Zorba the Greek
Mihalis Kakogiannis, USA, Greece, 1964o
Basil, an English writer suffering from writer's block, comes to Crete to inspect an inherited lignite mine, but he is really on a journey of self-discovery. He befriends Zorba, a larger-than-life, big-hearted Greek laborer who shows Basil how the world works. Basil is attracted to a beautiful widow who has made herself unavailable to the other men in the village, while Zorba strikes up a romance with Mme. Hortense, an aging French courtesan who runs a small hotel and is the former mistress of four admirals. The protagonist team's efforts to build a cable car end in disaster and one of the most famous laughs in film history.