Best-known for his westerns, screenwriter Daves made a considerable impression with this patriotic World War II movie about the hazardous mission by a submarine to gather information inside Tokyo Bay to prepare the way for the first US air-raid on Japan. Cary Grant gives an authoritative performance as the cool commander. [05 Mar 2000, p.10]

Handsome, ponderous, politically toned-down treatment of Hemingway's passionately committed novel about an idealistic American (Gary Cooper) fighting with the anti-Franco loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. The casting of Cooper, Ingrid Bergman (his peasant lover) and Oscar-winning Katina Paxinou (gypsy guerrilla leader) couldn't be bettered. [25 May 2003, p.8]

This chilling, weirdly plausible tale centres on a New York dress designer (French star Simone Simon) obsessed with the notion that she's living under an ancient Serbian curse. It achieves its effects obliquely. [11 Dec 2005, p.123]

A witty, light hearted movie in which Bing sings 'Moonlight Becomes You' to a suitably enchanted Dorothy Lamour. [25 May 2003, p.8]

One of the best World War Two morale-boosting adventure movies. [07 Feb 1999, p.10]

The blonde in this funny, lively Bob Hope thriller is one of Hitchcock's favourite blondes, Madeleine Carroll. The picture evokes her most famous Hitchcock film, The 39 Steps, and uncannily anticipates North by Northwest. [12 Dec 2004, p.95]

Vigorous traditional western starring Errol Flynn at his most dashing as a conventionally heroic, glory-seeking George Armstrong Custer, whose career the film traces (without too much concern for historical accuracy) from West Point through the Civil War to the catastrophe at the Little Big Horn. [14 May 2006, p.2]

Hitchcock's fourth Hollywood movie is a subtle thriller set in a very Hollywoodian England populated by leading members of the Tinseltown cricket club. [19 Jan 2003, p.8]

Smoothly orchestrated entertainment. [30 Apr 2000, p.10]

It is a delightful film, both comic and touching, with a wonderfully camp performance from Edward Everett Horton as one of God's bureaucrats. [06 Sep 2009, p.30]

Hitchcock's second Hollywood movie is a hugely enjoyable espionage thriller. [05 Jan 1997, p.12]

Vintage tear-jerker set in MGM's never-never England where an ageing Guards officer (Robert Taylor) indulges in a lengthy flashback from the Second World War to his ill-fated affair with a ballet dancer (the entrancing Vivien Leigh) who took to the streets when he was reported missing in the First World War. [21 Aug 2005, p.91]

It's funny, touching and beautifully paced with numerous examples of the celebrated "Lubitsch touch".

The movie has an epic sweep that anticipated and influenced the best gangster movies of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola of which it is fully the equal. [18 Aug 2010]

Somehow, for all the dollar-book Freud brought to bear on it, the picture comes up fresh, innocent and enchanting whenever you see it.

This classic adaptation of Emily Bronte's novel is actually only the first half of the book and the Goldwyn Studio's notion of 19th-century Yorkshire is distinctly odd. But it's an intense, atmospheric work, and the performances are first rate. [11 Aug 2013]

Astaire and Rogers in their last pre-war monochrome musical, a touching cinebiography of the celebrated American dancers of the pre-First World War era whose partnership ended with his death as a pilot in the war. The dance routines are more numerous, though less spectacular, than in the previous movies. [04 Jan 2004, p.8]

It's the greatest-ever comedy-thriller, the greatest film set on a train, a faultlessly cast mirror held up to the nation in the year of Munich.

Lightweight and immensely enjoyable Hitchcock thriller. [22 Oct 2000, p.11]

Marvellous Astaire-Rogers musical with the usual high-gloss production. [06 Jan 2013, p.38]

John Gielgud makes a rare, youthful appearance as an intelligence officer ordered to kill a spy in WWI Switzerland in a fascinating, uneven thriller based on two of Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories. Madeleine Carroll (a fellow agent pretending to be Ashenden's wife) and Peter Lorre (his flamboyant bisexual assistant) provide excellent support. The striking set pieces include a climactic railway accident. [18 Jul 1999, p.10]

In one of the best-looking, wittiest, most melodious and stylishly romantic musicals ever made, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance and feud from London to a dazzling art deco Venice. [09 Oct 2011, p.51]

Expressionist masterpiece. [11 Nov 2007, p.20]

Whale's greatest work and the best ever gothic horror movie. [10 Oct 2010, p.46]

The classic thriller in which Hitchcock truly discovered his metier as the 'master of suspense' and never looked back. [08 Aug 1999, p.10]

Marvellous musical and a movie landmark, with the first joint appearance of Fred Astaire and Gingers Rogers as members of a band touring Latin America. [28 Sep 2003, p.9]

No amount of resourceful set dressing can convince us that this poky MGM backlot is a perspiring slab of French Indochina in monsoon season. [03 Aug 2014, p.6]

Some of the humour is dated, but mostly it's astonishingly modern, full of unforgettable images. Muni is stunning and George Raft, who, like Sinatra, enjoyed the company of mobsters, gives an iconic performance: his cool, coin-tossing habit is referred to both in Singin' in the Rain and Some Like it Hot. [09 Apr 2006, p.18]

Today, Browning’s sympathies are clear; if there are “freaks” on display here, they are not the versatile performers to whom the title seems to allude.

It's a classic with special effects that could scarcely be improved on. [18 Apr 2004, p.13]

An often hilarious, if always creaky, affair, bubbling with visual and verbal wit and co-scripted by the great humorist SJ Perelman. [06 Jan 2008, p.10]

This first film version, a milestone work in every sense, helped, through its fast, wise-cracking dialogue and rapid editing, to change the sight and sound of the new talkies. Adolph Menjou as the suave, double-crossing editor Walter Burns and Pat O'Brien as his star reporter head a great cast. [17 Dec 2006, p.8]

This is an exuberant manifesto that celebrates the infinite possibilities of what cinema can be.

This was Falconetti’s only major film, and over a period of a year under Dreyer’s direction (a combination of cruelty and patience) her extraordinarily expressive face made for one of the greatest, most harrowing screen performances.

A mixture of melodrama, sentimental romance and heavy-handed comedy, Wings was superbly choreographed with skilfully photographed stunt flying and aerial combat.

Murnau's first Hollywood film and one of the last great silent movies.

Potemkin is a vital viewing experience that transcends its landmark/milestone status. Its virtuoso technique remains dazzling and is at the service of a revolutionary fervour we can still experience.

Decent adaptation by playwright Robert Ardrey of Flauberts great novel, directed in the staid MGM costume-classic style and much superior to the recent Claude Chabrol version. [30 Jan 2000]