Kim Newman

Dark, twisted and beautiful, this entwines fairy-tale fantasy with war-movie horror to startling effect.

A truly great documentary.

Kurosawa is always worth a look but this is a particular classic that has influenced so much to come, it's almost essential.

Well, even if it is essentially four hours about a selfish, silly cow, it's impeccably well made, and should be seen by anyone with even a passing interest in romance or movies.

Epic performances in a movie that seethes with atmosphere.

With its genuinely cute hero and appealing storyline, Dumbo's exactly right for younger children but not too milk-soppy for anyone over eight. Indispensible.

Beautifully directed with a lovely visual lyricism, this film packs a western punch with perfect performances and a fine script.

A wonderful picture set in a world of silly heirs and sharp-eyed dolls as remote from reality and yet wholly credible as that of P. G. Wodehouse.

Cleverly wrought and expertly played crime thriller.

Gripping throughout, with an impressive central performance, this is like a Dogme 95 redo of a Chuck Norris film - by heroic effort, the good guys find and kill a bad guy. How you feel about that is something Bigelow leaves you to decide.

Superlative crime yarn adapted with precision and skill from the classic James M. Cain novel.

Imaginative and surprisingly moving for a silent art movie.

Overall this film is truly a triumph, its greatness being revealed in its tiny moments - the close-up of a swastika badge that introduces Neeson or the bungled defiance of Fiennes at his hanging.

In 1956 audiences flocked to The Searchers precisely because it was a John Wayne western, and lapped up its mix of Injun-fightin' action, rough comic knockabout and intense, emotional storyline. Seen now, it is all that and much, much more.

A dazzling spy thriller that’s still amazing.

Absolutely brilliant. It's funnier, sadder and cooler on the big screen.

It's a tragedy that someone else' happy ending is tacked onto his tale, but the film retains enough brilliance to make us glad it's been re-released.

Bogdanovich’s perfect recreation of the sense of time and place, and his ability to mix wit with poignancy that make this such a charming, timeless film.

A perfect backstage musical.

Not as affecting as Ozu's classic Tokyo Story, Late Spring still charms with it's similar theme of development of the parental bond as the children mature and become more independent. Although well acted, the visual are equally arresting but when the themes are so similar a new approach is required to keep it interesting.

A touch too heavy on the Faust scenario, this is nevertheless a typically powerful effort from Stone especially strong on the nightmarish aspects of the war, as when a simple misundertsanding instantly becomes a massacre...Gripping stuff

None of the humans — not even scream queen Wray — can compete with Kong. But the film remains a perfect star vehicle. It prepares for its hero's entrance with hints of mystery, violence, eroticism and fantasy, then cuts loose with all the action, adventure.

Paul Newman gives one of his best performances in this prison film, where he inspires life in to his fellow inmates. Has something important to say with several memorable moments and a superb supporting cast.

Now, it's a slower film, with a little more intellect and sentiment, but perhaps the added time to think will make you feel less overwhelmed.

The film has outstanding sound effects, art direction and editing, and a clutch of effective, if necessarily, one-note performances.

While not exactly reaching Ring-levels of terror, it's certainly one for connoisseurs of the weird.

The greatest laugh-out-loud comedy of the 80s.

Even though he was just staring out, Kubrick instantly mastered the crime genre. A stunning film.

Beautiful photography, a heartbreaking story, and iconic moments from beginning to end. Absolutely unmissable.

If hell is in the details, Roman Polanski has captured it here in his disturbing portrait of falling into psychosis.

Keeping the dialogue minimal and the action high on the agenda, life in Paris' underworld proves to be surprisingly yet suitably violent and threatening.

Fascinating, funny, wicked and to the point, this is an excellent film about a week every Briton over the age of 15 will remember vividly.

And with supporting roles from the likes of Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall and Lee Strasberg, to say nothing of Roger Corman and Harry Dean Stanton in bit parts, this is nothing short of magisterial.

Genuinely disturbing thriller classic from the master of suspense.

An extremely entertaining, brilliantly acted, highly diverting film which — like all hustles — delivers less than it promises. Still, it’s worth being taken for the ride.

With this touching story about a boy learning to play chess, Zaillian cuts an impressive debut, brining out strong performances from his cast most notably the young Pomeranc who is genuinely moving a the chess genius, even when he's not talking we are able to know what he's thinking, a rarity amongst child actors.

Even if you’ve skipped the Dardennes’ work until now, this is a talking-point movie — and an outstanding lead performance — you need to see. It’s a rare film of unforced simplicity that will stick with you for a long time. And it’s honest right to its perfectly judged ending.

A movie masterpiece.

Part of its strength is that it’s not a glossy, predictable Hollywood horror and so it has a grainy, semi-amateur, black and white look which gives it a dread sense of conviction.

Heavy-handed but still poignant patriotism in this Hitchcock thriller.

Great effects for its time and some incredible performances makes this a true cinema classic.

An outstanding film, showcasing a great performance, at once celebrating, analysing and criticising an important writer and his major book. You'll appreciate it more if you've read "In Cold Blood" recently and have seen enough footage of the real Truman Capote to know Hoffman is underplaying.

Unlucky for almost everyone. It's a sad day when a Friday the 13th remake is shown up by a My Bloody Valentine remake – couldn't they at least have sprung for 3-D?

If you set aside Frankenstein as more of a horror film and King Kong as a fantasy, The Invisible Man is the first truly great American science fiction film.

A subtle criqiue of the main character that contains some astonishing set pieces.

It would like to be "Traffic" with guns, but comes out more like "Blow" with bullets.

It’s as wistful and sad as it is funny and charming, with the first of Nino Rota’s great scores to keep it burbling along.

Spartacus' merry rabble swarms across country to face a Roman army that, seen from a distance, resembles either a group of ants moving in perfect formation or living chessboard squares marching in order — an unbeatable, fascist machine. It's a breathtaking moment, which forces you to realise that Kubrick (before CGI) had to command extras as rigidly as Crassus runs Rome.

The funniest, most deliciously venomous Jane Austen movie ever made, and conclusive proof that, a) Kate Beckinsale has been seriously undervalued by the movies and, b) Whit Stillman is a major, distinctive talent.

Of course, this is a film you have to meet half-way. If you’re willing to enter its world, it’s an immensely rewarding, amusing, wise, melancholy and involving experience.

A war movie with enough honour and heroism to make a grown man weep.

One of the strongest, most effective horror films of recent years — with awards-quality lead work from Essie Davis, and a brilliantly designed new monster who could well become the break-out spook archetype of the decade.

Bogart as Marlowe is compelling in this classic thriller that is complex but triumph of atmospheric cool.

This really is the musical for people who don’t like musicals.

Lemmon and Mathau's finest hour.

It must be hard for actresses as unconventional and gutsy as Weaver and Hunter to find scripts worth making. Although this offers them both meaty parts with plentiful neuroses and snappy lines, it is otherwise a completely mechanical load of old cods.

It's a deep film, but also elusive, accepting that some mysteries can never be solved.

A well-warranted remastering of his Aussie new wave classic.

A key turn-of-the-decade film, with Nicholson railing against waitresses and barking at noisy dogs as Rafelson observes seedily picturesque roadside America.

The spectacular last-reel recreation of the bombing makes this, Michael Bay notwithstanding, the Pearl Harbor film to beat, but the unquestioned highlight is the famous on‑the‑beach adultery scene between virile sergeant Lancaster and an unusually unladylike Kerr, with the waves crashing around them to symbolise their unrestrained passions.

Connery [is] cruising by this point and the movie doesn't quite match the swagger of Goldfinger, but still effortlessly plies the glory Bond years, concluding with a stunning underwater battle.

No mere creature feature, this 1940s classic offers more subtle chills.

Clouzot achieves an analysis of the human condition at least as bleak as Huston's The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre but without the grandstanding speeches and with more subtle performances.

Mike Leigh sees a Britain everybody knows exists but would rather not think about, and this is a nightmare journey, at once horrific and funny, through a twilight London of the excluded and the rejected.

A well observed and deeply tender tale.

Fun spoof but it's been surpassed in the TV-series film spoof since then.

Brad Dourif shows he was always great in one of John Huston's better later films.

For a change, we're in a privileged position, always knowing more than the characters we're following, understanding their wrong-headed thought processes, appreciating the ironies they miss, seeing where a slightly different bit of behaviour would have saved lives or led to happier endings.

Intelligent science-fiction sometimes seems an endangered species - too much physics and there's a risk of creating something cold and remote, too many explosions and get lost in the multiplex. Looper isn't perfect, but it pulls off the full Wizard Of Oz: it has a brain, courage and a heart.

A decent historical drama, with one of the best extended battle scenes (a full half of the movie is the face-off in the 'village of death') in recent memory.

A quality ghost story with an unusual backdrop and great performances.

Written by Roddy Doyle this was never going to be a depressing tale of single parenthood. Instead we watch through rose-tinted glasses as the ever watchable Colm Meaney bonds with his family over his daughter's pregnancy out of wedlock in Catholic Ireland.

In its best scenes, it adds dynamism and British grit to a genre that had previously tried to get by on atmospherics and mood alone. It manages to be shocking without being especially frightening, and its virtues of performance and style remain striking.

Mason's urbane genius and Douglas' dimpled two-fistedness (and stripy sailor shirt) beef up a floppy script.

This is a great director's greatest love story.

Al Pacino delivers a powerful performance in this compelling biopic...of a cop and a city's police force.

A cracking cold war story.

Painful for many reasons, but highly recommended.

Despite the pleasant feel and fun performance from Zane there's something missing from this superhero adventure.

A first-rate horror movie, It Follows adds a new monster to the pantheon expect pranksters to imitate the Follower for cheap shocks soon — and has a refreshing, unpretentious sense that a meaningful subtext doesn’t undercut spookiness.

Whether horror fans are ready for high-notes or musical buffs will appreciate Dario Argento levels of gore is an open question, but this is a rich, demented experience.

Polanski arrived on the scene with an almost super-human knack for tension; one of the great directorial debuts in cinema's history.

Though a little too languid at two hours, The Love Witch is appropriately seductive.

A bravura monster movie which just doesn’t let up, ratcheting tension with nary a word uttered on screen. It also boasts great creature design and a breakthrough performance from young Millicent Simmonds.

Compared to similar genre offerings, this ain't much cop. But standing alone, it's an entertaining and amiable film.

Solid history, fine cinema. Downfall is gripping, moving, and, in the end, profoundly horrifying.

At once a devastating, curiously uplifting inhuman drama and a superbly crafted genre exercise, Let The Right One In can stand toe-to-toe with Spirit Of The Beehive, Pan's Labyrinth or Orphee. See it.

The intricate work of a craftsman, and a beautiful appearance by the beguiling Simone Sigornet.

An absolute must.

It might also be the case that the film is more taken by emotions, beauty and passing fancies than plot and character.

How to sum up? You have to make synapse-spark connections, interpret events to your own satisfaction, pick up visual cues (a long stretch of the film is dialogue-free) and be happy with not knowing all the answers (you know, like in life — but not in most motion pictures). A perfectly judged, strikingly beautiful film, but also a lunatic enterprise which invites — even welcomes — befuddlement as much as wonder. A true original.

The first film to be adapted from rather than into a Nintendo cartridge, Super Mario Bros, is a shrill, hectic and tiresome fantasy with little story, less excitement and no imaginable audience.

Shot in a grainy grey and white helps to give the film an amateurish and at the same time realistic feel, particularly as it's based on true events. With standout performances from Lo Bianco and Stoler, this is a forgotten gem that's waiting to be rediscovered.

Measured in pace, yet thoroughly gripping and completely accessible. The title soft-sells the picture, but it's among the best of this or any year. And Manville should clear some shelf space for well-deserved awards.

Improv comedy at its best: subtle, hilarious, excruciating and affecting in equal measure.

The strength of the piece is that it realises which aspects of its genre have been seen too many times, always coming back to Nelson's blank but expressive stare as he watches terrible things the director doesn't need to shove in our faces.

Superbly Vincent Price!

A classy French-Belgian horror with an unusual female perspective on monstrous taboos. Shocking but not sensationalist, this is a strong cannibal movie worth chewing over.