One of Woody's most aesthetically gorgeous films as well as his classic love-hate letter to the city of his soul.

Hill, shooting by night and on location together with his OOP Andrew Laszlo, gives the film dazzling style. New York's oil-slicked streets become a labyrinth lit by pools of reflecting light, both scary and strangely beautiful - grimy realism it isn't. It also manages to humanize the gang-bangers to a surprising extent, illustrating the material and emotional poverty that forces them onto the streets in the first place.

This is lots of fun and the actors definitely look like they're having a good time.

A splendidly detailed and rousing caper movie.

A fascinating film that is by turns fascinating and mysterious.

For once, a great remake, smartly executed. Great performances and a killing ending that will stay with you forever can't hurt, either.

Clint doing roughneck humour with an orang-utan, what's not to like?

Manages to capture the pure heart and spirit of this comic book Americana.

A simultaneuosly touching and harrowing experience that puts the audience directly in the shoes of one man's experience of Vietnam.

Really, really bad. It's not good on any level. Not a good horror, not a good revenge flick, it's poorly constructed and has absolutely nothing to say or offer. Utter shit.

What most people remember is the mix of the live-action tracing within the traditional animation and just how effectively creepy it managed to be, but for the time this did a pretty good job of adapting the dense novels.

Director Alan Pakula's sympathies seem to lie in the landscape, never less than exquisitely framed. But even this mute star can't fill the space left by dour performances.

Halloween remains about as distilled, raw an experience in terror as is ever likely to be committed to celluloid.

For much of its slowburn build there is a classy, intelligent thriller at work, something closer in tone to The Odessa File. Still, you must remain guarded to how over the top and quasi-horror events will finally turn.

Fun, but it mugs too hard.

Hard to call something this gratuitous entertainment but certainly lingers in the memory, thanks mainly to the bombast of Stone's script.

Avant-garde triumph revolving around the seemingly mundane life of a widow in Brussels.

Ustinov may not be the Poirot that we all think of now, after the David Suchet series, but this is pure Agatha Christie, steeped in nostalgia and atmosphere.

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.

Rarely has a film bared itself to simple majesty...it feels epic yet runs barely over and hour and a half. [22 Oct. 1997]

Like all the best exploitation flicks, Piranha is driven by a ruthless desire to entertain and, in this non-pretentious ambition, it succeeds magnificently.

Too glossy to evoke real sexual tension or, more crucially in this genre, fear, Laura Mars suffers from the over complication of something so simple as serial killing.

From Elmer Bernstein's sweeping dramatic strings - perhaps the first counterpoint score in comedy - to the gleeful mixture of low-brow and lower-brow gags, Animal House is arguably the most influential comedy of our time.

A fair-to-middling auto-noir with a hole in the middle roughly the size of its leading man’s head.

Hammy action yarn with an entertaining performance from Michael Caine.

A noisy but enjoyable destruction derby of a film, sadly with none of the subtlety, invention or skill of Spielberg's Duel.

It's every bit the great songfest it's hailed as, with bucketloads of innuendo thown in behind some of the most energetic musical numbers ever to grace the inside of a movie theatre.

It never comes close to the classic status of its predecessor, but for drive-in horror thrills, this still has sufficient bite.

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

Clearly not a |Disney classic as almost no-one has heard of it, this is vaguely enjoyable 70s hokum.

Shadowy political trickery is one thing, fabricating an entire NASA mission is near impossible to credit. Get over that and it’s a whole lot of fun watching Hal Halbrook’s — who played supergrass Deep Throat in All The President’s Men — wicked scheming unravel thanks to the gutsy work of Elliot Gould’s tatty hack.

A key film from the movie brats-era, and quite possibly Milius best.

A self-consciously grubby and silly slasher that'll be lapped up by gorehounds, but which really belongs on the rental shelves.

Suffused with the pessimism of Taxi Driver, Blue Collar is one of the most brutally honest films to have come out of 70s Hollywood.

Gothically shot in black and white and numerous shots that have influenced the next generation of directors, this is a classic, no matter how comfortable it is to watch.

A suspense-filled nailbiter that plays on a fear no weapon weilding psycho can top.

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.

For fans of Cassavetes, Opening night is a must see. As per usual it features a superb cast.

A disjointed mish-M.A.S.H. of cliched comedy and misplaced observational wit.

It's telling that the film is still only truly memorable for the closing five minute bulletfest, which turns Clint's bus into the only thing with more holes in it than the screenplay.

With insightful one-liners by the bucketload and a memorable duo in Dreyfuss and Mason, this serves as a joyful reminder of a genre which has long since past its best.

An epic masterpiece, albeit in need of a tweak here and there.

The film seems to be pitched at shrieking level, as if that’s the only timbre children can register.

Bruno Ganz is excellent as the victim deceived into committing murder.

Suspiria is the perfect antipasto.

Smart and satirical but very dated, obviously.

Roger Moore’s third outing as Bond is undoubtedly his best.

Important, but it echoes a better film - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

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

Every bit as contrived as the leading lady's hairstyles, and rather less technically impressive, this is still trashy fun.

A solid, child-friendly work which will keep little ones content, if not mesmerised.

More than a fascinating misfire, it’s a rare and telling glimpse into a legendary filmmaker’s fiercely guarded soul.

A famously disastrous follow-up to William Friedkin’s horror hit.

This sprawling epic rewards patience with an emotional pay-off and non-triumphant ending that reminds us all too starkly of the sacrifices made during war.

Arguably Woody's finest, now neurotic intellectuals have a film they can cherish.

Though the clumsy geometric tentacle that does most of the machine’s evil will cries out for morphing, this is remarkably prescient in its tackling of issues the cinema is only now catching up with, and Christie adds depth to the lady-in-peril heroine. Well worth reassessment.

Cronenberg's sleaziest, funniest film, jammed with juicy gore and infectious shocks.

Michael Caine as a Nazi and Donald Pleasance as Himmler...what more could you want?

Chronicling the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest, where Schwarzenegger faced off against TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno, this is now more a compelling document of his days before superstardom than it is a real insight into bodybuilding.

Same old sequel squanderings.

Well acted genre outing.

The lamest of the three versions but the performances are bearable.

With Haskell Wexler's splendid photography and Leonard Rosenman's fine score, the film provides a poetic yet authentic view of Depression-era America with the symbolic figure of Guthrie (an impressive David Carradine) at its very centre.

This is really Sly's movie as he slugs his way through a heartfelt performance and delivers some cracking punches, both literally and emotionally.

It’s hard to remember that this extremely unexceptional film was a major hit back in the 70s.

De Niro's little known masterclass makes this essential viewing.

The reason Carrie is still held in such high regard as a horror classic is very simple: it's all in the sheer directorial bravado. De Palma at the top of his game.

Network is typical of the cool intelligence of '70s American cinema.

The only movie to truly deliver the visceral power of a dental drill, John Schlesinger’s taut, well written if far-fetched and baffling thriller, is the film that gives you a tooth ache in a good way.

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.

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.

The Duke's last hurrah is one of the very best of a cycle of 70s movies that served as obituaries for the Western itself.

Fonda and Danner — who looked then exactly like her daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, does now — are likable leads in ’70s futurist leisurewear (why didn’t those tailored jumpsuits catch on?), and some creepy corporate robot action helps (Danner’s gunfight with her robot duplicate), but it’s a lot less exciting than the original and replaces satire with TV-style plotting.

The only obsession on display here is De Palma's - with Hitchcock. It's an unhealthy one too which results in an out of focus rip-off.

Never magical, this hotchpotch of colourful, unrelated snippets is certainly a mystery.

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

The performance of Harvey Stephens as the young Damien has invested the film with the chill of genuine credibility.

A disturbing and poignant anthology of Roman Polanski's favourite, oppressive themes.

A sci-fi which balances big themes and claustrophobic action with apparent ease.

This Neil Simon-scripted pastiche of an array of much-loved detective characters is surprisingly charming.

Undoubtedly the finest of Argento's thrilling horrors, this one takes the radical step, for the director at least, to concentrate on a plot that equals the shocking visuals of his other works. David Hemmings is well cast and is given a great script which genuinely frights.

Slightly lacking in tension but with a striking performance from Marlon Brando.

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.

Sedate and contemplative character piece but low on thrills.

With a heavily improvised script Cassavetes gets the most from his actors, each giving emotive performances.

The blend of Schrader's script, Scorsese's direction and De Niro's performance is both riveting and unnerving. A film that will stay with you forever.

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

Peckinpah is never quite as comfortable with the high-rise terrain (including sloppy kung fu) as he is with the dusty rawhide of the West, but it still shows up the slick trigger-edits of new action cinema for the gutless vacuum it has become.

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.

Huston revels in he opportunity for old-fashioned splendour, granting the film the sunset glow of Lawrence Of Arabia and the swashbuckling cadence worthy of the Errol Flynn days. It’s the artful mix of Kipling’s own writing, flights of fantasy with a political core.