Barry Lyndon is a rich cinematic experience which fully deserves to once more be seen on the big screen and enjoy its status as one of Stanley Kubrick’s greatest achievements.

Its honest and forthright depiction of mental illness, combined with Nicholson’s tour-de-force bull in a china shop performance, mean that it has lost none of its power to provoke and entertain in the four decades since its release.

Hard Times may not have grown in stature to the extent where it will be mentioned by fans in the same breath as the director’s more revered titles, but it’s certainly worth a punt and is an absolute must for Hill completists.

The film’s final shot of Little Edie dancing alone on the filthy floorboards of her rotten hallway is as poignant an image as can be imagined. Simultaneously humorous, pathetic, and triumphant, it is the unconscious statement of a person railing against the world, lost in the maze of her own past and the uncertainty of her future, at once hopelessly deluded and consciously defiant.

F for Fake is a sometimes maddening, always brilliant disruption of the conventional documentary.

Add to the mix gregarious powerhouse producer Dino De Laurentiis, plus regular Redford directorial collaborator Sydney Pollock and, unsurprisingly, the resulting film is a cracking thriller.

With a fantastic stunt team, a gamely macho star and some wonderful editing, Rollerball is so convincing, urban legend had it there were fatalities during the shoot.

Jaws is still terrific and has lost none of its bite.

It is the masterful ways in which Altman weaves doubt, hard truths, and holds up a mirror to the hypocrisies of contemporary America, that elevates his 1975 film to be one of the decade’s greatest cinematic achievements.

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 exceptional film anchored by love and set alight with the unpredictability of mental health, this is a must for Cassavetes fans and newcomers alike.

Four decades after its release, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre still justifies its place in the pantheon of all-time horror greats.

It’s an offbeat masterpiece that reveals the dark heart of Britain through the perennial tension between social progress and the burden of the past.

Eastwood and Bridges handle the tricky character transitions well, playing the broad material for the back rows while hinting at the inner darkness. Cimino’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot beckoned in the strange birth of a true auteur, and it’s one well worth digging into.

The Conversation, however, feels rather more like watching a an acting masterclass than a true movie masterpiece.

Unlike some of the other blaxploitation titles from that time, Foxy Brown is more than just a curio piece. That’s partly down to its iconic lead, but it’s also due to a strong feminist attitude which exists within that riotous, eager-to-entertain, exploitation framework.

Stylishly shot and full of blood spraying from slashed necks, shoulders and stomachs, Lady Snowblood is a thoroughly enjoyable and arty exploitation flick which has deservedly gone on to become a cult hit.

Revolving around the omnipresent theme of grief (and adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s short story), the film composes a ghostly melancholic reflection on this profound human emotion.

Budgetary restrictions offer a narrow visual scope which isn’t helped by the plodding, stagy pace (maddeningly slow at times).

Playtime attacks the good taste of understanding by making you understand the importance of both absence and presence that coexists in a modern shared public space and a gradually disappearing private space.

The Offence is almost the definition of murk, unrelenting and unforgiving.

Like many of the films from that era, Coffy hasn’t aged particularly well, but it’s still an entertaining snapshot of the shifting sociological changes of that time wrapped up in crowd- pleasing B-movie.

An effective thriller, Sisters is an intense tightly executed slasher, which fans of the directors later work will revel in.

The Harder They Come‘s two defining traits – violence and style – inform almost all of Ivan’s behaviour as he adopts the fashions and nihilism of the heroes of American and European cinema. Yet the world around him remains dully ambivalent and cruel in ways more complex and unpredictable than the characters he replicates.

Pink Flamingos remains a delightfully repugnant cinematic treasure. Watching Divine as she struts her stuff amongst the genuinely dumbfounded residents of downtown Baltimore, perfectly encapsulates with Waters was reaching for with the film.

There’s a dark streak of comic absurdity running throughout Harold and Maude that serves a dual purpose; it gives the film its unique, heightened tone, but it also conversely grounds the more whimsical element by hinting at a greater darkness beyond the events portrayed within.

Granted, the gratuitous nature of the hyper-violence is not for everyone’s stomach, including mine in moments. What is undeniable is the rigour to which Kubrick conducted his creative team, actors and himself to offer a new approach to filmmaking. As Burgess wrote in the novel “The colours of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen” wholeheartedly matches Kubrick’s graphically engaging ninth feature.

As far as dramas of this kind are concerned The Panic in Needle Park is, in my view, without doubt one of the most thought-provoking ever committed to film.