Ian Nathan

There is true beauty in the realism at the heart of what could come across a fanciful movie plot, with its documentarian coolness of execution, the crisp rhythms of Zinnemann’s direction, we feels we are staring through a window into the shadowy recesses of history.

It's a slight tale, of course, and incredibly short, but the characters and songs are pretty much perfect viewing time and again.

The songs and set pieces are still fresh and infectious and most of the child cast are mesmerisingly good. I defy anyone not to be caught up in the charm and nostalgia.

Unpretentious, warm, at times hilarious, it's hard to find a bad word to say about Crocodile Dundee.

A most fascinating disaster of genre making.

There are no gothic extravagances in Kathryn Bigelow's bone-dry, style-rich, noir-steeped vampire western. Instead it comprises a fascinatingly modern take on blood sucking mythology, shedding tradition to examine the creatures as human counterparts.

An unknown treasure of a fantasy film and well worth a look for fans of the genre.

Foxes with bows and arrows..what could be better than that?

More style than substance... but such sexy, sexy style...

Passionate performances from De Niro and Jeremy Irons in this stark but thematically complex historical drama.

Not even a decent performance from Richard Attenborough can save this disappointing production.

It does slow down a bit too much for endless walking hither and thither scenes in the woods, as we ebb toward the grand reveal, but the mystery proves strong enough to hold you.

Despite the ridiculous premise and casting this is still a pacey little sci-thriller.

Petersen pulls off the thrills at a stomach lurching pace, and with its requisite Hollywood ham - husband and wife reuniting over piles of haemorrhaging bodies - loud performances, crashing stunts and a fearsome, hypochondria-inducing conceit, there's barely room to catch your breath, let alone cry foul.

You end up with this perky but pointless rehash of the cute alien format that became embedded in the late ‘80s.

Deliberately provocative, infuriatingly melodramatic, this is a film that begs not to be taken seriously, and requires a ready suspension of moral discernment for maximum enjoyment.

Mind you, Eastwood went on the star with an orang-utan, twice, so this is only his third maddest film. Although, it could be his dullest. Which was one thing no one would of expected of this madcap enterprise, born of a what-the-heck attitude from its macho stars — that it would struggle so hard to be fun.

Deliciously cruel to children, Roeg remains true to Dahl's underlying sense of real horror.

It’s a fairy-tale, a glittering New York fable told in a silvery black and white, laden with nostalgia for times and oddities long gone from the hallowed halls of Broadway. Another Allen gem.

For exploitation-enthusiasts and Scorsese completists only.

Superb performances, exquisite direction and that Ennio Morricone score create an authentic 1920s Chicago feel and a hugely entertaining crime drama.

This is a valiant but overcomplicated Western that aims to redraw the lines on Western mythology: with heroes as mere humans, and heroics as distortions of the truth.

Enough large-scale spectacle scenes to outweigh the inevitable religiose sludge that creeps in between them.

It is a complex and at times infuriating structure — it often helps to conceive of the film as the book of short stories it stems from — but simultaneously vivid and disturbing.

Director Lewis Gilbert effortlessly marshals the intricacies of the plot (a nutty plan by SMERSH to ignite a world war), the exotic Japanese locations, and the extravagancies of having hundreds of ninja warriors abseiling into a huge enemy base unfathomably constructed in the belly of an extinct volcano (quite the engineering feat!).

There were a few sci-fi movies in the 70s that managed to transcend the genre and become fairly well known in the mainstream. This weren't one of 'em and for good reason.

An often overlooked fine entry in the Kurasawa canon, this shows a good many western 'epics' how it's done.

No matter how good the performer you can’t escape Christie’s leisurely approach to characterisation — simple concoctions of quirk, guilt and red herring. But Lumet is having loads of credible fun with the formula, keeping up a genuine sense of claustrophobia in this isolated railway car surrounded by crisp white snow.

Lavish pirate adventure that launched Errol Flynn onto 1930's screens and ensured that buckles would be swashed for a good few years to follow.

Even if you're not a 'fan' of the musicals, Oliver is so witty, so bright and so endearing that even the iciest viewer should start melting in it's corona.

Ostensibly a haunted house story, it manages to traverse a complex world of incipient madness, spectral murder and supernatural visions ...and also makes you jump.

This is not a film about boxing. This is a film about the human condition and about cinema itself.

The acting is all first base, the script a laughable stream of gung ho-isms, the action merely solid and the effects indifferent. Yet, you still stroll out with a grin a mile wide.

Whilst paranoid in a very 1950's way and a little downbeat at times this is very enjoyable.

Star Wars it wasn't and still isn't...camp 70's space stuff but the TV series spin-off is a fond memory for 30-somethings throughout the Western World.

One of the greatest behind-bars movies ever, the result finds director Franklin J. Schaffner making the most of both his sun-drenched locations and his leading man, who squintily acts even co-star Dustin Hoffman well off the screen.

A spectacular misfire from a director who should have known better.

Perhaps, it was the choice of material, a much more internalised story despite its glossy Raj setting, or the absence of Robert Bolt as screenwriter (it was he who put the fire in Lean’s belly), but the film, for all Lean’s innate elegance, is strangely remote and unmoving.

The Third Man finally endures because it offers a simple thing that so many modern films neglect: the power of story...Revolutionary film noir with a clutch of stunning central turns.

It’s "Ferris Bueller" with an existential crisis. Very funny and very weird.

Should be judged in context but even then it's a bit high on the melodrama and low on subtlety.

An outstanding thriller based on a stageplay (by Frederick Knott) that fits so much better on the screen because, as well as the expansive, cinema is really good at claustrophobia.

Despite a little dating around the edges this is a truly superb example of its genre and a cinema classic.

It’s juvenilia, straight-up goofballing, but there is a tittering innocence at work here.

Kubrick's superb version of William Thackery's first novel is meticulous and philosophically stimulating but it can leave some audiences unmoved on an emotional level.

A truly great Western from Clint that is bleakly atmospheric and charming in turns.

A perfect ensemble of cast, photography and screenplay are all subtly handled through Huston's direction, bringing out Bogart and Hepburn's performances beautifully.

More than an average thriller, but far from Lumet's finest hour.

It doesn't have the dark edge of Joe Dante's other works, but brilliant performances by Martin Short and Meg Ryan make it a joy from start to finish.

Although evidently a rip-off — there were hints of Lucas even taking the matter to the courts — this spacebound wagon train, whose limits are readily apparent, is great fun.

Just as the film captures a world (Imperialism, hunting, colonialism) that has faded away, so this film feels like one of the last of it's kind.

Frantic is Polanski's most satisfying film since Chinatown, and one of the best traditional thrillers to come down the pike in quite some time.

Never managing to look more hi-tech or further on from 1987 than, well, Hi-tech trainers, this Arnie vehicle still runs it's bloody course without dropping many gears. A brainless, breathless thrill.

Delightful, athletic stuff with some unusual - but wonderful - location shooting. New York never looked better.

One of modern American film’s most intelligent and provocative accounts of a nation’s political failings, and a near-perfect depiction of journalism at its purist and most inspired. To be more succinct, it is quite brilliant.

A classic, of sorts.

Disjointed but it still rocks.

Hardly a barrel of laughs then, but this slowburn tale sears its way onto the synapses and then flat refuses to budge.

A rerun of the first one but satan junior is now a teenager.

Jaws but bigger, more mammal, and just plain bad.

As with all great spoofers, you can feel the love the director has for Hitchcock, the thoroughness of his jokes vouches for that and the entire plot is loosely based on Spellbound. Perhaps, he was too devoted, the film lacks daring, it’s soft, Hitch would have sneered at such weakness.

A general disappointment, but then with David Bowie and Patsy Kensit what did you expect.

A 50s horror classic that remains a gem of allegorical paranoia.

This no-brainer is fine if all you're after a bit of escapism, but don't look for anything deeper than that.