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.

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

Typical James Stewart defeating bullies with integrity stuff.

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

Demonstrating that the greatest political evil is indifference, this appeal to a world on the verge of war has lost none of its relevance.

Oz’s influence is boundless. Spellbinding stuff.

A rose-tinted look at American history, certainly, but still a very entertaining one.

What drew the crowds back in 1939 and what has kept them coming is not the film's simmering subtexts but the absolutely fantastic ambush sequence as the stage thunders across the salt flats of Monument Valley. With this, Ford transformed the western.

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.

Bette Davis is captivating in this epic study of Southern chivalry.

Damn, damn funny.

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.

Despite the luminous Lombard and the venomous March, this is perhaps better for its idea than its execution.

Drags in places and deosn't even try for a true-to-life portrait of the great theatre entrepeneur but it's shiny and big spectacle with impressive choreography.

Lavish pirate adventure that launched Errol Flynn onto 1930's screens and ensured that buckles would be swashed for a good few years to follow.

If you want only one Astaire-Rogers musical, Top Hat is obligatory for Astaire at his most debonair with Irving Berlin's title number and Cheek to Cheek in this screwball confused identities plot.

The script hasn't aged well and their's an overdose of the ominous, but when Ford forgets about religion and concentrates on squealer-on-the-run thrills, the film still has a real charge.

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.

This is a suberbly structured thriller whose excellence is aided and abetted by a spirited cast.

This MGM classic remains the most faithful and powerful adaptation of the great Dickens novel.

The second outing for Fred and Ginger which cemented their partnership can be irritating in it's romantic machinations but the Astaire flair is always winning.

Tense and slick, this early thriller remains a true masterpiece.

A must see.

The first Fred and Ginger feature is a little clunky and short on plot and character but a beautiful and atmospheric treat for all that.

The Marx brothers on top form with their quickfire comedy and banter.

If you set aside Frankenstein as more of a horror film and King Kong as a fantasy, The Invisible Man is the first truly great American science fiction film.

Cocteau has produced a bizarre, interesting although at times tedious movie.

None of the humans — not even scream queen Wray — can compete with Kong. But the film remains a perfect star vehicle. It prepares for its hero's entrance with hints of mystery, violence, eroticism and fantasy, then cuts loose with all the action, adventure.