One of the best of Altman's early movies, using classic themes - the ill-fated love of gambler and whore, the gunman who dies by the gun, the contest between little man and big business - to produce a non-heroic Western.

But mainly, it’s the film’s folk music that roots in the heart like a faraway lure.

The movie does have an air of cautiousness about it, trying so hard to be a respectful, definitive statement on WWII (and often succeeding) that it sometimes feels cadaverous.

One of Godard's most open and enjoyable films.

The contrast between the innocence of the wilderness and the ambiguous 'blessings of civilisation' are brilliantly stitched into a smoothly developed narrative, which climaxes with the famous Indian attack on the stagecoach.

Of all the things to be nostalgic about, warfare would seem the least likely candidate, but that's the unusual perspective of this one-of-a-kind 1943 landmark - maybe the most wonderfully British movie ever made.

Wong Kar-Wai's second feature is a brilliant dream of Hong Kong life in 1960.

Chilly, severe, distancing, utterly captivating and made with formidable filmmaking IQ, Tár is a movie very much in the mold of its ever-present central character: world-renowned conductor and fully functioning sociopath Lydia Tár.

It's meant to make you feel sad for what's lost, but a vitality throbs through it.

Effortlessly moving from comedy to serious social comment, eliciting excellent performances from a large and perfectly selected cast, and making superb use of music both to create mood and comment on the action, Lee contrives to see both sides of each conflict without falling prey to simplistic sentimentality.

This colorful, cranium-bursting film isn’t about one specific tale so much as the endless ways you can present narratives; it’s nothing less than a kitchen-sink deconstruction on the art of storytelling.

It's far from unmissable, but it's valuable rock history with some great noise.

The third Astaire-Rogers movie (not counting Flying Down to Rio) and one of the best, with a superlative Irving Berlin score, and equally superlative Hermes Pan routines which spark a distinct sexual electricity between the pair.

While there's no doubting the sincerity of writer/director Gerima's film, one can't help sensing more than a little déjà vu in his account of the manifest evils of slavery.

Legendary Iranian director Jafar Panahi (Closed Curtain, Taxi Tehran) explores ideas of freedom, and what they mean to two very different couples in No Bears, his latest film about life in the homeland that currently has him cruelly incarcerated.

Far from being just another vehicle for Mifune, this belongs in that select group of films noirs which are also comedies.

A treat.

This is a remarkable, piercing film, and central to an understanding of Ozu's work.

Kurosawa’s eclectic style is a delight: his striking, varied compositions reflecting the old man’s journey from darkness to some kind of light right until the moving finale.

Like Chaplin’s The Kid or ET The Extra-Terrestrial, The Wizard of Oz simply lays bare primal emotions, exposes our childhood anxieties about abandonment and powerlessness and brings to light the tension between the repressive comforts of home and the liberating terrors of the unknown marking all our adult lives.

Peckinpah's superb second film, a nostalgic lament for the West in its declining years, with a couple of great set pieces (the bizarre wedding in the mining camp, the final shootout among the chickens).

It’s an exercise in mindfulness that asks you to give yourself over to it lock, stock and barrel. If you’re willing to do that, you can cancel that meditation course.

A film steeped in psychological realism, its rigorously compact plotting and stark, noir-influenced photography perfectly complementing the mounting sense of clammy, metaphysical dread.

It's enormously intelligent stuff, witty, poignant and thoroughly engrossing, and ends with one of the sharpest, funniest deconstructions of film form ever shot. Absolutely wonderful.

In 1974 a director (Polanski), a screenwriter (Towne) and a producer (Evans) could decide to beat a genre senseless and dump it in the wilds of Greek tragedy.

To fall in love with it, viewers only have to be receptive to a movie that examines the ties that bind with grace, wit and depth.

Remake is emotionally shattering.

The idea that we would want even a few of these draggy, didactic scenes (the poorly paced French plantation sequence plays better with self-satisfied critics than with audiences) may remind you of one of Marlon Brando’s immortal lines, the one about an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.

If this glorious pile of horror-fantasy hokum has lost none of its power to move, excite and sadden, it is in no small measure due to the remarkable technical achievements of Willis O'Brien's animation work, and the superbly matched score of Max Steiner.

Indie wunderkind Sean Baker continues his celebration of communities on the margins, in a movie that vibrates with compassion and energy.

A series of variations on themes of excess, surplus and waste from the most fastidious of directors.

David Lean's wondrous romance, adapted from Noel Coward's story, is one of the most emotionally devastating movies of all time.

It is the richly evocative performances of Marion (aggressive yet enticing) and Merhar (wearing world-weariness like an aged suit) that cut deepest.

Surely the definitive version of Louisa May Alcott's novel, sweet, funny, perfectly cast, and exquisitely evocative in its New England period reconstruction.

Fortunately, Oppenheimer keeps the film focused on the highly complicated Anwar — a charismatic devil if ever there was one — observing as this strange reckoning with the past slowly breaks down his defenses.

The metaphor for the extra baggage these cousins carry should not be lost, but it’s also a constant reminder of their unsettled nature. Never Rarely Sometimes Always creates a deeply empathetic look at their shared suffering.

Woody Allen's sublime comic drama.

It’s a stunning film – thoughtful, challenging and disturbing.

As much as any surrealist arthouse flick, Texas Chain Saw feels like a nightmare made real, an inescapable but entirely authentic vision of pure hell.

Redford has fashioned (from Paul Attanasio's brilliant screenplay) an impeccably nuanced Faustian drama which aspires to capture America's fall from grace: that point at the end of the '50s when the country first lost faith in itself.

Clearly, Pixar’s genius for adventurous storytelling continues unabated.

While it’s unspooling, The Souvenir feels like the only film in the world—the only one that matters.

Reiner's brilliantly inventive script and smart visuals avoid all the obvious pitfalls, making this one of the funniest ever films about the music business.

Remains a primo example that cinema actually traffics in truthiness 24 frames per second.

A superior work of confrontational boldness, it might be the movie Oppenheimer wanted to make in the first place.

The Secret Agent is vicious and vivid in its sense of place and danger. But it also has a streak of weirdness and offers a very human take on the political-crime thriller genre.

Both a slow-burn suspense drama and an intriguing enigma, his film is beautifully executed throughout: the three lead performances are all spot on, while Mowg’s jazzy score and Hong Kyung-pyo’s immaculate camerawork fit the shifting moods to perfection.

What a clever, haunting way to show art’s power to articulate the hurt we find hard to express.

The director is clearly having a whale of a time taking the piss out of the corruption, cruelty and bribery rife in his country.

Rohmer has a genius for taking a seemingly mundane situation and slowly tightening the screws.

The powerhouse denouement is a staggering insight into how colonial legacies continues to affect lives today.

Characteristically Kubrick in both its mechanistic coldness and its vision of human endeavour undone by greed and deceit, this noir-ish heist movie is nevertheless far more satisfying than most of his later work, due both to a lack of bombastic pretensions and to the style fitting the subject matter.

If plot, script and supporters are below par, the score by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields is peerless.

Scripted by Steve Tesich, it's Yates' best film since The Friends of Eddie Coyle and displays the kind of unsentimental optimism that went out of fashion with Hawks.

It's impossible not to see Son of Saul as a corrective to past stories that have imposed a neat order (or worse) on such incomprehensible events. Nemes does that too, of course, simply by making this film – but he does so in a way that makes us think of these events afresh.

Dunne, quite simply, is a marvel, deliciously caustic when required, genuinely illuminated by passion, touchingly stoic when events turn against her, while Boyer gains in humanity by using his suave Gallic charm as a mere cover for raging self-doubt. The constantly shifting emotions of their lengthy final scene make it a mini-masterpiece of acting, writing and direction.

A stark, solid, impressively stylish film.

It’s a tale of lonely souls and literalized online dating, and you assume filmmaker Spike Jonze will characteristically mix high-concept absurdism with heartfelt notions. Unexpectedly, the latter dominates, thanks in no small part to Phoenix’s nuanced, open-book performance.

Little Women sometimes plays like a comedy, one that includes a crumpled cry over a bad haircut and several kitchen interludes that feel like Christmas miracles. Yet it’s Alcott’s visionary attitude, well-struck by Gerwig, that stays with you the longest: the loneliness of female liberty.

It seems reductive to call this one of cinema’s great ‘lost’ works because this is one of the great films period, taking its place in the canon with urgency since its re-emergence in the 1990s.

Credit should also go to the crew; to Jack Cardiff for his frond-filled imagery and maestro sound recordist John Mitchell for his atmospheric soundscape.

It might manifest as a straightforward historical documentary, but the fascinating, hypnotic Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat unfolds into something much deeper – and more sinister.

Connery and Caine (both excellent) become classic Huston overreachers, and echoes of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Moby Dick permeate the mythic yarn.

Never extraneous, Flee’s smaller details make this true-life story buzz with life.

The film's strength now derives less from its admittedly powerful but highly simplistic utterances about war as waste, than from a generally excellent set of performances (Ayres especially) and an almost total reluctance to follow normal plot structure.

A film about the importance of cultural history and truth (two things deeply under siege these days), Wiseman’s epic Ex Libris might make you cry with happiness; it’s the good fight being fought. Movies aren’t usually a public benefit, much less an essential one. Here’s the exception.

Watching the first hour of I Was Born, But… (unspooling with a bright, new piano score by Donald Sosin) might remind you of a subdued “Our Gang” skit, and not unpleasantly.

Composed of serio-comic scenes from small town life, heavy with a future perfect sense of Myth-in-the-making, it's driven by tensions between insignificance and monumentality that explode in the histrionic splendour and excess of the celebrated final sequence: Abe Lincoln setting out to scale unseen heights against the portentous gloom of a gathering storm.

A finely wrought image of terminal stasis, national, political (Charles Barr suggests the gang as the first post-war Labour government), and/or creative (the house as Ealing, Johnson as Balcon?). Whatever, Mackendrick immediately upped for America and the equally dark ironies of Sweet Smell of Success.

Polley has gone further into the thorny subject of forgiveness than any of her peers. Her movies ache with ethical quandary; Stories We Tell aches the most.

This is Ross’s first fiction feature and its power comes as no surprise to those familiar with his 2018 calling card of a documentary. Hale County, This Morning This Evening announced a gifted photographer driven by sensitivity to his subjects’ dignity. Accordingly, Nickel Boys miraculously goes against the grain of the story’s devastating trajectory by leading with the same loving eye.

Ultimately, though, The Boy and the Heron is yet another testament to Miyazaki’s evergreen ability to embrace philosophical themes with boundless imagination. Jaw-dropping visuals, tender moments, and a pinch of comedy make it the perfect Christmas treat for Ghibli fans.

Politics apart, though, it's pretty electrifying.

This spry, sharp and relentlessly clever middle finger to censorship is Panahi’s boldest act of defiance to date.

If you’re looking for a more granular account of the Oxy epidemic and its perpetrators, Emmy-nominated miniseries Dopesick and investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe’s bestseller ‘Empire of Pain’ both have your back. But All the Beauty and the Bloodshed plots a slightly different kind of narrative: one that’s full of defiance and emotion.

Ozu’s final film is a movingly valedictory affair, its familiar story of Ryu’s elderly widower marrying off daughter Iwashita carrying even more poignancy than usual as a poised and wise reminder of passing time and the inevitable approach of mortality.

It shouldn’t all be so funny, but it is, and it’s to Baker’s huge credit that he’s able to inspire laughs and huge enjoyment from this madcap story without leaving you feeling that the woman at the heart of this mess has been short-changed and exploited for our pleasure.

What makes The Favourite work are its women—who rule, both literally within the movie and outwardly, dominating our enjoyment.

It’s Carpenter’s direction that makes Halloween tick, and resulted in it becoming (still, possibly) the most successful indie film ever made.

Kaufman (like Tom Wolfe, whose book The Right Stuff this is taken from) is well enough aware of the media circus surrounding the whole project, but still celebrates his magnificent seven's heroism with a rhetoric that is respectful and irresistible.

From Disney's richest period, interleaving splendid animation with vulgar Americana.

The movie takes risks that Hollywood isn't even aware of anymore.

A moving meditation on history, knowledge and mortality.

You'll be arguing with your friends about the ethics of secrecy and defense for hours; that's what makes these exit interviews so essential. They come late to the spy game, but are welcome regardless.

There's influential, and then there's this 1953 microbudgeted beauty, one that's made its way into the DNA of everything from cinema vérité to the French New Wave.

The Brutalist is a major work of art that asks something from its audience but gives back in spades.

Rohrwacher weaves this thread in and out of the more grounded storylines with the most exquisite even-handedness, evoking Greek mythology while creating her own legend.

Any film that can combine questions of mortality with funny, fully alive scenes of sex, social awkwardness, professional screw-ups and throwaway fun is a rich one. Its brilliant, full-on performance from Reinsve deserves to be celebrated far and wide.

This San Fernando Valley palimpsest is so buoyant and bubbly, it practically floats off the screen. It’s the giddiness that grabs you in the Californian’s latest gem, and the dizzying sense of possibility and innocence. It left me with a contact high.

Fatherland is an elegant, engrossing film; chilly at times, but also poignant as repressed feelings finally bubble to the surface. This is another expansive, enriching work from a modern master.

David Lean’s black-and-white masterpiece may be a whirlwind tour of Dickens’ novel, but what a well-performed, economic and atmospheric tour it is, and one that manages in two hours to capture much of the chronological and emotional sweep of a 525-page novel.

The film is a beguiling window into a distant world – one that at times evokes such claustrophobia as to feel more like a peephole.

Marrying the biting frenzy of Terry Gilliam’s film universe with the explosive grandeur of James Cameron, Miller cooks up some exhilaratingly sustained action. But the key to this symphony of twisted metal is how the film never forgets that violence is a sort of madness.

This is a great movie, an austere masterpiece, with Delon as a cold, enigmatic contract killer who lives by a personal code of bushido.

Again, Granik has foregrounded a bold woman, expertly balanced between fearlessness and Ree's own private nervousness.

The acting, especially from Menash Noy as an ineffectual attorney, is phenomenal, resulting in a feminist knockout told in inverse.

All of Us Strangers is a miraculously uncheesy study of loneliness, forgiveness and, above all, the power of love.

When superfans speak of the superiority of The Godfather Part II, this is not merely to be contrary. Coppola took Mario Puzo’s pulp and darkened it with Nixonian paranoia and the power of political back rooms.