Carlito's Way
De Palma has consistently used Steadicam to dazzling effect, and this 1993 crime classic is no exception. Named the best film of the 1990s by Cahiers du cinéma, Carlito’s Way is a kind of companion to his previous, more infamous Al Pacino vehicle, 1983’s Scarface, albeit chronicling not a rise to power but rather a failed attempt to go straight. Pacino is Carlito Brigante, a big-time crook freed by his slimeball lawyer (Sean Penn, captivatingly grotesque) after serving a mere five years on a thirty year bid. Carlito asserts that his days beyond the law are numbered, opening a nightclub and reigniting a romance with his stripper ex (Penelope Ann Miller)—but it’s only a matter of time before the world of vice and violence sucks him right back in….