Greer had been tracking the German submarine and relaying its location to a British airplane, which had dropped depth charges on the submarine's location without success. The Greer had continued tracking the submarine for hours before the submarine turned and fired torpedoes.A month and a half later, Roosevelt told a similar tall tale about the USS Kearny. And then he really piled on. Roosevelt claimed to have in his possession a secret map produced by Hitler's government that showed plans for a Nazi conquest of South America. The Nazi government denounced this as a lie, blaming of course a Jewish conspiracy. The map, which Roosevelt refused to show the public, in fact actually showed routes in South America flown by American airplanes, with notations in German describing the distribution of aviation fuel. It was a British forgery, and apparently of about the same quality as the forgeries President George W. Bush would later use to show that Iraq had been trying to purchase uranium.Roosevelt also claimed to have come into possession of a secret plan produced by the Nazis for the replacement of all religions with Nazism: "The clergy are to be forever silenced under penalty of the concentration camps, where even now so many fearless men are being tortured because they have placed God above Hitler." Such a plan sounded like something Hitler would indeed draw up had Hitler not himself been an adherent of Christianity, but Roosevelt of course had no such document.[xxiii]The people of the United States did not support going into another war until Pearl Harbor, by which point Roosevelt had already instituted the draft, activated the National Guard, created a huge Navy in two oceans, traded old destroyers to England in exchange for the lease of its bases in the Caribbean and Bermuda, and — just 11 days before the "unexpected" attack — he had secretly ordered the creation of a list of every Japanese and Japanese-American person in the United States.On August 18, 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with his cabinet at 10 Downing Street. The meeting had some similarity to the July 23, 2002, meeting at the same address, the minutes of which became known as the Downing Street Minutes. Both meetings revealed secret U.S. intentions to go to war. In the 1941 meeting, Churchill told his cabinet, according to the minutes: "The President had said he would wage war but not declare it." In addition, "Everything was to be done to force an incident."In January 1941, eleven months before the attack, the Japan Advertiser expressed its outrage over Pearl Harbor in an editorial, and the U.S. ambassador to Japan wrote in his diary: "There is a lot of talk around town to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course I informed my government."On February 5, 1941, Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner wrote to Secretary of War Henry Stimson to warn of the possibility of a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.In November 1940, Roosevelt had loaned China one hundred million dollars for war with Japan, and after consulting with the British, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau made plans to send the Chinese bombers with U.S. crews to use in bombing Tokyo and other Japanese cities. On December 21, 1940, two weeks shy of a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, China's Minister of Finance T.V. Soong and Colonel Claire Chennault, a retired U.S. Army flier who was working for the Chinese and had been urging them to use American pilots to bomb Tokyo since at least 1937, met in Henry Morgenthau's dining room to plan the firebombing of Japan. Morgenthau said he could get men released from duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps if the Chinese could pay them $1,000 per month. Soong agreed.On May 24, 1941, the New York Times reported on U.S. training of the Chinese air force, and the provision of "numerous fighting and bombing planes" to China by the United States. "Bombing of Japanese Cities is Expected" read the subheadline. By July, the Joint Army-Navy Board had approved a plan called JB 355 to firebomb Japan. A front corporation would buy American planes to be flown by American volunteers trained by Chennault and paid by another front group. Roosevelt approved, and his China expert Lauchlin Currie, in the words of Nicholson Baker, "wired Madame Chaing Kai-Shek and Claire Chennault a letter that fairly begged for interception by Japanese spies." Whether or not that was the entire point, this was the letter:"I am very happy to be able to report today the President directed that sixty-six bombers be made available to China this year with twenty-four to be delivered immediately. He also approved a Chinese pilot training program here. Details through normal channels. Warm regards."On July 24, 1941, President Roosevelt remarked, "If we cut the oil off , [the Japanese] probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had a war. It was very essential from our own selfish point of view of defense to prevent a war from starting in the South Pacific. So our foreign policy was trying to stop a war from breaking out there."Reporters noticed that Roosevelt said "was" rather than "is." The next day, Roosevelt issued an executive order freezing Japanese assets. The United States and Britain cut off oil and scrap metal to Japan. Radhabinod Pal, an Indian jurist who served on the war crimes tribunal after the war, called the embargoes a "clear and potent threat to Japan's very existence," and concluded the United States had provoked Japan.In late October, U.S. spy Edgar Mower was doing work for Colonel William Donovan who spied for Roosevelt. Mower spoke with a man in Manila named Ernest Johnson, a member of the Maritime Commission, who said he expected "The Japs will take Manila before I can get out." When Mower expressed surprise, Johnson replied "Didn't you know the Jap fleet has moved eastward, presumably to attack our fleet at Pearl Harbor?"On November 15th, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall briefed the media on something we do not remember as "the Marshall Plan." In fact we don't remember it at all. "We are preparing an offensive war against Japan," Marshall said, asking the journalists to keep it a secret.Ten days later Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that he'd met in the Oval Office with Marshall, President Roosevelt, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Admiral Harold Stark, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Roosevelt had told them the Japanese were likely to attack soon, possibly next Monday. It has been well documented that the United States had broken the Japanese' codes and that Roosevelt had access to them. It was through intercept of a so-called Purple code message that Roosevelt had discovered Germany's plans to invade Russia. It was Hull who leaked a Japanese intercept to the press, resulting in the November 30, 1941, headline "Japanese May Strike Over Weekend."That next Monday would have been December 1st, six days before the attack actually came. "The question," Stimson wrote, "was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition." The day after the attack, Congress voted for war.[xxiv]Craig Shirley's book December 1941, published in December 2011, printed a memo from December 4, 1941, that warned Roosevelt of possible Japanese attack. Shirley also reported that, in the words of U.S. News and World Report, "On the night of the Pearl Harbor attack, FDR and his war cabinet considered declaring war on all three Axis Powers -- Japan, Germany, Italy -- but in the end the president only targeted Japan."World War II became "the good war" during the unpopular war on Vietnam. In the minds of many Americans today, World War II was justified because of the degree of evilness of Adolf Hitler, an evilness to be found above all in the holocaust. But you won't find any recruitment posters of Uncle Sam saying "I Want You…to Save the Jews." When a resolution was introduced in the U.S. Senate in 1934 expressing "surprise and pain" at Germany's actions, and asking that Germany restore rights to Jews, the State Department "caused it to be buried in committee." By 1937 Poland had developed a plan to send Jews to Madagascar, and the Dominican Republic had a plan to accept them as well. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain came up with a plan to send Germany's Jews to Tanganyika in East Africa. Representatives of the United States, Britain, and South American nations met at Lake Geneva in July 1938 and all agreed that none of them would accept the Jews.On November 15, 1938, reporters asked President Franklin Roosevelt what could be done. He replied that he would refuse to consider allowing more immigrants than the standard quota system allowed. Bills were introduced in Congress to allow 20,000 Jews under the age of 14 to enter the United States. Senator Robert Wagner (D., N.Y.) said, "Thousands of American families have already expressed their willingness to take refugee children into their homes." First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt set aside her anti-Semitism to support the legislation, but her husband successfully blocked it for years.In July 1940, Adolf Eichmann, "architect of the holocaust," intended to send all Jews to Madagascar, which now belonged to Germany, France having been occupied. The ships would need to wait only until the British, which now meant Winston Churchill, ended their blockade. That day never came. On November 25, 1940, the French ambassador asked the U.S. Secretary of State to consider accepting German Jewish refugees then in France. On December 21st, the Secretary of State declined. By July 1941, the Nazis had determined that a final solution for the Jews could consist of genocide rather than expulsion.[xxv]World War II, is still the deadliest of all time, with military deaths estimated at 20 to 25 million (including 5 million deaths of prisoners in captivity), and civilian deaths estimated at 40 to 52 million (including 13 to 20 million from war-related disease and famine).World War II was of course capped off by President Truman pretending that Hiroshima was a military base and that bombing the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives and shortened the war.[xxvi]WORLD WAR IIn the case of World War I, the U.S. public was told that Germany had attacked our good and innocent allies, might eventually attack us, and had in fact attacked innocent American civilians aboard a ship called the Lusitania. German submarines had been giving warnings to civilian ships, allowing passengers to abandon them before they were sunk. When this exposed the U-boats to counterattacks, however, the Germans began attacking without warning. That was how they sank the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. But, through other channels, the Germans had already warned those passengers. The Lusitania had been built to specifications of the British Navy which listed it as an auxiliary cruiser. On its final voyage, the Lusitania was packed with American-made war materiel, including ten-and-a-half tons of rifle cartridges, 51 tons of shrapnel shells, and a large supply of gun cotton, not to mention 67 soldiers of the 6th Winnipeg Rifles. That the ship was carrying troops and weapons to war was not actually a secret. Before the Lusitania left New York, the German Embassy had obtained permission from the U.S. Secretary of State to publish in New York newspapers a warning that because the ship was carrying war supplies it would be subject to attack.Upon the sinking of the Lusitania, those same newspapers, and all other American newspapers, declared the attack murder and omitted any mention of what the ship had carried. When President Wilson protested to the German government, pretending the Lusitania had not contained any troops or weapons, his secretary of state resigned in protest of Wilson. The British and U.S. governments falsified the ship's manifests and lied so effectively that many people today imagine there is doubt over whether the Lusitania had weapons on board. Or they imagine that dive crews discovering arms in the wreckage of the ship in 2008 were resolving a long-standing mystery.[xxvii]SPANISH AMERICAN WARProfessional public relations campaigns may have come into their own with World War I, but war propaganda was not invented in the 20th century. In 1898 the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, and U.S. newspapers quickly blamed the Spanish, crying out "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" Newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst did his best to fan the flames of a war he knew would boost circulation. Who actually blew the ship up? Nobody knew. Certainly Spain denied it, Cuba denied it, and the United States denied it. Spain didn't just casually deny it either. Spain conducted an investigation and found that the explosion had been inside the ship. Realizing that the United States would reject this finding, Spain proposed a joint investigation by both countries and offered to submit to binding arbitration by an impartial international panel. The United States wasn't interested. Whatever caused the explosion, Washington wanted war.More recent investigations raise the distinct possibility that the Maine was indeed sunk by an explosion, whether accidental or intentional, that occurred within it, rather than by a mine outside it. But no experts have proven one theory over another to the satisfaction of all. The Spanish could have found a way to plant a bomb inside the ship. Americans could have found a way to place a mine outside it. Knowing where the explosion took place won't tell us who, if anyone, caused it. But even if we knew for certain who caused it, how, and why, none of that information would change the basic account of what happened in 1898. The nation went mad for war in response to an attack by Spain for which there was no evidence, merely conjecture. This alleged atrocity -- the sinking of the Maine -- was used to launch a war "in defense of" Cuba and the Philippines that involved attacking and occupying Cuba and the Philippines, and PuertoRico for good measure.[xxviii]MEXICAN AMERICAN WARU.S. imperialism wasn't new in 1898. The United States had simply run out of land to conquer on the continent by then. Before Abraham Lincoln had become, as president, the celebrated abuser of war powers (suspending habeas corpus, etc.) who has served to excuse similar abuses by so many of his successors, he had been a congressman aware that the Constitution had given the power to declare war to the Congress. In 1847, Congressman Lincoln accused President James Polk of lying the nation into a war by blaming Mexico for aggression when that charge rightly should have been made against the U.S. Army and Polk himself. Lincoln joined with former president and then-current congressman John Quincy Adams in seeking a formal investigation of Polk's actions and the formal sanctioning of Polk for lying the nation into war.[xxix]Even while denouncing a war based on lies whose blood, Lincoln said, was crying to heaven, Lincoln and his fellow Whigs voted repeatedly to fund that war. On June 21, 2007, Senator Carl Levin (D., Mich.) cited Lincoln's example in the Washington Post as justification for his own stance as an "opponent" of the War on Iraq who would continue to fund it through eternity as a means of "supporting the troops."IT WAS EVER THUSAnd so it goes, back through the claim that the Civil War was launched to end slavery and was needed to end slavery, even though so many other nations ended slavery without wars. Back through the endless lies about, and to, Native Americans. Back through the War of 1812 that we like to imagine as a defensive struggle and a continuation of a war for independence, although it was actually launched by the U.S. government three decades after the revolution ended, and launched with the intention of conquering Canada. Back indeed beyond the American Revolution that we justify by averting our eyes from the nonviolent liberation of many other nations.From war we have acquired taxes and debt. Expenses on war and war preparation in the United States are now over half of federal discretionary spending, more than all other nations of the world combined, and more than at any time during the Cold War. Military spending increases, not with the need for military defense, but with the level of corruption in U.S. elections.Decreasing in proportion to the rise in military spending are our civil liberties; our representative government; the balance of powers within the government; resistance to policies of warrantless spying, imprisonment without charge, torture, and assassination; and the health of our news media. The war machine has become the greatest destroyer of the natural environment we have. And the shifting of funding from all other areas to the military has had disastrous results in as many fields as we might choose to name.[xxx][i] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 38.[ii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 55.[iii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 56.[iv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 56.[v] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 94.[vi] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 102.[vii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 164.[viii]David Swanson, "The Libyan Model and the Oxymoron," http://davidswanson.org/node/3669[ix] Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, by Medea Benjamin, 2012.[x] Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, by David Swanson, 2009, pp. 34-44.[xi] Ibid.[xii] Ibid.[xiii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 242-249.[xiv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 101.[xv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 181.[xvi] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 23.[xvii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 30-31.[xviii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 53.[xix] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 79-80.[xx] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 100.[xxi] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 79.[xxii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 192.[xxiii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 117-118.[xxiv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 57-65.[xxv] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., p. 36.[xxvi] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 41-43.[xxvii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 71-72.[xxviii] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 68-69.[xxix] War Is A Lie, by David Swanson, 2010, Charlottesville, Va., pp. 65-67.[xxx] The Military Industrial Complex at 50, edited by David Swanson, Charlottesville, VA., 2011.This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.David SwansonDavid Swanson, author of War Is A Lie, is an activist, journalist, public speaker and radio host. His previous books include When the World Outlawed War, and War No More: The Case forAbolition. Swanson serves as director of World Beyond War, and host of Talk Nation Radio. He blogs at Let's Try Democracy and War Is A Crime. In the early 2000s, he helped to expose the "Downing Street Minutes" and other attempts to lie the United States and its allies into the Iraq war.

10 Best Romance Movies For GuysLet me preface this article by saying that men and women don’t necessarily have varying tastes when it comes to romance movies. Movie preferences are quite subjective, so the films on this list may appeal to you (or not) regardless of gender.To write this article, I had to dip into resources I had at hand, namely Twitter and the guys I know. Even random colleagues were not spared from my relentless need to know their favourite romance movie. I made sure to include some enduring favourites, but also have some recent underrated picks that I think you can enjoy, even if romance isn’t usually your thing. Here, then, are the best romance movies for guys.1. Edward Scissorhands (1990)Edward ScissorhandsDirector: Tim BurtonAfter Timothée Chalamet’s Edgar Scissorhands commercial, it is only apt that we bring Edward Scissorhands back into conversation again.This is one of my favourite performances from Johnny Depp, who brings much depth and complexity to an outsider like Edward Scissorhands. With a modern day fairy tale vibe to it, Burton’s film follows Edward, an animated being built by a scientist. But before he could construct Edward’s hands, the scientist dies, leaving Edward with scissors for hands.Diane Wiest’s Peg feels sorry for him and takes him to her home in suburbia, where he falls for her daughter Kim (Winona Ryder). Depp and Ryder, who started dating after doing the film together, had a gentle and wonderful chemistry together. It is an unconventional love story, but there is a simplicity to the storytelling that allows it to be enjoyed by all ages.2. Before Sunset (2004)Before SunsetDirector: Richard LinklaterRichard Linklater’s Before Sunset is the second movie in a trilogy of films following the lives of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). The pair had a happenstance meeting on a train in Vienna, where they decide to spend some time in the city together before they head back to their respective countries. Before Sunrise was the first film in the series, when the two were on the verge of their adult lives, where two strangers find chemistry and connection with each other.Before Sunset takes place ten years later, and because Linklater sticks a chronological lens on this film, everyone involved waits an actual ten years before they begin working on the second film. So the actors, much like their characters, have aged. Thus, when we meet Celine and Jesse again, they are in a different phase of life, a little more jaded and less wide-eyed optimism inundating their perspective.It’s a beautiful series of films, and while Before Sunset is the best in my view, you should watch all three to get the full picture of their love story.3. Stardust (2007)It’s no easy business adapting a Neil Gaiman novel, but Vaughn’s Stardust does a competent and faithful job. It is a romance, but it’s also a fantasy adventure film, so it’s a strong contender for those who can’t bear a film built solely around romance.The film is about Tristan (Charlie Cox), who in an effort to win the heart of this woman he loves, sets off to retrieve for her a fallen star, entering the realm of the fairies in the process. The star is not just a star, but a woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes). Yvaine’s life is in danger since there are those seeking her for their own personal gain.Of course it gets more typical with an evil witch on their tail, as well as the King’s sons, but with a strong host of supporting characters, Stardust is more entertaining than it is given credit for.Out of all the Ryan Gosling romance films, I guess this choice is a bit out of left field. I am not saying I don’t love Crazy, Stupid, Love, or The Notebook, I just think Lars and the Real Girl hits a little closer to home, that underneath its absurdities it paints the fragility of the human heart.Lars (Gosling) lives in the garage of the home he and his brother inherited from his brother. His childhood was far from an ideal one, having been raised by a grieving father, with a brother who was so eager to get out that he kind of abandoned him. Lars is, for the most part, alone. Gosling plays Lars with such empathy and gentleness, and it is the most contrasting role I have seen him in – he does have a proclivity for playing hot heads.So his family rejoice when he tells them he met someone online, until he introduces them to Bianca and they realise she’s a blow-up doll. Lars and the Real Girl has its humourous moments, but be warned though, it will take tears from you.5. Celeste & Jesse Forever (2012)I know that Palm Springs was on everyone’s radar last year, but it is not the only Andy Samberg rom-com worth watching. Samberg was also in Celeste & Jesse Forever, where he played the titular Jesse, who married Rashida Jones’ Celeste when they were very young. However, now that they are older, they feel like they have different priorities. Celeste wants stability, in her home life and career, and Jesse is the opposite of that. Since they feel themselves drifting apart, they decide to get a divorce, but it proves harder than they think it will be because they still love each other.I think it is one of the more refreshing modern rom-coms, which deals with real-life issues couples find themselves coming up against, urging them to hold on and treasure relationships, and not be so willing to walk away the moment things get difficult.6. About Time (2016)Listen, I love About Time just as much as the next person, but I never knew just how beloved it was until I asked the men of Twitter, and this movie was the most frequent answer. Maybe because the main protagonist is a man, played by the ever charming Domhnall Gleeson, or maybe it’s because the movie has Rachel McAdams in it – she makes everything more lovely.Regardless of the why, About Time is not just about the love story between Tim (Gleeson) and Mary (McAdams), it’s also about Tim’s relationship with his father (Bill Nighy). Both Tim and his father have the ability to time travel, and while there are great perks to this ability, at the same time, there are certain realities that no amount of time travelling can fix and overrun.It’s a wonderful, sentimental film, and if so many love it, you might too.7. The Lobster (2015)I am surprised to not see The Lobster on more romance movie lists, but then again, it’s Lanthimos, so it isn’t always the most accessible type of film. As far as weird movies go, this is pretty much up there, surpassing even the absurdity of Lars and the Real Girl. I’m not even sure it can count as a romance, since it seems to repudiate the expectations of love that come with being a part of society.We have Colin Farrell’s David, who has just been recently ditched by his wife, tasked to find a mate within 45 days, or be transformed into an animal of their choice. Most people choose conventional animals, like dogs, but David chooses the lobster due to its qualities (apparently their blue blood gives them a certain kind of royal pedigree). David is taken to a hotel, where he can mingle with other singles and find a match, but this proves to be difficult when everyone is trying to force a connection that isn’t there, all so they don’t have to become animals.It’s satire at its finest, and definitely a film you should check out.8. Man Up (2015)Man UpSimon Pegg as a rom-com leading man is something we need more of. Much like John Hannah in Sliding Doors, there is just something charming about a confident, witty man. Pegg’s character Jack is supposed to meet a woman for a blind date; he has no idea who she is, just that they would both be holding the same book. So when he sees Nancy (Lake Bell) holding said book, he thinks she’s his blind date, and because she feels chemistry from their opening banter, she carries on with the charade. Things go swimmingly, until the charade falls apart.Man Up begins with the most conventional of meet-cutes, and then goes down an unexpected path in terms of its narrative. Never a dull moment with this one – you even get to see Simon Pegg dance.9. Plus One (2019)Plus OneDirector: Jeff Chan and Andrew RhymerI will keep adding Plus One to any romance list (or regular list) I craft until everyone recognises how good it is.Admittedly, the premise is not the most unique of situations, we saw it recently emulated in Netflix’s Holidate. Friends Alice (Maya Erskine) and Ben (Jack Quaid) are at that point in their lives where the people around them are getting married. But wedding season can be difficult to navigate when you are a single person, so Ben and Alice commit to attending all these weddings together. I mean, you already know the inevitable outcome, but the journey between the two is totally worth it.Also, Jack Quaid is Meg Ryan’s son, so you know rom-coms are in his blood.10. Little Fish (2021)Little FishLittle Fish is already one of my favourite movies of the year. It is reminiscent of the melancholic sentiments of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, dealing with the loss of memory and the void of a person you become after. In Little Fish, we are told that a memory-erasing virus is sweeping the world. There is no news as to how it spreads and whether there is a preference for who it infects, but there is no cure.So, when Jude gets the virus, there is this added burden to their relationship, with the pair trying to hold on to their lives together, but recognising the futility in it. Olivia Cooke’s Emma and Jack O’Connell’s Jude do such fantastic jobs here – their onscreen coupling has such an authentic feel to it, and they build an intimate space for their characters, which we are invited to be privy to.READ NEXT: 15 Biggest New Movies of 2021Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.02The Best Movies to Watch on Disney Plus for Black History MonthFebruary is Black History Month. The month-long celebration is a chance to acknowledge the historic achievements of Black Americans and to highlight their undeniable impact on American history. To celebrate, we have selected the best movies on Disney+ that were made by Black creators and movies that tell Black stories.Our list includes titles with major social buzz such as Beyoncé’s Black Is King. Beloved movies from your childhood also made the list, including The Princess and the Frog and The Proud Family Movie.You’re going to want to stream the critically acclaimed titles Hidden Figures and Ruby Bridges once you learn about the incredible real-life stories they’re based on. Be sure to add these titles to your Disney+ watchlist, and mark your calendar's for Feb. 12! That's when Disney+ is adding Brandy and Whitney Houston's iconic version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella.In this 2016 movie, Janelle Monáe, Octavia Spencer and Taraji P. Henson play the real-life Black female NASA mathematicians and engineers whose work helped to make the first American astronaut orbit the Earth in 1961. "I think it sends a message that we all have something to contribute," Spencer told ET at the L.A. Promise Fund's screening of the movie. "It highlights the story of these three women but there were Black and white women working behind the scenes that never got their dues. Hidden Figures is a way to celebrate them all."Beyoncé called her visual album with music from The Lion King: The Gift, "a labor of love." In 2020 the singer told her Instagram followers: "It is my passion project that I have been filming, researching and editing day and night for the past year ... With this visual album, I wanted to present elements of Black history and African tradition, with a modern twist and a universal message, and what it truly means to find your self-identity and build a legacy."Walt Disney Studios Motion PicturesThe Ava DuVernay fantasy movie based on the 1962 young adult novel of the same name stars actress Storm Reid as “Meg.” DuVernay explained why casting a Black female lead was important on a number of levels. "She really fills in an absence that has been in these films for so long. Girls at the center, girls of color at the center," DuVernay told ET. "We're talking a lot about how girls of color will respond to Storm, but Caucasian boys will also be seeing seeds planted in the film," DuVernay continues. "[Meg] says to her friend, Calvin, 'Do you trust me?' And he says, 'I trust you.' He follows a girl. He lets himself be led by a girl. These are the kind of seeds that we need to plant with young people, that anyone can lead and that it's OK to follow anyone who has the right idea. These are real formative things that we're looking to get out to a newer generation."The 1998 title is based on the true story of six-year-old Ruby Bridges, one of the first Black children to attend a newly integrated school in New Orleans in 1960. Chaz Monet, Penelope Ann Miller and Kevin Pollak star in the title about racism and civil rights.The sports comedy is loosely based on the real-life Jamaican Olympic bobsled team who competed in the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. The Washington Post described the 1993 film about a group of Black athletes as “a story about underdogs fighting for pride and glory -- on both a personal and national level -- against seemingly insurmountable odds.”The sports drama is based on the real life story of Clemson University football player Ray McElrathbey. After his mother enters treatment for substance abuse, the student athlete must care for his younger brother or risk losing him to the child welfare system. The New York Times said the movie “isn’t your typical sports or adversity movie; it asks questions of what educational institutions owe to their community.”The ABC News special highlights the late actor's life, his on-screen roles (Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall and T'Challa from Black Panther to name a few), his private battle with cancer and his on-going legacy. The special features appearances by Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.The iconic Marvel movie, based on the first Black superhero in mainstream American comic books, is a must-see. After the return of the reluctant but rightful heir to the throne of Wakanda, T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) must save his remote African nation (and the world) from an evil foe. Boseman won an NAACP Image award, a People's Choice award and a Screen Actors Guild award for his role. The superhero movie also earned Marvel its first-ever Oscar wins.The 2000 Disney Channel original movie about a Black family of superheroes is a coming of age movie about what makes you special. Robert Townsend, director of Hollywood Shuffle, Eddie Murphy Raw, and The Five Heartbeats directed and stars in this Disney film.This 2012 film chronicles the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During their training, the serviceman faced racism and discrimination for the color of their skin. Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Nate Parker and David Oyelowo star.It's time to revisit a childhood favorite! The classic Disney Channel animated movie follows the Proud family as their tropical vacation unravels and daughter Penny must save her parents, siblings and Suga Mama from the evil Dr. Carver. Keep an eye out for the Proud Family revival series, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, coming to Disney+ soon.The 2020 release is the first-ever Pixar film with a Black lead. Jamie Foxx voices main character Joe Gardner, an aspiring jazz pianist who works as a middle-school band teacher by day. After a tragic accident, Gardner finds himself heading towards and then running from the great beyond. Musician Jon Batiste composed original jazz arrangements for the film and Phylicia Rashad, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, Angela Bassett and Daveed Diggs lent their voices to the movie that attempts to answer some heavy questions including, what happens after we die?Walt Disney Studios Motion PicturesThe 2020 short film about two kids at summer camp features Pixar's first-ever non-verbal autistic character. Non-verbal autistic actress Madison Bandy is the voice of the character, named Renee. When a young Black camper named Marcus is paired up with Renee to go canoeing and they get stuck, the pair must find a way to connect with one another. Producer Krissy Cababa told Forbes "as a person of color who grew up largely in the 70's I did not see people who look like myself in any media, like ever. So I remember how powerful it was when I first started to see people who looked like me on-screen, in TV. It's still shocking to me how underrepresented certain groups are."Walt Disney Animation StudiosThis twist on the Brothers Grimm tale, The Frog Prince, gave the world its first-ever Black princess in Disney's Princess Line. All New Orleans waitress Tiana wants to be is a restaurant owner. But when she meets a frog who swears that he is really a human prince, both of their lives change after they share a kiss. Anika Noni Rose, Keith David and Bruno Campos star in the 2009 animated Disney film.When the daughter of a Black U.S. congressman welcomes a white student on a semester abroad from racially segregated apartheid South Africa, worlds collide. They were not at all what the other was expecting. Will they learn to put aside their prejudices and through building mutual respect become friends? Stream this 2000 Disney movie and find out.For the latest content celebrating Black History Month, please visit our Black History Month page, or read more in our Black Stories section. And don’t miss our Black History Month special on ET Live.03Hold the Drama! The 50 Best Movies About RelationshipsAre These the Best Valentine’s Day Movies?In the spirit of tumultuous relationships, this list looks at the definitive relationship dramas. These are films that focus on one or more romantic relationships. These aren’t just “falling in love” movies. These are movies that dissect some side of a relationship that helps to drive the plot. So, without further ado, let’s join hands on this journey together.25. A Separation (2011)Directed by: Asghar FarhadiA rare foreign Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay (as well as winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar), Asghar Farhadi takes the commonly used “breakdown of a marriage” storyline and adds multiple layers to it, making for one of the richest depictions of marriage in years. “A Separation” is set in Tehran and introduces us to Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami), a couple married for 14 years who share an 11 year old daughter named Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). Simin wishes to leave the country with her family, as she wants to provide a better life for Termeh. Nader refuses, concerned about his dying father. As a result, Simin files for divorce. The court denies the appeal, but Simin and Termeh move in with Simin’s parents. From there, the drama becomes more complicated, as Iranian tradition and religion are brought into the picture, with Nader hiring a housekeeper named Razieh to care for his father. Eventually, conflict arises between Razieh, her husband, and Nader, who finds his father tied to the bed and pushes Razieh in anger, causing her to fall down a stairwell. In the end, while the drama doesn’t all center around Simin and Nader’s relationship, it all eventually filters down to how Termeh views her parents, if she thinks her father is guilty of his accusations, and who she prefers to live with after the divorce. The acting is phenomenal, the writing is superb, and the development of all the major players make “A Separation” not just one of the best foreign films of the last ten years, but one of the best film, regardless of language.24. Contempt (1963)Directed by: Jean-Luc GodardA Godard film starring Fritz Lang? Sign me up. “Contempt” stars Jack Palance as a film producer who hires Lang (playing himself) to adapt The Odyssey into a film. It turns into an art film, which Prokosch (Palance) hates. Instead, he hires writer Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli), whose wife (Brigitte Bardot) suddenly leaves him, after being left alone with Prokosch. The plot of “The Odyssey” lines up with the story of estrangement, while also aligning pretty closely with Godard’s own life. Overall, it’s a pretty simple story about betrayal. But man is it cold. Godard wanted his wife Anna Karina to play the lead, but was pushed by the studio to cast Bardot and take advantage of her look. So, Godard pretty much takes advantage of that, exploiting those curves as every turn. But, at the heart of this somewhat mild French new Wave film is a pretty honest look at what happens when alienation takes the place of dedication and devotion. Piccoli’s performance turns his abandonment into a hero’s voyage, facing off in battles both personally and professionally. One could argue the whole thing is just Godard thanking Fritz Lang for setting a standard, as Javal is trying so hard to maintain artistic integrity, while also gaining financially. In the end, he looks toward Lang as the example, paralleling his love life with that of a filmmaker.23. Journey to Italy (1954)Directed by: Roberto RosselliniPartly based on the Colette novel Duo, “Journey to Italy” is an Italian film starring George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman as an English couple in a seemingly happy marriage traveling to, well, Italy. There, they go to a large piece of property in Naples they have decided to sell. Alex (Sanders) is the businessman of the marriage, a somewhat off-putting man who leans a little to much on first reactions and sarcasm. Meanwhile, Katherine (Bergman) is the sensitive one, using the trip to rekindle memories of an old friend of hers who has since died. The two begin to show major cracks in their armor, as jealousy and multiple misunderstandings between the two start tearing apart their marriage. This reaches a head when the two actually decide it would be best for them to divorce. But, in a surprise turn of events, they seem to reconcile when they take part in a religious ceremony they come across in Naples. It feels rushed, yes. But the way Rossellini manages to get the audience invested in this marriage so quickly, only to see it fall apart and get put back together, is an act of true filmmaking prowess. Bergman and Sanders give solid performances as the couple; who could fall out of love in Italy?22. Amour (2012)Directed by: Michael HanekeRe-reading the synopsis of this film is heartbreaking in and of itself. Watching it is tenfold. Directed by Michael Haneke, “Amour” tells the story of an elderly couple living in Paris. The film begins with Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) found on the bed, deceased and covered in flowers. The film flashes to months earlier, when Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne, both retired piano teachers, are watching a concert for a former pupil of Anne’s. The next morning, Anne suffers a stroke and needs surgery, which goes wrong, leaving her partially paralyzed. Georges becomes her caretaker, promising never to return her to the hospital or nursing home. One day, Anne lets Georges know that she would rather not go on living. After a meeting with the aforementioned pupil, Georges is hopeful that she has turned a corner, only to see her have a second stroke, this time leaving her incapable of speech and rational thought. Their daughter (Isabelle Huppert) wants her put in a nursing home, but George refuses to break his promise. The closing of the film is another level of painful to sit through, solely because Haneke and his actors have created a story so touching and believable that it feels like you are watching your own grandparents or parents. While Haneke’s typical approach is cold and could be seen as unfeeling, in this slowly paced story, it feels necessary. This isn’t a film about the beauty of life or the magic of love. It’s a film about dedication, sacrifice, and understanding that marriage and love are more about doing what needs to be done for your spouse rather than other selfish pursuits.21. Possession (1981)Directed by: Andrzej ZulawskiwAnother horror film, the French-German production “Possession” stars Sam Neill as a spy named Mark coming home after a long mission, only to learn that his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) wants to get divorced. Mark believes there may be another suitor; she insists that’s not true. He hands over the apartment and their son as part of the settlement, but becomes obsessed with her, finding their son alone in the apartment while she is out. When Mark receives a phone call from Anna’s new lover, he searches him out, discovering Anna strangely and hysterically (though she was prone to that). Mark hires a private investigator to track Anna, who finds her living in a terrible apartment with an amorphous creature with which she apparently is having a relationship. Zulawskiw wrote the screenplay to the film in the middle of a tumultuous divorce, informing the dark, mysterious nature of psychology behind the actions of both Mark and Anna in the film. The first half of the film is an incredibly detailed, unflappable portrait of a marriage falling apart before the second half shifts into horror territory. The leads stand out, especially Adjani, who plays dual roles, thanks to the supernatural themes and twisty storytelling. It doesn’t quite reach the horror-relationship drama mined by the Polanski’s of the world, but it certainly runs well with the hysteria.20. Love/Chloe in the Afternoon (1972)Directed by: Éric RohmerOriginally titled “Love in the Afternoon,” but released in North America as “Chloe in the Afternoon,” this Rohmer film is a tale of possible infidelity, seen through the eyes of a conflicted man. Frédéric (Bernard Verley) is a successful young lawyer who is happily married to a teacher named Hélène (Françoise Verley), who is pregnant with their second child. While Frédéric is in a considerably good place in his life, he still struggles with the loss of excitement he had before he married, when he could sleep with whomever he chose. It wasn’t so much the sex that thrilled him, but the chase itself. Still, he feels that these thoughts and fantasies, paired with his refusal to act upon them, only proves that he is completely dedicated and in love with his own wife. That is, until he meets Chloé (Zouzou), a friend of a past girlfriend, who is trying to get some independence in her life by looking for jobs, though Frédéric believes she is only trying to take advantage of him. The two begin spending time together and Frédéric now finds himself torn between his wife – a woman he loves deeply – and Chloé – a woman he can’t help but feel mysteriously drawn to. It’s an honest portrayal of a conflicted man. Will he or won’t he? Most often, adulterers in films are given at least what they feel is justification for straying. Not Frédéric, who is an excellent example of a human protagonist who is behaving like all men. Doesn’t make him a bad person. Makes him normal. Chris Rock’s 2007 film “I Think I Love My Wife” is an English language remake, but it could never approach the brilliance and multi-layered life of the first.19. Lost in Translation (2003)Directed by: Sofia CoppolaI’m not convinced this film was ever meant to be about a romantic relationship, but it certainly dissects the many layers of the importance a friendship has in the lives of anyone, especially in a place that feels or truly is foreign. “Lost in Translation” served a few roles: it announced the adult arrival of Scarlett Johansson, demonstrated that Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter had her own singular voice, and showed a new side to Bill Murray, who proved he could be so much more than a broad comic actor. Lost in Translation follows a aging movie star named Bob Harris (Murray) as he travels to Tokyo to film an ad for a Japanese whiskey, for which he will receive two million dollars. There, he meets Charlotte (Johansson), the young wife of a photographer who seems unhappy about her lot in life, worried her husband cares more about the models he photographs than her. Bob and Charlotte strike up an unusual friendship, both exploring the differences between American and Japanese culture, finding companionship somewhere in lives that feel empty and lonely. Murray was nominated for an Oscar for his performance, mining the depths of his character in a way rarely seen from him before. His work alongside Johansson set a standard for how onscreen platonic relationships should be portrayed, despite the fleeting inference that it could be more. Somehow that possibility, while unlikely, never seems as far fetched as other movies with protagonists so different in age. But Coppola’s film isn’t necessarily about a romance; it’s about how the possibility of romance can cloud minds just as easily as the romance itself.18. The Notebook (2004)Directed by: Nick CassavetesI feel like a good chunk of readers were only going through this article to see where this film was ranked. Based on the Nicholas Sparks novel, “The Notebook” launched its stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams into the stratosphere (and into their own short-lived relationship). The movie starts with an elderly couple in a nursing home, as a man named Duke (James Garner) is reading a story to a fellow patient (Gena Rowlands) who is suffering from dementia. Most of the film takes place in the world of this story, where a boy named Noah (Gosling) has a summer love affair with local rich girl Allie (McAdams), only to have her family push them apart as Allie’s mother Ann (Joan Allen) refers to Noah as “trash.” Noah enlists and eventually returns to Charleston and begins to restore a house he had planned to buy with Allie when they were together, convinced that its completion would bring her back to him, despite her being promised to a local lawyer named Lon (James Marsden). Kisses in the rain ensue. Secrets are shared. Revelations are had. Love happens. “The Notebook” is a level of melodramatic romance storytelling that no film in the last 15 years has been able to match. It relies on plenty of cliches and gave birth to the Nicholas Sparks obsession, each movie adaptation of his work getting worse and worse. But somehow, this one hovers just above the drop-off. I’d expect nothing less from the son of John Cassavetes (then again, he did direct “The Other Woman”).17. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)Directed by: Arthur PennThe movie that ushered in a new era of filmmaking, Arthur Penn’s “Bonnie and Clyde” changed the game with its graphic depiction of violence, but also due to its honest portrayal of sexuality. Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) start small, pulling minor heists. Eventually, with the help of Clyde’s brother (Gene Hackman) and despite his brother’s wife (Estelle Parsons), they begin to think bigger, pulling bank heists and becoming more violent. But embedded within this real crime drama is an exploration of the relationship at its core. Clyde is a criminal, but only on a smaller scale. It isn’t until he tries to steal Bonnie’s mother’s car that he meets his match in Bonnie, a young woman bored with her life and thrilled but the possibility of Clyde’s dangerous course. Her influence pushes him higher, but also exposes a possible insecurity in Clyde even he may not have known existed. Insinuations of impotence aside, Clyde becomes Bonnie’s sidekick more than vice versa, as she becomes the logical part of the duo. “Bonnie and Clyde” is recognized as a turning point in cinematic history; part of that is due to the conflict that exists within the historical couple’s romantic partnership.16. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)Directed by: Rainer Werner FassbinderA deliberately frustrating film to follow, thanks to the protagonist’s broken English (and equally confusing subtitles), “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” is probably Fassbinder’s most respected masterpieces, a West German story of love, class, and race. Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) is a Moroccon laborer and meets Emmi (Brigitte Mira) in a bar when he is dared by a friend to ask her to dance. Not only is Emmi white, but she is a sixty-year-old, widowed maid, at least 20 years Ali’s senior. The two form a surprising friendship, only to move swiftly to serious romance, seeing Ali move in with Emmi. Even more surprising, at the first sign of negativity toward their relationship, they marry, only to see their happiness met with universal disdain. Every person from Emmi’s life seems to look down upon her now, partly due to their bigotry toward foreign workers. Eventually, we see Emmi begin to crumble under the pressures, adopting some of the controlling nature of her fellow Germans. Borrowing themes from the Douglas Sirk romances of the 1950s, “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” is a brilliant discussion of racism and romance in an environment not often seen. Fassbinder’s semi re-telling of #34 on this list is one of the most complete films on the list, an incredible story of two different types of oppression framed in a world not typically seen in today’s culture.15. Gone with the Wind (1939)Directed by: Victor FlemingIt’s big, it’s epic, and it lays on the unreal love story pretty thick. Victor Fleming and screewriter Sidney Howard’s adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s beloved novel needs little introduction. Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) lives on the plantation Tara in Georgia on the eve of the American Civil War. She loves Ashley, who is set to marry her cousin. She is pursued by Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a man her family has a bit of a problem with, partly because he feels the South will get manhandled by the North in the coming battle. So, Scarlett marries someone else, he dies; she is constantly searched out by Rhett, whom she strings along, using her unearned privilege to manipulate everything and everyone around her. In “Gone with the Wind,” we see a universally loved character who actually serves as more of an antihero than anything. At the beginning, Scarlett is not likable. She doesn’t get much better by the end, but she becomes a little more self-dependent. So, when she gets the rejection at the end, at least we think she might land on her feet.14. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)Directed by: Richard BrooksBased on Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize winning play, Richard Brooks’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” focused on a Southern family (as did most Williams plays), led by Brick (Paul Newman) and Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor), a married couple struggle with multiple hardships. Brick is dependent on a crutch, having injured himself while drunk. Maggie and Brick are mostly dependent on Brick’s family wealth, coming from his father Big Daddy (Burl Ives). The two have no children; Brick’s brother has a fleet full of them, though they seem relatively unsupervised. The film takes place at Big Daddy’s plantation, where Brick and his brother are informed that Big Daddy will be dead within the year, though he has not been told. From there, we see Big Daddy’s frustration with his son’s laziness and alcoholism, Maggie’s ongoing attempts to get Brick more involved in his father’s life, mostly because she wants to get her hands on the money. The dynamic between Brick and Maggie is the heart of the film, with Maggie’s aggressive influence and manipulative decision-making serving as a major catalyst to much of the film’s conflict. But, when all is said and done, it may be Brick’s inaction that is the cause of the entire family’s dysfunction. Newman and Taylor play exceptionally off of one another, as expected. Much like Williams’ other plays and their film adaptations, the end is never wrapped up in a bow. But, at the very least, the cards have finally been put on the table.13. A Woman Under the Influence (1974)Directed by: John CassavetesJohn Cassavetes’ wife Gena Rowlands longed to be in a film that focused on the hardships of the contemporary women of the 1970s. As a result, Cassevetes wrote “A Woman Under the Influence” and gave the starring role to Rowlands, opposite Peter Falk, who invested his own money in the project, he loved it so much. Rowlands plays Mabel, a stay-at-home mom who is incredibly dedicated to her husband Nick (Falk), a construction worker who slowly begins to worry about her. She begins to act strangely around him and other, confusing him and giving him worry that she may be dangerous to herself and others. So, he puts her in a hospital for treatment for six months, staying home with his kids for that entire time, only to prove he has no idea what he’s doing. Upon her return home, Mabel suffers another psychological breakdown, eventually cutting herself during a brief episode. Without a doubt, this is Gena Rowlands’ best performance, a furiously desperate characterization of a woman not too different than many other mothers and wives, but with an edge that is just dark to cause serious worry. But, how far gone is she really? Is this really so far past what a woman stuck inside a house day in and day out with only her children to talk to? And how does a husband recognize the different between normal exhaustion and psychotic break? Rowlands grabbed an Oscar nomination, as did Cassavetes for Best Director. Rowlands won the Golden Globe for her work in what may be Cassavetes best and most layered offering.12. Jules and Jim (1962)Directed by: Francois TruffautSet during During World War I, “Jules and Jim” takes place in France, Austria, and Germany. The titular characters are played by Oskar Werner and Henri Serre, respectively, who share a strong friendship, thanks to a shared interest in art and the Bohemian lifestyle. They meet several women; one day Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) crosses their paths, a woman who looks strikingly like a statue the two men loved while traveling through the Adriatic Sea. Catherine begins a relationship with Jules, though Jim is equally taken with her perspective on life. Just before the war begins, Jules and Catherine get married, followed by both Jules and Jim enlisting, but fighting for opposite sides. Time and the war passes, and Jim stays with Jules and Catherine, who now have a daughter. Jules confesses that Catherine has been sleeping around. She even begins to seduce Jim, at which point Jules, who is afraid of never seeing her again, gives his blessing for them to marry, just so he can still see her on occasion. Back and forth, Catherine navigates between the two friends, using their relationship has a game of ping-pong, where neither man is ever the end game. Truffaut’s film has influenced plenty of work since, being one the most successful examples of the French New Wave. Love triangles don’t get much more complex than this; equally frustrating and enchanting.11. Breathless (1960)Directed by: Jean-Luc GodardSimilar to Bonnie and Clyde, “Breathless” is a film about a relationship shrouded in a crime drama, this time set in France, Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature-length film. It stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel, a young criminal who tries to evoke the movie persona of Humphrey Bogart the best he can. After stealing a car and shooting a policeman, Michel finds himself on the run without any money, turning to his American girlfriend (Jean Seberg) to help. Patricia (Seberg) is a journalism student, selling the New York Herald Tribune in Paris; she agrees to hide him. However, she doesn’t know Michel is on the run. The tension between the two hinges mostly on Patricia, who must choose whether or not to keep Michel as a secret, or to turn him in. He doesn’t make it any easier, trying to seduce her, while simultaneously trying to call in a loan from her family so they can run away together. I won’t spoil it, but the title doesn’t refer to a feeling when falling in love, if you catch my drift. Godard’s trailblazing entry that kickstarted the French new Wave may not stand as his greatest achievement, but it certainly was a great starting point. The film was remade in 1983 with Richard Gere, having nowhere near the effect.10. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)Directed by: Max OphulsTo be honest, the relationship at the center of “Letter from an Unknown Woman” barely even exists. It’s more of a longing from one side than the other. But the ways Ophuls structures the film qualifies it for this list. For the run of the story, we hear a voiceover, explaining the moments in these two characters’ lives. Lisa (Joan Fontaine) is a teenager who becomes obsessed with a pianist who lives in her building named Stefan (Louis Jordan). She only meets him once, but maintains her love for him. After her mother announces they will be moving, Lisa runs away, but sees Stefan with another woman. Lisa becomes a respectable woman and is proposed to by a young, family-focused military officer, whom she turns down, still in love with Stefan, a man she has barely met. Years later, she finally spends an evening with Stefan, though he does not recognize her as the teenager who once lived in his building. Eventually, we see that the voiceover is a note that Lisa has written to Stefan, explaining her feelings, her life, and how his simple existence has been the driving force behind her decisions, even after she has married another man. Ophuls films is heartbreaking and, by my estimation, his best offering. In the moments Stefan encounters Lisa, he is inexplicably drawn to her, as she had hoped. If anything, it tries to prove that even the relationships that never materialize can be more important than those that do.9. Brokeback Mountain (2005)Directed by: Ang LeeThere had been plenty of movies made about homosexuality before, but most up to this point focused on the eventual pairing of the main couple. In Ang Lee’s critical darling “Brokeback Mountain,” the relationship starts abruptly, allowing the rest of the film to be a slow burn of conflicting emotion and passion, Ennis and Jack (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) herd sheep in the Wyoming mountains one summer. After an evening of drinking, Jack makes a pass at Ennis, who initially rejects his advances, but eventually gives in. Ennis insists it is a one-time thing, but after they leave the mountains and both get married, it’s clear that their feelings remain. Jack searches out Ennis, and the two begin taking fishing trips together. Their marriages crumble – Jack understands much more clearly who he is; Ennis struggles mightily with his sexuality, but is also a loyal man who refuses to move away from his children, even after his divorce is finalized. 1960’s Wyoming isn’t exactly the normal place for a drama on homosexuality, which is what makes it so effective. Lee’s camera captures the sweeping environment, but remains incredibly sentimental and character-focused. Ennis and Jack must deal with their feelings, societal norms, an pe the fear of violence and prejudice in a way not often seen. Homosexuality in movies has been more straightforward and more pointed, but this was one of the first wide release films to truly depict an honest struggle with sexuality in a way that didn’t feel the least bit generic or stereotypical.8. Brief Encounter (1945)Directed by: David LeanLaura Jesson (Celia Johnson) is a middle-class woman in a happy, but boring marriage. “Brief Encounter” is delivered as a story she is telling in voiceover and flashback, imagining she is confessing to her husband the affair the film details. One day on a train, she is helped by another passenger named Alec (Trevor Howard). Both are married and have children. While they have repeated meetings, they find their attraction is much deeper than friendship. Unfortunately, their future is almost impossible to create, as they would need to continuously lie and compound that lie. When a friend allows them to use his flat, but turns a judgmental eye toward them, Laura finds herself shaken, running from the flat and being stopped by police. This leads to their eventual agreement that they must say goodbye – Alec has accepted a position in South Africa. Adapted from a Noel Coward play, the film’s passionate love is seen alongside a desperate need for companionship. Are Laura and Alec bad people for wanting happiness they don’t have? Are they being selfish? The film never answers that question, though there is never a moment in the film where the audience can honestly claim they aren’t rooting for these two. I would never condone an affair of any kind, but if the affair is depicted in any way similar to “Brief Encounter,” it may give me reason to pause for a moment or two.7. Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight (1995)Directed by: Richard LinklaterI’m cheating, but don’t kid yourself – this is really just one long movie broken into three parts (and maybe more). “Before Sunrise” introduces us to Jesse (Ethan Hawke), an American writer/traveler, and Celine (Julie Delpy), a French student returning to Paris. The two spend a day in Vienna together on a whim, developing a deep connection. We revisit the two nine years later in “Before Sunset” – Jesse has written a beloved book and is on a tour in Paris to promote it. Celine finds him and the two discuss their lives since that night and begin to rekindle some of that flame. We rejoin them nine years later for “Before Midnight,” now a married couple spending a Greek vacation together with their children. They use the time to reminisce of their relationship, their ups and downs, and where they could be if that fateful night never occurred. A few things are clear as we move through the films: Hawke and Delpy get better and better with their chemistry, Linklater’s direction gets more and more clear-minded, and the trio has together created one of the clearest and most honest portrayals of a modern romance ever put on screen. There are plenty of films that came before that touched on the same themes, but this trio of films puts all the pieces together. After Before Midnight, we feel like we know this couple as well as we know our neighbors (even more so) and we understand where each is coming from. All the movies on this list hinge on a relationship or two. Linklater’s films are the relationship.6. Scenes from a Marriage (1973)Directed by: Ingmar BergmanOriginally an acclaimed television miniseries in Sweden, “Scenes from a Marriage” ran for six episodes. The theatrical cut is 167 minutes long, down from 281 minutes on television. That in mind, the film is relatively episodic, following Marianne and Johan (Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson) as their ten year marriage deteriorates, thanks to his infidelity and her disillusionment with their relationship and their relationship with their children. As Bergman is the director, it is incredibly scant on surrealism and incredibly detailed and harsh. There is no attempt to infer anything from anything – it’s a pretty straight-up story about a troubled relationship. Close-ups are used regularly to drive home the pain and anguish the two go through. Ullman’s performance is the stand out as a woman who cannot understand why her husband would just simply walk away from something they both built together. It’s surprisingly feminist, showing her growing independence as the two don’t necessarily fall out of love, but transform into a very different relationship, based on much more than just young love. It’s uncompromising and detailed – there are no windows shaded or door closed to this couple.5. L’Atalante (1934)Directed by: Jean VigoMarriage is tough. Especially when you’re aboard a boat that you can’t really leave. Jean (Jean Daste) is the captain of the titular barge, joined on the boat by his new wife Juliette (Dita Parlo), a crew member named Pere Jules (Michel Simon), and a cabin boy. They head to Paris to deliver some cargo. Jules isn’t quite sure how to handle having a woman on board, but eventually takes Juliette int his quarters, causing Jean to fly into a rage. They arrive in Paris, with Jean promising to take Juliette out, only to see Jules and the cabin boy leave the boat first. Jean cannot abandon the boat. Eventually, they do go out, but Jean’s jealousy causes him to drag Juliette back to the barge. She sneaks back off the boat; Jean decides to leave her in Paris. Clearly, not his best decision, as he slips into a depression and begins to perform poorly at his job, yearning to return to find her. The French New Wave movement of the 1960’s found a great influence in Vigo’s work here, as his poetry of motion and the way it enlivens a story that really just takes place on a cargo barge. While the synopsis sounds like a two-sided drama, it really focuses more on Juliette, who grows tired of waiting and wondering on a boat, hence her “relationship” with Jules and her need to get out and explore Paris. But what “L’Atalante” does is set a gold standard. Films have tried to approach the technical and emotional prowess of Vigo’s master work, but it has yet to be equaled. It’s beautiful, it’s honest, and it’s more gorgeous than most romances you’ll see on screen otherwise.4. In the Mood for Love (2000)Directed by: Kar Wai WongYou could argue that this film is actually about two people falling in love (which I tried to avoid), but it’s too good not to include. “In the Mood for Love” takes place in Hong Kong and centers on a journalist named Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) and a secretary named Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung), who both begin renting from the same apartment building on the same day. They becomes neighbors, both with spouses who are never around, always traveling for work or with overtime shifts. Chow and Su both secretly believe their respective partners are having affairs and share a common bond, becoming friends. Chow invites Su to help him write a story – people begin to talk. They remain platonic, but both know that feelings are brewing beneath the surface. The relationship (or lack thereof) is one of the more heartfelt and difficult ones to watch as connections are missed and opportunities pass by. According to Time Out New York, it’s the “consummate unconsummated love story of the millennium.” It’s a perfect summation of the film, which turns entirely on the relationship Chow and Su should share, but never do. Plenty of films of this list have themes about possible love never being fulfilled. “In the Mood for Love” may be the best one – a deeply felt, beautiful story of love that never came to fruition.3. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)Directed by: Mike NicholsYou could argue that Mike Nichols adaptation of Edward Albee’s play is a jet black comedy, but not nearly enough to exclude it from this list. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” takes place over one day. It begins on Sunday morning at the home of George and Martha (Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor). George is a professor; Martha is the president’s daughter. She has invited a young couple over for the evening – Nick (George Segal), a newly hired instructor, and Honey (Sandy Dennis), his quiet wife. And this sets everything off. George is all too familiar with Martha’s heavy drinking and it begins as an argument long before their guests even arrive. Nick and Honey quickly realize that they are being pulled into marital strife they have no place being involved in, but George convinces them to stay. And so the dance continues – arguments abound, criticisms are thrown about aimlessly, and Goerge and Martha trade barb after barb while Nick and Honey watch and slowly gets sucked in. The film takes turns that are unexpected and sharp, with Taylor and Burton giving behemoth performances. I won’t spoil where exactly the film goes and ends, but, suffice it to say, it’s a bombastic trip the entire way through. George and Martha may very well be the most dysfunctional couple on this list, but dammit – they may be the most entertaining and interesting, too.2. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)Directed by: F.W. MurnauThe earliest film on the list and the only silent one, F.W. Murnau’s brilliant story of near betrayal won the Unique and Artistic Production Oscar at the very first Academy Award ceremony (basically, the artistic Best Picture). “Sunrise” introduces us to a Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston), who has been spending time at a little lakeside town. She spends time outside a farmhouse, trying to lure the owner out. The Man (George O’Brien) lives there with his Wife (Janet Gaynor) and their daughter. His farm has been struggling lately – the Woman wants him to sell it and move to the city with her. He finds himself tempted; the Woman’s solution is that he take his Wife onto the lake and drown her. He almost goes through with it, but realizes that he cannot when she pleads for her life. Upon their return to shore, she flees from him and jumps on a trolley into town. He chases her and begs her to take him back. From there, they appear to be reunited, but tragedy causes the Man to once again search for his love and fend of temptation from the Woman. It’s a story that has been copied time and time again, but Murnau’s beautifully shot, wonderfully moving original romantic drama was the first measuring stick – a dramatic look at the pain of infidelity, the strain of temptation, and the difficulties of rural life in a world that has begun to see industrial boom. Films began to view relationships in much more complicated light, but sometimes, there’s nothing better than a good old-fashioned happy story; even when it takes dark turns.1. Casablanca (1942)Directed by: Michael CurtizIt’s the film that every man should return to once in a while. Love isn’t always about passion. It’s not always about showering her with gifts. Sometimes it’s just about sacrificing your own happiness. Michael Curtiz’s Best Picture winner boasts one of the greatest screens plays of all time, led by one of the greatest movie stars to have ever worked. “Casablanca” stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, a U.S. expatriate running a nightclub in the title city. Rick comes into possession of some letters that will allow a Czech Resistance leader named Victor to escape to America, planning to bring his wife, Rick’s former lover Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). From there, the film takes time to discuss the larger stakes of the ongoing war and the danger the characters at this little nightclub face, but the relationship between Rick and Ilsa is what drives the entire film. He finds himself struggling between his bitterness of the dissolution of their past love and his desire to ensure she stays safe. He knows she won’t be happy or easy to protect in Casablanca, but he knows he won’t be happy to let her go again. So, what’s a man to do? Not many films feature such a strong, yet conflicted male lead performance that, despite making the right decisions and being a good person, still doesn’t get the girl in the end. And, occasionally, that’s what audiences need to see. A good relationship isn’t necessarily one that lasts forever. Sometimes, deciding to end a relationship is more important than doing whatever it takes to keep it going.