American Graffiti

One night, endless memories.

Summer vacation, and easy-going life, are sliding to an end, with all sorts of new responsibilities looming on the other side of a Cali sunrise.

One pack of teens aim to put it off for as long as possible.

Cruising up and down the strip, the rumbling voice of Wolfman Jack echoes out of their car radios as they hold off the daylight.

Director George Lucas hit a homerun with a cast for the ages, including Harrison Ford in one of his earliest roles, and the film remains as vibrant in 2021 as it was in 1973.

Clear and Present Danger

“You are such a boy scout!!”

The words, said by a weasel of the highest order, sting, but are dead-on, with Harrison Ford playing a man whose rigid posture owes to his spine being made of the strongest material.

Ensnared in a murky world, acting CIA Deputy Director Jack Ryan finds himself caught between vicious Colombian drug cartels and a compromised US president.

There are three ways out — sacrifice his morals, take a bullet to the temple, or hitch up his big boy pants and go in guns blazing.

This is Harrison Ford. You know which route he’s taking.

Presumed Innocent

It’s the look of guilt.

Saddled with a bad haircut and suspicious body language, Harrison Ford’s dogged lawyer turned murder suspect doesn’t exactly project innocence as he stumbles through the wreckage of his life.

A former colleague, who he slept with, is dead, and all of his close associates start turning on him in this twisty courtroom mystery adapted from a Scott Turow novel.

Ford has spent much of his career playing the hero, which makes it even more effective when he sinks into the muck in pictures like this or Mosquito Coast.

Guilty or not, these scars won’t heal.

Air Force One

“Get off my plane!”

Harrison Ford is the president we wish we had — a man of rock-solid moral character who will throat-punch a terrorist.

Facing off with Gary Oldman, delightfully-despicable as a cold-hearted killer intent on freeing an imprisoned dictator, the Prez proves he can hold his own in mid-air conflict.

A decorated Vietnam War vet, Ford’s tough-as-nails Commander in Chief dodges a chance to escape from his hijacked plane, laying down some two-fisted retribution between scowls.

A film made to be played every 4th of July, with the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air as backdrop.

Frantic

No one scrambles like Harrison Ford.

A master at playing dogged men who stay one step ahead of their pursuers by any means necessary, he’s a jetlagged surgeon desperate to find his missing wife this time out.

Shortly after the couple sets down in Paris, she receives a mysterious phone call, then vanishes into the labyrinth of an unknown city.

Others might wait for the local authorities to piece things together, but this is Harrison freakin’ Ford, so he immediately plunges into danger with a growl and a grimace.

You’ve gone and pissed him off now. Bad move, boys.