Giant

Like the title says. Based on Edna Ferber's sprawling novel, GIANT covers two generations of Texas rivalry, spear-headed by Hudson, in his best performance, and Dean, in a performance that defies description. Hudson marries Virginia belle Taylor and transplants her to Texas, where she must learn to adapt herself to the harsher culture of her husband's huge cattle empire. Dean is an outcast who strikes oil and whose financial empire grows to rival Hudson's, even as he nurses a lifelong broken heart over Taylor.

This was the last role in Dean's all-too-brief career--he was dead when the film was released--and his presence ran away with the film. He performs his ro...