A fairchild F-227 twin-engined turboprop, whose passengers include a Uruguayan rugby team flying over the Andes, slams a wing into a mountainside. When both wings break from the fuselage, passengers are blown into the sky or left bleeding and unconscious as their shell of an aircraft skids to rest on a snowy volcanic peak. This heart-stopping sequence — vividly directed by Frank Marshall (Arachnophobia) — begins a remarkable true-life adventure that taps dark emotions beneath the weary conventions of the crash-rescue plot.

Other films, including "Survive!" in 1976, have exploited the 1972 tragedy by focusing on one fact: The living hacked off and ate the flesh of the frozen dead to stay alive over ten grueling weeks. Alive, based on Piers Paul Read's fine book, provides a fuller picture. It is a particular strength of the script, by John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck), that the motivations for the cannibalism are seen in compassionate terms. Ethan Hawke as rugby star Nando Parrado (a technical adviser on the film) and Josh Hamilton as his team-mate Roberto Canessa may seem very American to be playing Uruguayans, but they show the gift these athletes had of instilling hope in others while trembling inside. "Alive" draws considerable power from staying more human than heroic.

“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."