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.

Experimental and uncompromising, Winding Refn and Gosling’s Drive follow-up is a tripped-out riff on the crime family movie in which The Grifters — literally — go to hell.

Consistently compelling, capturing all the ambiguity and tension of the book.

A movie masterpiece.

Despite the talking heads and grainy blow-ups of TV footage, the film boasts some rather gorgeous cinematography and moves briskly, with the interviews masterfully edited.

Both Greengrass and Hanks are on award-deserving form in a riveting, emotionally complex and hugely intelligent dramatisation of a real-life ordeal.

A modern classic.

Martin Scorsese’s take on NYC puts a hip spin on Joe Minion’s cleverly constructed nightmare.

Too many classic set pieces to mention but keep your ears cocked for that immortal line "Mmmm, Juicy Fruit." Certified brilliance.

Bold, devastating and utterly beautiful, Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix have not just reimagined one of the most iconic villains in cinema history, but reimagined the comic book movie itself.

Startling is the fact that a film so light on action and heavy on chat can be so achingly funny without having being crafted by a young Woody Allen.

Pairing thrilling technical prowess with profound artistic vision, Alfonso Cuarón has made a masterpiece, at once understated and otherworldly. We need more filmmakers like him.

Despite a final, tacked-on helicopter denouement, it remains a gripping, relentless, supercharged slab of fun that knows no bounds - New York is its playground and the sky's the limit.

Quentin Tarantino’s thrilling pastiche of Eastern and Western genre tropes returns to cinemas in the form of one massive magnum opus. It’s even better made whole.

This is a superbly crafted, landmark film which invested a much-derided and frequently ludicrous genre with a welcome degree of dignity and respectability.

Paddington 2 is every bit as enchanting as the first, perhaps even more so, but it feels arbitrary to pick a winner. The film is a pure delight, as sweet and sharp as, well, marmalade, really.

Because it is a sequel, it's less satisfying than the more idea-driven original, but this is still top-flight kick-ass entertainment

An epic film brimming over with life, romance, humour, comedy and the sheer panache of Depardieu's Cyrano.

Julianne Moore gives the performance of her career (no mean feat, given the strength of her previous work) in this heartbreaking yet life-affirming tale of a woman determined to hold onto her identity while under attack from a debilitating mental disease.

With images of violence brushing against understated strength — amid a search for love, safety and self-actualisation — this is an astonishing cinematic experience that lures the past into the present.

Hilarious, madcap comedy from the Coen brothers that demonstrates just why they are the kings of quirk.

One of the greatest screen musicals ever.

Flawed but staggering cinema, the unforgettable Apocalypse Now setpieces are extraordinary.

Vibrant and brimming with vitality, this is empathic towards its subjects but fiercely critical of the system that victimises them. The performances of Vinaite, Dafoe and Prince will stay with you.

A beautifully hand-crafted love letter to childhood, self-discovery, and the life-changing power of really good chocolate, Little Amélie is 78 minutes of pure animated joy that welcomes one and all. 

A must see.

Day-Lewis and Pfeifer are on top form with Ryder giving the performance of her career.

Lemmon and Mathau's finest hour.

The film's status as must-see documentary of the year is indisputable.

Nomadland is a Springsteen song in movie form, a beautifully rendered tale of what it means to be disenfranchised in America. Life on the road has never been so tenderly captured, politically alive and profoundly moving.

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

Marvel has solved their third-act problem and villain problem and then some. However prepared you feel, you are not ready for Thanos. But then, neither are our heroes.

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!).

Has a vigour, a commitment and an intelligence that is absent from too much modern cinema.

Orson Welles second tribute to Shakespeare is an often-ignored masterpiece. Check it out.

An absorbing, awe-inspiringly huge adaptation of (half of) Frank Herbert’s novel that will wow existing acolytes, and get newcomers hooked on its Spice-fuelled visions. If Part Two never happens, it’ll be a travesty.

Bogart and Cagney are gloriously dark in this gangster tour-de-force.

The fact that Miyazaki and his team hand-draw the images before they're digitally coloured and animated gives them an artistry that has been woefully lacking from so many recent American features.

Hopkins is extraordinary as a man flailing against a condition that’s taking everything from him. And Zeller proves he’s a natural filmmaker, orchestrating a Wagnerian opera of emotion based entirely around an old man in a flat.

Grizzled Texan Tommy Lee Jones has made an exceptionally moving, surprisingly funny, often beautiful film, packed with unforgettable moments and note-perfect performances.

A raw horror masterpiece from a first-time director that deserves to be mentioned in the same frantic breath as the genre’s greats. Even the most jaded viewer should find something in Hereditary to disturb and distress them.

Pop quiz, hotshot: you’re cut loose 375 miles above the Earth, oxygen is running out, communication is lost, catastrophic satellite debris is heading your way and you have no hope of rescue. What do you do? What do you do? The answer is the film of the year.

Room 237 captures the true nature of viewing, talking about and dissecting movies to the nth degree and it is infectious.

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.

Avoiding the danger zone of mere retread, Kosinski and co deliver all the Top Gun feels and then some: slick visuals, crew camaraderie, thrilling aerial action, a surprising emotional wallop and, in Tom Cruise, a magnetic movie-star performance as comforting as an old leather jacket. Punching the air is mandatory.

John Woo's trademark style reached its zenith in The Killer, with its ying-yang relationship between a good-hearted hit man and an anti-authority cop. But underneath the Miami Vice tailoring, it's as much a doomed romance as a shoot-'em-up.

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.

Deep down, you know it's not as good as Seven Samurai — but few films are. You also know that next time it's on television, you'll find yourself watching it.

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

The red-jacketed, Method-pouting James Dean steals every scene, but the ensemble playing is nothing short of exemplary.

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

On the strength of only two films, McDonagh and Gleeson are a director/star team on a par with Ford/Wayne, Fellini/Mastroianni or Scorsese/De Niro. Calvary is gripping, moving, funny and troubling, down to an uncompromising yet uncynical finish.

Moving and atmospheric, this quest tale is among the best of its kind.

A miracle of a film. It feels like Bong Joon-ho’s already extraordinary career has been building to this: a riotous social satire that’s as gloriously entertaining as it is deeply sardonic.

A much-maligned and misunderstood classic, this is one of Kubrick's finest movies.

A beguiling and beautiful film about a total toerag, Red Rocket is a unique character study: Mikey Saber will charm your socks off, and you’ll hate him for it.

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

Terrific: tough, exciting, funny, gorgeous and bewitchingly acted, this is darn close to perfection.

Both funny and touching, this showcases Chaplin at his best.

Astonishing cinematography and brilliantly played, this certainly one of the most influential crime movies in history.

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.

Among the most purely entertaining films of the year, which cuts its laughter with a dose of Celtic melancholy. It still delivers cop/action requirements - shoot-outs, revenges, daring deeds - and chances are, we'll be quoting lines from this forever.

Ideal Sunday afternoon fare.

What lifts it out of the doldrums is Kieslowski's fascinating use of reflections, focusing techniques and camera angles to give the somewhat pedestrian material a profound and otherworldly East European feel.

Oz’s influence is boundless. Spellbinding stuff.

Necessary holocaust movie made for a Western audience. At times over sentimental when the subject matter hardly needs any dressing up, this is a beautifully crafted, hopeful movie.

James Cameron has surfaced with a cosmic marine epic that only he could make: eccentric, soulful, joyous, dark and very, very blue. Yes, he’s still leagues ahead of the pack.

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.

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.

Pacino simmers in this daring and brilliantly constructed treatise on the many facets of a crime.

A touching and tender adaptation that does justice to a book which means so much to so many. An enduring, superbly performed triumph.

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

One of the definitive mystery chillers of all time. Poignant, beautiful and devastating.

A shining example of everything Hollywood falling into place, and a masterpiece of cinema.

One of the Nouvelle Vague's boldest achievements.

A delightfully offbeat reminder of how inventive and witty blockbusters seemed when you were a kid.

Ozon weaves another spellbinding tale that mingles the real and imaginery with terrific effect.

Verdict City Of Ghosts wears three hats with aplomb — a summation of the tragedy that’s befallen Syria, how horror can be resisted with just laptops, phones and courage, and the importance of shining a light into the darker corners of the world.

A striking, unforgettable exercise in absence, this is about what we don’t see — and what we choose not to see. The horror is unseen but underlying, and all the more arresting because of it.

However, as with Dead Ringers, Cronenberg approaches a touchy concept with a mixture of icy tact and cinematic daring, always informing the wilfully perverse material with a penetrating intelligence and (almost subliminally) very black wit.

A giddily entertaining homage to female power that illuminates bold ambition in its stars and director alike, Hustlers is the kind of era-defining film that Hollywood didn’t know it needed.

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.

It hardly rewrites the rulebook, but Warrior is a powerful, moving and brilliant sports-pic-cum-family drama. Like "The Fighter," but with kicking.

The kind of film that starts off with a climax and builds to a plateau of surrealist delirium that, one way or another, will have you shrieking.

In two-and-a-half hours, a decade of Spielberg’s own life flies by. An autopsy of a marriage and a homage to invention, it’s a bittersweet piece of joy.

Still a classic of the gangster genre, showing neither glorifying the life nor pulling it's punches.

Nickel Boys is a triumph. Its unique approach brings a new dimension to its source material, while amplifying the emotional resonance between the present and a horrifying past.

Unlike a number of director’s cuts, this version does embellish the original film. It won’t, however, win any converts. Fans should see it again, first-timers should believe the hype. Non-believers should suffer eternal damnation. [2000 re-release]

Heart-warming, funny, wise and profound. Not to be missed.

Cut it, print it. These are brutal executions, brilliantly executed. Director Park has said he wants No Other Choice to be his “masterpiece” and he may well have done it. Hopefully he won’t be jobless any time soon.

Gorgeous cinematography, a lilting score and near-faultless performances, under Wright’s assured direction, make this the first contender for next year’s Best Picture Oscar.

A triumph of pure cinema and wonderful visual storytelling from Chandor, who must now be considered the real deal, while Redford is sublime in what could well be the performance of his career.

An amazing achievement for a 'first-time' filmmaker, which measures up to the finest indies for performance and character-work, and the biggest blockbusters for jaw-dropping effects. And it has the year's best sex scene, too.

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

Really quite something: a rare remake that only augments and enriches the original. For Bill Nighy, meanwhile, it feels in every sense like the role of a lifetime.

The Thing is a peerless masterpiece of relentless suspense, retina-wrecking visual excess and outright, nihilistic terror, placing 12 men at an Antarctic station while a shapeshifter takes them over one by one.

Gripping throughout with frame upon frame of standout images and superb performances from the two leads.