GOOD FILMS YOU NEVER HEARD OF
                                                              Part 5
People with supernatural powers are pretty much standard stuff in today’s movies. But what about those who actually have them? In Resurrection (1980) Ellen Burstyn is superb as Edna McCauley. She survives a horrible car crash in which her husband is killed. She gradually discovers that she now has the ability to heal people with her touch. And slowly, as knowledge of her ability spreads, more and more people want her to help them. She comes to wish her talent never happened. A cautionary tale about celebrity and its fallout.
There have been lots of good movies about chess, and also about child prodigies. The recent Queen Of Katwe (2016) is a good example. But one of the best films ever made in this niche is Searching For Bobby Fischer (1993). Max Pomeranc (8 years old at the time) is perfect as the super-talented boy, who really just wants to be an ordinary kid. Joe Mantegna and Joan Allen are really good as his bewildered parents, trying to navigate between his talent and his childhood. And Lawrence Fishburne has an excellent turn as a park speed player. 
David Niven made a good living as a dashingly handsome leading man. But- my goodness- he will break your heart in the splendid Separate Tables (1958). Mr. Niven is amid a cluster of heavy hitters in this film: Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper. The group dynamic at a residential hotel ebbs and flows around Niven’s character, whose past is about to catch up with him. 
And speaking of broken hearts, the fine Italian movie The Son’s Room (2001) is about as good as it gets in films about the death of a child. Teen-ager Andrea is not on good terms with his doctor-father Giovanni. The boy dies in a scuba diving accident and his dad mourns all the missed chances there were. The father is played by Nanni Moretti with just the right touch. Mr. Moretti also wrote, directed and produced this movie. For him it was a work of love and necessity.
The Station Agent (2003) introduced American audiences to two very fine, but until then almost unknown, actors. Dwarf Peter Dinklage (as Fin McBride) is anything but small in this part. He has been befriended by an aged shop owner who dies and leaves his abandoned railroad station to Fin. Fin makes the station his home and only wants to be left alone, very unsociable and touchy about his size. But Joe Aramas (Bobby Cannavale), an exuberant Cuban-American food truck owner,  isn’t having it and refuses to give up on being friends with the small man. Just stunningly good is another neighbor, Olivia Harris (the wonderful Patricia Clarkson) trying to regain her footing after the death of her child. Somehow all of this works together in a marvelous way!
All of the films in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. Bobby Fischer is fine for all ages. The rest are for grown-ups.