Adam Smith

Halloween remains about as distilled, raw an experience in terror as is ever likely to be committed to celluloid.

In essence, Dark Star has what all great comedy has: a sense of desperation and pathos allied to an abiding humanity which elevates it high above the realm of mere spoof.

Jarecki's film brilliantly illustrates the fallibility of memory, the slippery nature of 'facts' and even people's invention of events that may never have taken place.

The Wicker Man is, more than anything else, a film about what people can do in the name of religion or, more generally, belief. Its power comes not from appeals to the supernatural but from a deep understanding of our own undeniable nature. Horror doesn't get much closer to home than that.

Bold, gruesome and melancholic, this Gothic horrorfest offers us much to sink our teeth into: Cruise - who effectively disappears from the screen for half the film's duration - is terrific, Dunst eerily compelling, Banderas hypnotic.

Stands next to Young Frankenstein as Brooks' best movie, and, of course, boasts the god of all fart gags.

Suspiria is the perfect antipasto.

While The Godfather delivers certainty and a comforting dramatic resolution, Once Upon A Time In America delivers a profound kind of mystery. While Coppola's film delivers answers, Leone's asks questions. It lingers and plays on the mind; its meanings shift and change like a faded memory or a half-remembered dream.

Sure there are niggles, the most obvious being the length, which could have been reduced by trimming the prison sequences, but in the end this may be his finest moment so far which, by default, puts it in as having a strong claim on the title "best action movie ever made". Really.

The distinguishing feature of what many people consider to be the funniest movie ever made is the sheer number of gags.

An exhilarating riff on the cop-thriller drama by a director at the top of his game -- Herzog is also at his most accessible here -- powered by an incendiary performance from Nicolas Cage. A very bad lieutenant, then. And a bloody good film.

At its heart, Candyman terrifies because of its ideas. It sinks its horrific foundations very much in the real world of poverty and racial alienation.

The comparisons are inevitable, so let's get them out of the way. Hero is a better film than "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

The Keep wears its crap bits proudly on it's sleeve, its qualities are more hidden and emerge only once you've watched it, dismissed it and then found that it's atmosphere refuses to disperse.

Superb performances and a compelling script have made this film a strange mix of Oscar-winner and Cult Classic.

Gilliam's dystopian epic remains among his best, blending his trademark visual inventiveness with a vicious brand of social satire. Unique and essential.

Brutal and brilliant.

Ignored for a long time, this film is now impossible to ignore. Mitchum is magnetic.

Pacino simmers in this daring and brilliantly constructed treatise on the many facets of a crime.

The Thing is a peerless masterpiece of relentless suspense, retina-wrecking visual excess and outright, nihilistic terror, placing 12 men at an Antarctic station while a shapeshifter takes them over one by one.

An exhilarating fight-flick that, like its scrappy central character, is impossible not to root for.

Newman is at his very best, and the cinematography is backing him up every step of the way. Must-see material.

Whether you're after a comedy-drama about cancer or a Rogen laugh-fest with added heart, this does a remarkable job of balancing the odds. And the laughter/tears split? Call it 70/30.

Even for non-Allen fans this has all the appeal of a good story well told and capped with a deliciously vicious little twist.

There's the fact that First Blood is a first-rate, taught action thriller.

In seamlessly interweaving top-notch CGI and incredible stuntwork, Cohen has delivered some of the finest auto-action ever put on screen.

Style over content, sure, but what style.

This story is emblematic of the passion, obsession and solitary poetry of surfing.