This is not just a treatise on post-colonialism and class. Sembène boldly uses his female characters to comment on Senegal's chauvinist patriarchy.

Entertaining as hell.

The powerhouse of the film is Tim Curry's cross-dressing alien, Frank N. Furter, who would never reach these kinds of gloriously demented heights again.

This magnificent, often anarchic pastiche of Russian literature’s portentous habits with a side order in Bergmanesque death wallowing actually finds Allen at his silliest. Which also means it is extraordinarily clever silliness, with designs deliberately stolen from Chaplin, Keaton and the Marx Brothers. It is film that explores comedy’s infinite variety via the medium of the existential philosophy of those big Russian sagas slumped in history like sulking teenagers.

It was the complete nightmare that invented the "summer blockbuster", launched the genius on a global scale and delivered an astonishingly effective thriller built on a very primal level: fear.

One of the most accomplished, influential and enjoyable films of the '70s.

Paying attention to religious impulses which are all but incomprehensible in the 20th Century, Bresson conjures up a God-bothered middle ages that is harrowing but not, it must be said, terribly exciting.

Though the film looks dated it contains great use of English countryside and a couple of genuine chills.

Managing to be cynical and heartwarming at the same time, this is an almost perfect satire on the American Institution of beauty pageants.

A distinctively crass, hugely enjoyable sick satire from director Paul Bartel, working for uber-producer Roger Corman – allegedly, Bartel kept thinking up more and wilder jokes, while Corman insisted more and more people got run over.

A veritable facroy of memorable quotes and scenes.

Super sexy, silly Meyer fun where he takes his own self-styled genre to its heights/depths.

What a peculiar but effective children’s adventure movie this is.

Whilst this takes itself a little too lightly it has a lot going for it.

An interesting stop-gap in the slasher genre.

Dated even at the time of release this nevertheless has a comic performance from Walter Matthau worth catching.

Much more than a way to pass a rainy bank holiday afternoon, this is rocking good superleague disaster adventure.

A perfect example of early Brooks firing on all spoofily comedic cylinders.

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.

Alternating gritty realism and red‑hued fantasy, this is one of those '70s films that wears well, universal in its heart while picking out specifics which are exactly of their time.

If Fosse's film fails to capture the man or his art completely, it remains a damn good place to start.

No matter how good the performer you can’t escape Christie’s leisurely approach to characterisation — simple concoctions of quirk, guilt and red herring. But Lumet is having loads of credible fun with the formula, keeping up a genuine sense of claustrophobia in this isolated railway car surrounded by crisp white snow.

As with most Cassavetes' it is Rowlands who steals this show, this time expertly playing the happy housewife slowly going off the rails while Falk plays the part of her bewildered husband. At two-and-a-half hours, it could easily have dragged but with such strong performances, you're left wanting more.

Hardly must-see Wenders, but for fans of his road movies, it remains a treat.

Compelling 1970s take on the monster horror genre which remains fresh and hugely watchable.

The most purely horrifying horror movie ever made.

Warm and thought-provoking portrayal of a journey and a man coping with the onset of age and all that might mean.

The Wicker Man is, more than anything else, a film about what people can do in the name of religion or, more generally, belief. Its power comes not from appeals to the supernatural but from a deep understanding of our own undeniable nature. Horror doesn't get much closer to home than that.

Bleak brilliance.

The prototype for now ubiquitous 50 best blabla clips ever shows is well worth a look. They really are a bunch of the best ever.

It was Roman Polanski's genius, however, that made the film not merely an intelligent and intricate narrative but a great, disturbing vision.

Well-shot thriller but with a weak performance from Beatty.

Hodges takes a cool, detached approach, designing most scenes in monochrome with disturbing flesh-colours, and manages to make Segal's semi-android a strangely sympathetic monster.

Pleasant, forgettable.

Eastwood is in good, if not great form, Bridges steals the whole show, and Cimino displays a sense of unpretentious fun and appealing grasp of character.

Another great, landmark American film of the '70s.

Writer-director Jack Hill (Spider Baby) evidently didn't try very hard on this one.

In the grand pantheon of Sinbad movies, those pleasurable Arabesques of silly beasts, big swords and scantily clad maidens, this lower league Ray Harryhausen stop-motion thriller squeezes between the better Eye Of The Tiger and the worse Seventh Voyage.

In essence, Dark Star has what all great comedy has: a sense of desperation and pathos allied to an abiding humanity which elevates it high above the realm of mere spoof.

A good-looking and entertaining British horror film.

An opulent and accurate portrayal of the period that drags too much to stay interesting.

Stands next to Young Frankenstein as Brooks' best movie, and, of course, boasts the god of all fart gags.

Dodgy on every level.

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]

This has grit coming out of its ears but not the greatest Eastwood feature by a long shot.

One of those instances where everything good about Hollywood just fell into one place at the right time, it's almost impossible not to get swept up in the vivaciousness of The Sting as a whole. Magnificent, timeless stuff.

A clarinet player who also runs a health food store is frozen and brought back in the future by anti-government radicals in order to assist them in their attempts to overthrow an oppressive government. When he goes off on his own, he begins to explore this brave new world that has Orgasmatron booths to replace sex and confessional robots.

One of the greatest behind-bars movies ever, the result finds director Franklin J. Schaffner making the most of both his sun-drenched locations and his leading man, who squintily acts even co-star Dustin Hoffman well off the screen.

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

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

Surreal and wonderful in a way not often seen from Europe.

The sight of Brynner walking indestructibly toward the camera, all in black, his eyes cold and unerring like a couple of silver bullets, is as haunting as any screen bogeyman.

Foxes with bows and arrows..what could be better than that?

It all adds up to just another glossy Love Story.

Achingly evocative of a time when Hollywood had the courage to invest in complex and morally ambiguous films and an indisputable masterpiece of American cinema. [26 May 2003]

Terrific. Top shelf talent at the top of their game, working immediately before they would change Hollywood.

Brutal story-line which is about as close to an explicit allegory as the western has ever come.

It's not a great film, but Lee's superhuman skills make it an occasionally jaw-dropping experience.

If it weren’'t for Lost Horizon, this would have gone down in history as the Worst Musical of 1973.

A funny-serious movie with gorgeous cars and colours and an amazing feel for the artefacts of an instantly vanished era.

There is true beauty in the realism at the heart of what could come across a fanciful movie plot, with its documentarian coolness of execution, the crisp rhythms of Zinnemann’s direction, we feels we are staring through a window into the shadowy recesses of history.

A demented slice of widescreen right-on action-funk from the blaxsploitation era.

A modernised Bond is dragged kicking and screaming into the 70s.

Comedy has rarely been so intricate, incisive and inspired.

Largely devoid of any charm or intelligence that made other Apes films entertaining, this one should be buried in the Forbidden Zone.

A resonant film which has a speudo-cult status as everyone has seen it late one night on TV and it's never left them.

Superbly Vincent Price!

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

Interesting for it's historical notoriety, but overlong and dull in places.

Intense direction (Pekinpah) coupled with assured acting (McQueen).

Sartorially dated certainly, but still powerful, disturbing and raw.

Way Of The Dragon is memorable purely for its final Coliseum-set showdown between Lee and Chuck Norris (at the time the holder of countless US and World Karate championships). This is the film that provides just about the best combat sequence ever shot.

It may not consistently stay the distance, but the sublimely funny moments make up for an awful lot of misfires.

With some of the best costumes since the musicals of the '50s and one of the '70s funkiest scores, it's quite rudimentary on most levels - it's no Shaft.

The gorgeous backdrop of the film makes the violence and darkness even more disturbing - but this is more than just a horror film. There's real substance in themes, performances and John Boorman's superb direction.

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.

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

Wringing the last drops out of the idea, it strains to stay on-side, but it remains true enough to the spirit of the series to get it over the line.

With Redford giving one of his best comedic performances, helped by a Oscar winning script, The Candidate is witty and charming, while looking good and proving quite memorable, like Redford's lawyer.

Hitchcock's penultimate film deals with many of his previous themes with typical grim comedy and insight into a psychopathic killer's mind.

For exploitation-enthusiasts and Scorsese completists only.

Pollack does right to put his faith in one man and a whole lot of mountains. The result is impressive.

Woody's neuroses are still gloriously present, and the whole thing is made accessible by Herbert Ross' dynamic direction.

John Waters was way ahead of his time with this corruscating '70s vision of small-town Americana.

Weird, but kind of cool.

Thoughtful, moving tale which places its spectacular effects within a humane, elegiac story.

Trying too hard and generally too trying. Seek out Howard Hawke's Bringing up Baby instead and be done with it.

It stands as a hugely enjoyable, occasionally chilling, musical.

After several successful films where he plays the tough-as-nails cowboy, Wayne wasn't about to break the pattern now. Playing the only character he knows, he gives several inspiring speeches to an unlikely group of kids who turn from boys to men.

It is also, of course, quite unrelentingly cool.

Ethical screed aside, what does A Clockwork Orange have to offer beyond its curiosity value and a crash course in humanism? Well, for a start there's Kubrick's dazzling visual style which, rather in the manner that Trainspotting did 25 years later, translates the substance of an "unfilmable" book into the language of cinema. And at the dramatic core of the film is a simply astonishing performance by Malcolm MacDowell as Alex. It also features an orgy sequence that would have had Von Stroheim laughing his jackboots off — you'll certainly never listen to the William Tell Overture in quite the same way again. And as for Singin' In The Rain...

Connery has a ball with great stunts, snappy dialogue and a bevy of typically Bondish beauties.

Like Lansbury, the film has aged well and retains almost all of it's magic.

A lengthy, visually impressive period piece with little in the way of new material or fresh spins on history to distinguish it.

A made-for-TV movie that proved so remarkable it received a theatrical release (first in Europe, then 10 years later in the US), Spielberg's calling card is as distinctive a piece of visual storytelling as you're ever likely to see.

The Man With No Name faces a whole lot of pain in Clint's thrilling directorial debut.

It still stands up as an upbeat portrait of pre-revolutionary Russia, and will have you whistling If I Were A Rich Man for days.

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.