David Parkinson

A beautiful but slow moving celebration of life, stunningly photographed.

Creaky, Aged and utterly enchanting. One to be seen on a proper print if you can.

The prototype for now ubiquitous 50 best blabla clips ever shows is well worth a look. They really are a bunch of the best ever.

Packed with cultural references and sly satire, this is also a hugely entertaining comic romp.

A painful and poignant excoriation of the American dream.

Elements of self parody from the master of slapstick leave you yearning for the early work that made his name. But it's worth a watch to see Chaplin and Keaton in one of few on-screen appearances together.

Hitchcock's coldest, hardest movie until its controversial ending.

Nostalgic and charming romance with special moments in the extra-narrative action.

Superbly played and realised, this stays with you.

Filled with striking and scarringly disconcerting images of vandalised nature, satanic mills and redundant modernity, this is a mournful tribute to a maligned migrant workforce and a sobering reminder that nothing comes cheap.

This lesser known Kurosawa feature is worth a look, with outstanding performances and stunning cinematography.

An insightful examination of racism, homophobia and identity in Latin America.

Meticulously controlled, but simmering with a tension that is suffused with fury, this treatise on dignity and depravity, aspiration and apathy is the Dardennes at their most accusatory and damning.

Marx brothers anarchy that makes up for plot inconsistencies with infectious humour.

Sour as month-old milk and with a tang of off-screen animosity in its mouth, Robert Aldrich's melodrama is still hysterical in every sense of the word.

Intriguing and visually atmospheric melodrama with Dietrich doing her sultry thing.

Superbly judging tonal shifts and juggling disparate storylines, this snapshot of a Refice street reveals the class, gender, racial and historical fissures in Brazilian society, while also making for riveting drama right down to the shocking sting in the tail.

A deeply affecting glimpse of a man's quest to salvage beauty from tragedy.

Pascale Ferran as the first female director to adapt this notorious novel absorbs her successful vision with a uniquely romantic vibe.

Wrongly branded misogynist by PC kneejerkers, this is a scathing assault on the exploitative nature of pornography and the emptiness of sex without love.

Played with restraint and individuality by a fine ensemble, this is a moving but provocative study of belief, duty, compassion and acceptance.

Accomplished and assured.

Impossible to appreciate in a single sitting, this masterly piece of polemical filmmaking is as intoxicating as it is intriguing.

At the venerable age of 84, documentary maven Wiseman hasn't lost his touch.

Louis Malle, possibly at his best here. The drama is subtle but affecting.

It might be lesser known, but certainly not deservingly so. This is a cracking piece of Brit cinema.

Filipino maven Diaz delivers a bravura, literary human drama that does justice to its great source material.

An affecting reflection on the loneliness we will all have to face at our end, held together by Vicky Krieps's poised display of unself-pitying despair and liberating acceptance.