Once seen, Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is hard to forget, as it charts the sad path of many a former child star to the backwaters of the Hollywood hills.

John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film is a stately and moving depiction of the man’s capacity for dignity and improvement.

It remains a marvel of a modern ethos, particularly in the behaviour of its principal characters: whether it’s the total lack of jealousy or its cinematic style that encompasses newsreel footage, photographic stills and freeze frames.

Much like the multitude of heady jazz numbers that flow throughout the film, Paris Blues is a cool, breezy and laid-back character-led romantic drama with strong turns by the four likable leads, not least the late, great Paul Newman, effortlessly exuding that trademark piercing blue-eyed intensity and magnetism.

The Hustler is one of the highlights of Paul Newman‘s career. The film is often ranked as one of the best films of its time, largely thanks to Newman’s excellent portrayal of the down beaten Felson.

At once a searing, affirming and defiant portrayal of race, poverty and frustrated aspiration in America.

What shapes Breathless as such an influential and long lasting ‘classic’ of French cinema is Godard’s ferocious delivery of simplistic subject matter, his direction of iconic actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and his all-out gallantry in creating the first of many films that broke all the rules, both in his homeland and overseas.

It’s a picture so precariously balanced on the edge of poetry and sentiment, of defiance and self-pity.

A searing indictment of religious fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism. Inherit the Wind’s relevance continues beyond its immediate parallels with McCarthyism.

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.

As though North by Northwest boasts some of Hitchcock’s most ambitious and memorable set pieces it is also one his most terrifically funny, playful moving pictures, cutting just the right line between suspense and belly laughs.

Featuring a cavalcade of colourful characters, lively merriment and a wit and charm like no other, Jour de Fête marks a spectacularly well fashioned introduction to Tati’s old-fashioned and playful sense of humour.

The Defiant Ones combines Stanley Kramer’s trademark liberal politics with a picaresque adventure that is deftly entertaining, tense and heartfelt.

While not amongst the greater, more celebrated titles in Billy Wilder’s acclaimed filmography, his big screen adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution boasts a fine, scenery-chewing performance by Charles Laughton, here playing a cantankerous barrister defending a murder suspect.

Touch of Evil proceeds with one of the most celebrated long-takes in screen history. The sequence is a marvel of technical virtuosity and staged action. From the very start, Orson Welles’s grubby and sweaty noir classic has us in its grip with a gloriously devised piece of showmanship emblematic of the director’s audaciously talented spirit.

While Sirk didn’t believe it to be his greatest work, it’s perhaps best-known for being his most personal, ambitious and starkly cynical film; far removed from the more distinguishable, Technicolor-infused melodramas of that peppered his career.

Although 12 Angry Men dismays at human weakness, it is fundamentally an optimistic film, celebrating reason and basic human decency in equal measure. In an era when both seem in short supply, Lumet’s film is a reminder that there is never a bad time to stand up for what is right.

It was once said that Runyon’s prose had a ungrammatical purity about it (what with the refusal of the past tense), but likewise Guys And Dolls works because it shouldn’t work.

Even the film’s weaknesses – a penchant for melodrama and a tendency towards the hysterical – work as remnants of their time and betray an earnest effort to emphasise with the characters and their heightened do-or-die mentality.

A constantly surprising treat of a film that returns more the less you give.

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.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa is at once a deeply satirical depiction of Hollywood and a sumptuous saga of the rise and fall of a star.

Tati’s second film, Les Vacances de M. Hulot sees the birth of the everlasting character of Monsieur Hulot, he of the trademark pipe and umbrella.

Rarely seen but frequently referenced in film studies lecture rooms, Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) is a twisted tale of the rise and fall of Kirk Douglas’ ruthless Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields and one of the greatest ‘movies about movies’ to ever come out of Hollywood.

In one truly magic moment, Buster Keaton – who had fallen on hard times and was largely forgotten – joins Calvero for his final gala performance. It is a cinematic meeting to be cherished and makes up for the maudlin and wordy melodrama that precedes it.

The Tales of Hoffmann has aged beautifully and reminds us of why we go to the movies in the first place: to move through the screen and find yourself happily transported to another world.

It was the film that introduced the world at large to master director Akira Kurosawa and his frequent, infinitely watchable star Toshiro Mifune.

The sumptuous colours, outstanding choreography and toe-tapping tunes are nothing but first-rate.

Ultimately, The Lavender Hill Mob remains an unblemished gem that proves that the period wasn’t just one of fertility on the other side of the atlantic.

It is a tale of phenomenal creatives from Williams to Kazan and Brando and Leigh.

One of the major successes of A Place in the Sun is the way it delicately obfuscates the distinction between romantic longing and personal ambition.

Over 60 years since its initial release, On Moonlight Bay remains a fun and charming snapshot of classic Hollywood.

Notorious is a phenomenally rich experience whether it is on the first or the hundredth viewing. Hitchcock’s most emotionally nuanced and most adult depiction of relationships feels as vital as ever.

We rarely see films that are so loaded in meaning and symbolism yet subdued in action. It’s a treat to be sure, one that can be relished seventy years on with renewed fervour.

A pitch dark noir whose eponymous anti-heroine (Joan Crawford) is surely one of the most compellingly flawed women of the genre.

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.

Meet Me in St. Louis, made when Garland was still on a career high from the phenomenal success of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, despite being a product of its time still manages to feel as fresh as when it first aired over sixty years ago.

Where The Wolfman is a a fairgound ghost train, entertaining but ultimately shallow, Cat People is a true journey into the power of fear and belief, at once frightening, disturbing and psychologically complex.

The greatest art not only shows us how to live, it comforts us in our darkest hours. This realisation will stand as Preston Sturges’ genius.

If for no other reason than its place in comedy history, Here Comes Mr. Jordan is interesting, if dispensable viewing.

His Girl Friday is satire of the highest order.

Rather than confront the guilt related to the sins of the past it paints over them in vivid colours, hoping the viewer will collude in its melodramatic muddying of the water.

Grant is absolutely superb as the impassive Geoff.

For prickly cynicism and choppy one-liners, Nothing Sacred is simply unbeatable.

The film lacks the crackle of Grant’s later masterpieces yet there remains a great deal to enjoy here with an ending that surprises with its tenderness, not-so-subtle eroticism and visual wit.

Chaplin built his reputation of finding the poignant humour in poverty, and many screwball comedies of the sound era invariably touched on the Depression, none more so than Gregory La Cava’s 1936 My Man Godfrey.

The combination of Capra’s playful sensibility, inimitable 1930s line delivery, and a screwball wit really come together here to capture lightning in a bottle.

Undoubtedly flawed, Freaks is also admirably bonkers and quite simply unforgettable.

It’s a beautiful piece of celluloid that is worthy of its army of plaudits.

With The Passion of Joan of Arc, the world arguably saw the very best of both Dreyer and Joan – whilst also something approaching the very worst of humanity.

The Lodger has rarely been seen as Hitchcock’s crowning glory, but it can be appreciated as a piece of film history marking the genesis of the great director he would become.

Heralded as one of the most blisteringly influential films of all time, Eisenstein’s propaganda film has left an indelible scar on the establishment of film as art.

Intolerance may not be perfect, but with such gargantuan spectacle and timeless mastery of form on show, it is nigh on impossible not to be swept up by this centruy-spanning extravanganza and its medium-shaping impact.

Despite being lethargic at times, it's a rich portrait of people and place.

Hotel Salvation is a bittersweet meditation on life, death and salvation.

Leach's camera remains sympathetic to these characters. He doesn't judge, and for a time it is intriguing to see why these people are so obsessed with this myth.

I Love You, Daddy is a hilarious, awkward and boundary-pushing comedy about fatherhood, anxiety and the ethics of relationships.

Mektoub My Love is an often beguiling work, drenched in beauty and humour and an inclusive warmth.

Una Famiglia is the kind of social realism that isn't realistic and says little about society.

The House By the Sea is ultimately a deeply satisfying and occasionally moving experience.

Kahn floats the idea that it’s not simply God who has enraptured Thomas’ soul, but his desire to exist within a society that accepts him. Sadly the mechanical aspects of the film’s plotting mean these ideas never manage to bubble to the surface