Daniel Green

A haunting, Aesop-like parable of good and evil, The Night of the Hunter is well worthy of classic status thanks to its wonderfully realised cast of Southern players, Walter Schumann’s dexterous original score and Cortez’s enrapturing, expressionistic visuals.

An unmitigated masterpiece from start to finish, Carné’s epic love story through Parisian theatreland feels as fresh and effervescent today as it must have done on its initial release, brimming with perfectly-sculpted heroes, villains and wildly imaginative set-pieces.

Wilder’s supreme skill at balancing light with dark is almost unsurpassed, and is the perfect fit for the chameleon-like talents of both Lemmon and MacLaine.

Uncut Gems is not only one of the tightest, tensest American thrillers of recent years but also a fine addition to the New York-set movie canon.

Featuring a breakthrough lead turn from Oscar Isaac as a struggling folk singer, the Coens have returned to the high watermark of such classic efforts as Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink.

Cited as a key influence by such contemporary directorial talents as Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson, this most epic of dramas has lost almost none of its bite, wit and aesthetic beauty over the past 69 years, and stands proudly as one of the greatest cinematic works from the legendary filmmaking duo.

By utilising a Herzogian blend of existentialist narration with the addition of numerous well-structured interviews (both academic and candid), Guzmán opens up the floor - and skies - to a frank and painfully honest discourse on Chile's past, present and future.

Combining the director’s key interests in dysfunctional family units, social stratification and the seething undercurrent of violence inherent in all positions of power, Coppola’s mafia sequel not only succeeded in dwarfing its still terrific predecessor in terms of drama and scope, but also brought together De Niro and Pacino on screen for the first (but thankfully not the last) time.

An epic yet deeply relatable human drama, Blue Is the Warmest Colour offers far greater riches than its public notoriety would have you believe.

Paths of Glory undoubtedly succeeds in both foreshadowing the bravura auteurism that was to come as well as lampooning the abhorrent bureaucracy that destroyed the lives of so many brave young men in Europe's trenches.

Those looking for a complex, funny and touching family will be more than rewarded for seeking this out.

The Lion King remains one of the strongest Disney efforts of the 1990s, and arguably its last great, traditionally animated feature.

Drunk on the visual majesty of Rome, just as Fellini once was, this is arthouse cinema at its most effortlessly entrancing, with life and art blending into one magnificent whole.

A jolting cinematic experience, Wake in Fright bites like a dingo and kicks like a mule.

A harrowing but necessary insight into what the first Allied troops met as they stumbled upon the nightmare of the Holocaust.

For fans of samurai cinema, 13 Assassins ranks right up there with Yôji Yamada's The Twilight Samurai (2002) and Takeshi Kitano's The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003) as one of the finer additions to the sub-genre in recent years.

Glazer’s Under the Skin is his otherworldly opus.

Locke never shies away from from thrusting 21st concepts of masculinity into the full glare of the high beams, exposing its morally complex protagonist at his most vulnerable before triumphantly rebuilding him from the foundations upwards. Don't miss it.

It’s the impeccable performances of its central quartet and delicious premise that makes A Quiet Place such an exhilarating watch.

The choice of casting Bowie as Newton is inspired - the androgynous star perfectly suiting the role of the space visitor. Bowie - in his first silver-screen appearance - excels, creating a perfectly suited sense of tragedy and melancholic ambiguity.

Having constructed such a dramatically enticing set-up, it's thus disappointing to see Mackenzie fall back on familiar generic tropes with such a frustrating sense of inevitability.

Ad Astra provides the genuine thematic depth and real-world grounding so often missing from films of its ilk.

Though some artfulness is dredged up amongst the trash, there's plenty to perturb and perplex.

Whether he’s tasting the cool dusk air, listening to the chillingly harmonious cries of his “children of the night” or casually watching his prey before the inevitable strike, the late German maverick is a snakelike presence from beginning to end. As Herzog himself concedes, “No one in the next fifty years will be able to play Nosferatu like Kinski has done.”

A satisfying balance of family drama, political intrigue and all-out action (an ape cavalry charge has to be seen to be believed) do, in truth, only constitute half of the story, as Reeves' sci-fi sequel is as much a technical triumph as a narrative one.

Despite its slightly televisual veneer and sporadic bouts of mawkishness, as far as British costume dramas go, The Personal History of David Copperfield is better than the majority.

It's been some time since a drama has tackled the moral complexities of revenge quite so brutally - and so well - with each character offering a different perspective on China's crippling corruption and ethical decay that's depressingly common, yet rarely reported.

With Catching Fire, director Lawrence certainly isn't afraid to bide his time and build anticipation for the truly spectacular (and tropical-tinged) Quarter Quell, patiently reestablishing crucial relationships for maximum dramatic pay-off.