The American Film Institute's Board of Trustees has selected Sir Sean Connery to receive the 34th AFI Life Achievement Award, the highest honor for a career in film. Through five decades of superstardom, Connery not only created James Bond, one of the most popular characters in cinema, but has also broadened his persona beyond typecasting to create a career as extraordinary as 007 himself. Connery's wide-ranging career has encompassed widescreen historical epics (note the number of Cinemascope films in this series), hardboiled police dramas, cult fantasies and science fiction. He stole the show in the final installment of the INDIANA JONES trilogy. Always a powerful presence on screen, Connery blends virile masculinity with twinkle-in-the-eye humor, an ability that redefined action stars. Enjoy this retrospective focusing on Sir Sean Connery's work outside the Bond franchise, and tune into the AFI Life Achievement Award telecast on the USA Network in June. A James Bond series will run later this year at the AFI Silver.

AFI Member Passes will be accepted at all screenings in the Sean Connery Series.

THE UNTOUCHABLES

An Oscar went to Connery for Best Supporting Actor as the Irish patrolman who teaches idealistic Elliot Ness the facts of Chicago life ("That's the Chicago way"). During Prohibition, federal agent Kevin Costner goes all out to bring down Robert de Niro's Capone. Ness assembles a team that, amid police corruption, is untouchable. The action highlight is De Palma's staircase homage to Eisenstein's POTEMKIN.

DIR/SCR Brian De Palma; SCR David Mamet; PROD Art Linson. US, 1987, color, scope, 119 min. RATED R

THE NAME OF THE ROSE

Big-scale adaptation of Umberto Eco's medieval mystery bestseller. As monks begin mysteriously dying, Franciscan monk Sean Connery must determine whether the deaths are murder or suicide. If he doesn't find the answer in time, the Grand Inquisitor (F. Murray Abraham, in his first post-Oscar role) may burn the monastery to the ground.

DIR Jean-Jacques Annaud; SCR Howard Franklin, Gerard Brach, Andrew Birkin and Alain Godard, based on the novel by Umberto Eco; PROD Thomas Schuhly, Jake Eberts and Bernard Eichinger. France/Italy/West Germany, 1986, color, 130 min. RATED R

THE MOLLY MAGUIRES

Unsuccessful through strikes, oppressed Pennsylvania miners of the 1870s turn to violence. But who leads them? Is it Sean Connery who heads feared Irish secret society the Molly Maguires? To find out, Pinkerton man Richard Harris infiltratesÑand feels conflicting loyalties. Based on a true story, filmed in a real Pennsylvania mining town, with a wordless opening.

DIR Martin Ritt; SCR/PROD Walter Bernstein, from the novel by Arthur H. Lewis. US, 1970, color, scope, 124 min. RATED PG

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

This big-budget masterpiece was shot on location in Morocco and Chamonix. John Huston had dreamed for decades of adapting Rudyard Kipling's classic, with Gable and Bogart his intended stars. Instead, real-life buddies Sean Connery and Michael Caine came close to perfection as reprobate British soldiers who set out for the wilds of Kafiristan, where they plan to win a kingdom for themselves. Christopher Plummer (as Kipling) listens to Caine's playback of the story.

DIR/SCR John Huston; SCR Gladys Hill, based on the short story by Rudyard Kipling; PROD John C. Foreman. UK/US, 1975, color, scope, 129 min. RATED PG

ZARDOZ

Challenging audiences with his unique, deliberate vision has always been an essential part of John Boorman's films, as this uncompromising science fiction epic shows. Sean Connery is Zed, an exterminator in the primitive society of the Brutals in the year 2293. He becomes a liberator upon discovering that the huge stone god of the title is an imposing cover for a brilliant, emotionless, and apathetic super race that is the end result of a utopian society. "A complex philosophical statement." -National Film Theatre, London.

DIR/SCR/PROD John Boorman. UK/Ireland, 1974, color, scope, 105 min. RATED R

THE ANDERSON TAPES

Sidney Lumet directs as Sean Connery, fresh from the pen, hooks up with former girlfriend Dyan Cannon. He decides to clean out her apartment building over Labor Day weekend, with a team that includes gay antiques dealer Martin Balsam and electronics expert Christopher Walken. Connery reminds everyone of their actions' social utilityÑwith no idea that everything he says is being taped.

DIR Sidney Lumet; SCR Frank Pierson, based on the short story by Lawrence Sanders; PROD Robert M. Weitman. US, 1971, color, 98 min. RATED PG

THE OFFENCE

Connery's self-generated project was part of his price to come back as Bond in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. "One hundred percent right!" blusters the veteran third-string detective in a great performance. Neither colleagues nor superiors are listening, but after he starts interrogating a possible child molesterÑagainst ordersÑ sardonic suspect Ian Bannen understands him only too well. Inspector Trevor Howard cleans up the mess.

DIR Sidney Lumet; SCR John Hopkins; PROD Dennis O'Dell. UK/US, 1973, color, 112 min. RATED R

MARNIE

Even though Tippi Hedren is a compulsive klepto, wealthy publisher Sean Connery marries her. "Talk about dream worlds! You've got a pathological fix on a woman who's not only a criminal, but who screams if you come near her." But the real surprises start on the wedding night. With a very young Bruce Dern in a "memorable" cameo.

DIR/PROD Alfred Hitchcock; SCR Jay Presson Allen, based on the novel by Winston Graham. US, 1964, color, 130 min. RATED PG

THE HILL

Connery's insubordinate inmate was his first mustachioed role, designed to distance himself from Bond. A WWII British military stockade sits in the middle of the North African desert. To enforce discipline, chief jailer Harry Andrews allows the sadist Ian Hendry to run "offenders" up a manmade hill-in full pack, under the midday sun. Sidney Lumet's filming with successively wider-angled lenses turned a hard-hitting prison drama into a visual tour-de-force. With Ossie Davis, Ian Bannen and Sir Michael Redgrave. Best Screenplay, Cannes Festival.

DIR Sidney Lumet; SCR Ray Rigby and R. S. Allen, after their play; PROD Kenneth Hyman. UK, 1965, b&w, 123 min. NOT RATED

Rare Archival Print
OUTLAND

On one of Jupiter's moons, miners are both setting productivity records and dying. Marshal Sean Connery discovers rampant drug-dealing at the core and follows it to the top: up the corporate ladder. By the time help arrives from the home office, he has few allies left. But among them is gutsy resident doctor Frances Sternhagen.

DIR/SCR Peter Hyams; PROD Richard A. Roth. UK, 1981, color, scope, 109 min. RATED R

INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

River Phoenix plays the young Indy who gets his nickname and the signature hat. His father, medievalist professor Sean Connery, is obsessed with beating the Nazis to the Holy Grail. "Jeffrey Boam's script dabbles with themes of neglect and reconciliation, but there's nothing ponderous about the duo's near-death scrapes and lighthearted tussles over the same blonde Fraulein."- critic Colette Maude.

DIR Steven Spielberg; SCR Menno Meyjes, Jeffrey Boam and Chris Columbus, based on characters created by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman; PROD Robert Watts and Kathleen Kennedy. US, 1989, color, scope, 127 min. RATED PG-13