Flawless, essential viewing that would earn more than its five stars if only Empire would allow it.

Much more fun than its stuffy "Greatest Film Ever Made" tag suggests, with a literate script, stylish direction, a great song and cinema's most romantic couple in Bogie and Bergman.

Exquisitely shot, superbly acted and deftly written, this is easily one of the best arthouse films of the nineties.

Linklater’s beautiful film is an extraordinary achievement — tender, funny, wise and wistful, full of warmth and humanity.

Difficult love, Nazis, and a lovely soupy plot...brilliant.

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

This 1967 Ming Dynasty epic may lack plot complexity and period spectacle. But the stand-off in a remote inn is flecked with tension, wit and slick martial artistry.

Incredible set pieces and songs that have entered the culture forever, this is also extremely well-paced and beautifully played. Truly one of the greatest musicals ever made.

Comedy has rarely been so intricate, incisive and inspired.

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

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

A genre-defying film. Its visual splendour belies its tough, surface-level subject matter, while the performances pull us deep below that surface with their soulful naturalism.

It may seem flawed in a number of ways to some people but this is monumental cinema and essential viewing for true film enthusiasts.

The director left France during the German Occupation and, many critics would argue, his work never reached the same heights again. But, even with its immediate contemporary relevance softened, this film alone is enough to seal his reputation, as its playful love games, satirical bite and technical marvels refuse to diminish.

Not up there with the very top echelon of Disney classics, but Pinocchio will still work its magic on younger viewers.

From The Godfather to Heat, the stamp of The Wild Bunch is self-evident. Italian director Carlo Carlei summed up the debt owed to the film and its director when he said, "There is a chain of inspiration like The Bible... Everything comes from Peckinpah."

If you can see past the heavy-handed religious overtones you will encounter an inspired and deeply intelligent Bresson classic.

The formula of an innocent thrust into a nightmare would fascinate Hitch for decades to come, but here he packs the tale with strong characters and important details.

Like "The Searchers", this is so brilliant that the only real effect of the other versions is to make you want to watch the original again.

Dark, twisted and beautiful, this entwines fairy-tale fantasy with war-movie horror to startling effect.

Key to its success - along with its vivid characters and brilliant performances - is the snappy pace throughout. Non-stop gags, invention, twists and comic incident flow, as Joe and Jerry - sexy Curtis and screamingly funny Lemmon - elude mob boss George Raft by wriggling into an all-girl jazz band, with Josephine and Daphne’s legendary drag act taking in amorous adventures, seductive deceptions and madcap pursuits.

This is Hitchcock's longest film and also his most self-referential. Little jokes abound about art and artifice, role play and reality, duty and duplicity and each viewing reveals something new to enhance the pleasure of watching the Master of Suspense at his most mischievous and assured.

A truly great documentary.

Kurosawa is always worth a look but this is a particular classic that has influenced so much to come, it's almost essential.

The stinging bon mots occasionally sound handcrafted rather than raspingly spontaneous, but aspiring actress Anne Baxter’s rise to the top over the corpse of her supposed idol, Bette Davis, remains rousing and endlessly amusing.

The mood of the movie reflects the exuberance of youth and the wisdom of experience. New Wave gold.

A rounded portrayal that leaves an overwhelming sense of the miraculousness of life.

Ignored for a long time, this film is now impossible to ignore. Mitchum is magnetic.

Well, even if it is essentially four hours about a selfish, silly cow, it's impeccably well made, and should be seen by anyone with even a passing interest in romance or movies.

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.

The collapse of the Cold War may have left Kubrick's satire on mutually assured destruction less relevant than it was, but it still features Peter Sellers' finest three performances as well as proving that the supposedly humourless Kubrick was up for a laugh.

This study in chaos and calculation not only makes for harrowingly compelling viewing, but it also exposes the apathy of an international community that simply turned the other way.

Timeless classic. Superb performances and the infamous shower scene make this the perfect nightmare.

Tense, kinetic, intelligent and real – as if Paul Greengrass had remade Vera Drake.

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.

If you only ever see one silent film, this is the one it should be. A masterpiece.

Epic performances in a movie that seethes with atmosphere.

The Maltese Falcon is an unassailable triumph of script, casting, direction and editing.

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

Sidney Lumet's dazzling debut, based on Reginald Rose's teleplay, delivers a masterclass in the pure dynamism of acting, as Henry Fonda's reasonable doubt gradually sways the 11 other jurors from their various prejudices.

With its genuinely cute hero and appealing storyline, Dumbo's exactly right for younger children but not too milk-soppy for anyone over eight. Indispensible.

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.

Silent stunner.

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.

Just perfect. Script, character, animation....this manages to break free of the yoke of 'children's movie' to simply be one of the best movies of the 90's, full-stop.

Sonically flawless, authentically textured and deep-rooted in cultural significance, Summer Of Soul succeeds magnificently in capturing the scale, spiritual resonance and, yes, soul of the Harlem Cultural Festival. It will not be forgotten this time.

Nostalgic and charming romance with special moments in the extra-narrative action.

Falling between the twin pillars of the art house and prestige period flick, 12 Years A Slave is history lesson as horror film, powerful, visceral and affecting. And after years of being great in everything, Chiwetel Ejiofor shines in a lead worthy of his immense talent.

Masterfully told and beautifully acted, Manchester By The Sea is a shattering yet graceful elegy of loss and grief.

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

Make a date to catch this on the big screen and be rewarded with pure magic.

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

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

It's that smile playing on Rosemary's lips, suggesting that her maternal instinct and the conspirators' hold on this vapid baby doll have prevailed, that provides the biggest chill.

Excellent casting, a great storyline and a shrp script mean that this remains a classic of the genre and one of Katherine Hepburn's best roles.

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

That feeling you have as you leave the cinema - that buzzing in the fingers and lightness in the heart - is called joy.

Gregg Toland captures the open spaces and big skies of rural America, while the normally conservative Ford puts forward a sympathetic but radical plea for workers' rights and freedom for the people.

This animated treatment does it absolute justice too. The spooky bits are suitably scarey - the production dates back to a time before anybody worried about mentally scarring the little mites, thus the "Have a bite, dearie" scene means a lot of excited peeping through fingers - the slapstick humour content is high and it contains none of the period references that crept into later Disney cartoons, thus doesn't appear to have dated. But largely it succeeds because it really is a great deal of fun.

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

A wonderful picture set in a world of silly heirs and sharp-eyed dolls as remote from reality and yet wholly credible as that of P. G. Wodehouse.

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.

This is a very patchy affair - while some of the animated pieces work, others come across as downright insane.

With its strong characters and lively storytelling, animated or not, this deserves its place alongside the cinema greats.

Displaying a more light-hearted and impressionistic hand than usual, Steve McQueen’s second Small Axe film is a woozy, musical fever dream with wit, sexiness and one unforgettable extended singalong.

Whale's erudite genius brings it all together. He sculpts every nuance of self-parody, social satire, horror, humour, wit and whimsy into a dazzling whole, keeping every one of his fantastical plates spinning until the tragic, inevitable finale.

Compelling morality tale that works on multiple layers.

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

In years to come, when this appears on TV late at night, it’ll be impossible to switch off. It’s just one of those films. A stone-cold, instant classic.

A rich, understated character drama that gleefully exposes the petty playground politics at the centre of one of the internet-era's most bitter court cases.

A wonderfully stylish and witty movie classic.

There are theme-park rides; there is cinema; there are sacred love poems to take with you for the rest of your life. Thank you for giving us the last one, Céline Sciamma.

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.

Peck’s film may have been an Oscars bridesmaid but it turns Baldwin’s prescient words into a staggering achievement. It’s an exhilarating blast of focused fury.

Rare and special is a film capable of summoning this much poignancy: a feeling which lingers well beyond the film’s final, achingly moving moments on screen. That Aftersun is the debut from British filmmaker Charlotte Wells only adds to its accomplishment.

You will seldom find a film that cuts open a city and shows you its insides like Rocks does. Respectfully crafted, righteously funny and tender, Gavron has defined a generation like no-one else, and these efforts are not to be ignored.

Michael Haneke's Palme D'Or winner is uncomfortable, uncompromising, unflinching... and utterly unmissable. Old age may not be a reality you wish to confront, but you must see this film.

The most literally exciting film you will see this year. Forget the off-putting banner of another Iraq movie -- go, watch, marvel, endure and book in the palliative of a stiff drink afterwards.

Cleverly wrought and expertly played crime thriller.

A scintillating piece of filmmaking, the kind of movie you look forward to seeing again even as you're watching it, and an extraordinary response to both the Dogs-Is-Overrated brigade and the He'll-Never-Top-His-Debut sceptics.

Gripping throughout, with an impressive central performance, this is like a Dogme 95 redo of a Chuck Norris film - by heroic effort, the good guys find and kill a bad guy. How you feel about that is something Bigelow leaves you to decide.

Powerful art cinema that challenges political and social unity in Iran.

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

Imaginative and surprisingly moving for a silent art movie.

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.

To call WALL•E Pixar's best film would potentially denigrate films that deserve no scorn. But this is their most ambitious undertaking since "Toy Story" and storytelling of such charm and visual wit that it can stand proudly alongside the studio’s best. Absolute heaven.

Howard Hawke's finest moment.

Mara and Blanchett make for an unforgettable couple in a beautiful film about longing, loss and the confusion and wonder of love.

A bit tarter than its predecessors, but not skimping on their woozy, chatty charm, this perfectly played, gently incisive film is a welcome new chapter in one of cinema’s most beguiling ongoing romances. See it with someone you’ve loved for some time.

A spare, propulsive, ever-intensifying combat thriller, Nolan's history lesson is both a rousing celebration of solidarity and the tensest beach-set film since Jaws.

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.

Full of restraint, from both its director and leads, this is a quiet gem with the power to move.

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.

Certainly difficult to define, this period piece messes with genres, power relationships and your head.

A dazzling spy thriller that’s still amazing.

Shimmering with awards potential, Leigh’s glorious picture is a hilarious, confounding, wholehearted and dazzlingly performed portrait of an artist as an ageing man.

Of course, Scorsese delivers a stunning, gangster flick but The Irishman is so much more, a melancholy eulogy for growing old and losing your humanity. Savour every one of its 209 minutes, you won’t regret it.

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