Nothing about the film’s coming-of-age narrative, nor the rise and fall of its core romance, is intrinsically new or daring, yet Kechiche’s freewheeling perspective on young desire is uncommon in its emotional maturity.

Deceptively hidden under layers of gorgeous surfaces, Paul Thomas Anderson’s borderline-sick romance waltzes toward a riveting tale of obsession.

The quiet, delicately observed slapstick here works with far more hits than misses, although in comparison with, say, Keaton, Tati's cold detachment from his characters seems to result in a decided lack of insight into human behaviour.

Thus comes My Perestroika's most sophisticated idea: Day-to-day family struggles have a way of trumping even the most profound political change. Don't miss this.

This is a story about the importance of making mistakes, of learning, of pulling yourself up and trying again – whether in love, sex, art or friendship. It’s a delirious ‘making of’ film: the making of an artist and the making of a life in all its messy glory.

Sure it is - and a great one at that.

An unassuming masterpiece, nominally based on Hemingway's novel and set in Martinique during World War II, this is Hawks' toughest statement of the necessity of accepting responsibility for others or forfeiting one's self-respect - the sum total of morality for Hawks - and the perfectbridge from the free and open world of Only Angels Have Wings to the claustrophobic one of Rio Bravo.

It’s a cliché to say that a film will stay with you long after you leave the cinema. This one could haunt you to the grave.

A gripping, visceral human drama that occasionally turns shakycam thriller to excellent effect, it’s a small victory for empathy over coarseness. Like Michael Winterbottom’s prescient 2003 docudrama In This World, it demands that you witness the treatment of refugees with your own eyes.

Beautifully shot and acted, it's probably Ray's masterpiece.

Why do we care? Because never before have the steps to thugdom, as depressing as that destination may be, been so rigorously detailed, neither romanticized nor negated. Don’t miss.

The cumulative effect is so stunning and antithetical to anything Hollywood is doing at the moment – the equally audacious Barbie aside – that it feels like a completely different art form. And, frankly, hallelujah for that.

The Polish filmmaker has conjured a dazzling, painful, universal odyssey through the human heart and all its strange compulsions. It could be the most achingly romantic film you’ll see this year, or just a really painful reminder of the one that got away.

Its seminal importance in the early gangster movie cycle outweighed only by its still exhilarating brilliance, this Howard Hughes production was the one unflawed classic the tycoon was involved with.

The first half, set in a single room, echoes Hitchcock's Rope in exploring his moral dilemma while the action takes place off-screen. The second is disconcertingly different in that it focuses excitingly on the police procedures deployed in the hunt for the kidnapper. But the connections, though sometimes overly obvious in appealing to the liberal conscience, span fascinating Dostoevskian depths.

Sorry, Baby is a captivating comedy-drama that avoids the reductive binary of hero or villain. Instead, Victor articulates the flaws of humanity, of people, but also the hope we can find in each other and ourselves.

There’s an edge to The Circus that suggests a man gazing deep into the void, laughing at the darkness and urging us to do the same.

It's a bold, significant piece of work: an investigative thriller with a grave finale that stuns you into silence, then, hopefully, something more.

The use of pop and opera and the black-and-white photography (by Michael Chapman) are exemplary, the actual boxing a compulsive dance of death.

Mercifully, it lacks the pretentious moralising of his later work, and is far more professionally put together. But for all its relative dramatic coherence, it's still hard to see how it was ever taken as a masterpiece.

Charles Crichton’s direction is subtle but inventive – check out the snaking, near-single-take opening in a Rio cabana – and the performances, writing and plotting are faultless.

A dynamite crime comedy and identity meltdown that can rekindle one’s faith in movies.

Magnificent...Scorsese's most poignantly moving film.

Ideally, though, it should prove as gruelling a test of its audience's moral and political conscience as it seems to have been for its makers.

Whiplash scrapes the far edge of crazy passion. It never apologizes.

Marvellous, grimly downbeat study of desperate lives and the escape routes people construct for themselves, stunningly shot by Conrad Hall.

It's absolutely riveting.

Featuring some brilliant camerawork by Liu and the late Dylan Sakiyama, Minding the Gap is an impressive feature that provides an intimate and grounded examination of racism, violence, manhood and economic anxiety in the US. It will warm your heart but possibly break it a little too.

A paranoid police procedural, a perverse parable about the corrupting elements of power, and a candidate for the greatest predated Patriot Act movie ever, Elio Petri's stunning thriller makes no attempt to hide the culprit behind the film's grisly murder.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a meta horror-comedy and a whip-smart entertainment industry satire. Still, on a deeper level, in a hole at the bottom of its lake, is a hard-won sexual awakening.

Serrated with political edge, Scorsese’s true-crime epic is impeccably constructed and utterly gripping.

The popular view of art is that it belongs to the masses. Wiseman casts a more skeptical eye, questioning such egalitarianism with cold, hard historical context. Yet he simultaneously acknowledges that these works live on far beyond their original purpose, even if, as the film’s bold, brilliant climax suggests, they may eventually play to an audience of none.

One of the key films of the '40s.

White Heat = Scarface + Psycho.

The movie that confirmed Kurosawa's greatest strength, his innovative handling of genre.

We are in the presence of a new classic.

The storytelling is brisk, though the wealth of events and characters means you have to let yourself go with the flow. But Gangs of Wasseypur is always compelling, and Bajpai’s charisma means there’s always a colorful presence at the heart of the drama long after the endless hail of bullets has grown tiresome.

It’s at once intimate and expansive – a film with a big heart and not a bad word to say about anyone.

Barry Lyndon is best known for its photography – Kubrick borrowed a low-light camera from Nasa so he could shoot in candlelight – and it is uniquely, heart-stoppingly gorgeous. But there’s much more to it: this is a story of identity, and the lack of it. And it’s fascinating.

Delightfully embracing the specificity of Eastern culture, The Farewell reflects on collective considerations versus individualism, not unlike Crazy Rich Asians. It unearths the universality of complex familial love that defies borders and language barriers.

Moral inquiry, wry comedy and sheer cinematic poetry make for a film whose modest form conceals a sharp mind and a wonderfully generous heart.

Marty Supreme is a stunning achievement, a breathless yet precisely controlled joyride full of vivid characters, hairpin turns and did-that-just-happen moments – and a modernist fairy tale about big ambitions colliding with grubby street-level realities and capitalism’s seedy imperatives. This is a film that’s built to last.

Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise manages to find romance amidst the dirty needles and dirty toilets, delivering as many memorable tender images as he does unpleasant ones.

System Crasher may veer towards being over-sympathetic in its approach to its violently problematic protagonist – Benni is a wrecking ball at times – but it delivers a powerful exposé of the limitations of the foster system. And with its impressive young star to the fore, it is heartbreakingly intimate.

The acting honours belong to Mason: whether idly cruising the LA dance-halls for a new woman, sliding into alcoholism, or embarrassing everyone at an Oscar ceremony, he gives a performance which is as good as any actor is ever allowed.

This elegant adaptation by Alan Bennett of his own stage success is the best of his contributions to the big screen to date: sturdily performed and persuasively detailed, and with a beady delight in political in-fighting.

Artfully lit and soundtracked by chirruping bugs and buzzing bees, the experience is so soothing that it’s easy to be caught out when the world’s distressing realities elbow in. But it speaks volumes for the power of its woozy spell that it’s so tough to see it broken.

Campion reveals her characters slowly, drawing out crucial details that we should have seen all along with a subtly that will make repeat watches richly rewarding. It’s a triumph. A ten-year wait for her next film would be too much.

Sullivan's Travels is a gem, an almost serious comedy not taken entirely seriously, with wonderful dialogue, eccentric characterisations, and superlative performances throughout.

It’s the creature’s instinctual murder spree that makes the immediate impression, but that would be nothing without the simmering tensions among the human counterparts. [30th anniversary release]

A fascinating experiment is about to happen, and who doesn't want to be part of a little fun? That rarest of birds - a b&w silent film - is set to swoop into multiplexes. Trust us, it won't bite.

Now it seems raucous, vulgar, over long; but if you like slick jobs, this is certainly one of the slickest.

A thoroughly enjoyable affair, complete with some of his most memorable set pieces.

The film’s languorous, tangential flow isn’t for everyone, but you’ll be surprised by how easily you can roll with it, especially if you tune into Zama’s cringe-funny frequency.

Impressive adaptation of Steinbeck's novel, made at the same time as The Grapes of Wrath (though released earlier) and matching Ford's harsh lyricism in its evocation of the Depression, the desperation of the migrant farmworkers, their pipedreams of a little place of their own some day.

The Mother and the Whore is an icy comment on the New Wave, informed throughout by Eustache's striking visual intelligence.

What makes the film so powerful is both the sympathy it extends towards all the characters (including the seemingly callous parents) and the precise expressionism of Ray's direction. His use of light, space and motion is continually at the service of the characters' emotions, while the trio that Dean, Wood and Mineo form as a refuge from society is explicitly depicted as an 'alternative family'. Still the best of the youth movies.

An astonishing, compulsive film, directed with a crackling energy.

A subversive and psychologically rigorous take on RL Stevenson’s tale of severed souls, ‘Dr Jekyll’ combines gothic horror, aristocratic romance and madcap Freudian psychodrama into a dizzying, exhilirating brew.

A bleak and devastatingly brilliant film.

Marvellous amalgam of sadistic thriller and fairytale romance, drawing on a wild diversity of genres from film noir to Feuillade serial.

Whale does superbly by this much-loved Kern-Hammerstein musical, abetted by modestly handsome sets and lustrous camerawork from John Mescall.

The Arbor's pummeling second half begins with the collapse of its celebrity subject; the following spirals of self-destruction make you suspect that some childhoods are simply too hard to escape. Tough, worthy stuff.

Whether you take [Olivier's] central performance on its own terms (as a 'definitive' reading of the part) or as high camp, it's undoubtedly interesting as a phenomenon.

This film leaves you with the thrill of a good fight fought hard. It’s a scrappy, absorbing tribute to the pragmatic value of compromise, carefully proffered in pursuit of a greater good. America’s candidates would do well to take a page out of this doc’s book.

Lee's tough decision to include photos of the victims' smashed-up bodies was probably correct, but adding 'soulful' music to some of the interviews was more questionable.

It's an occasionally over-symbolic work (most notably in the opening nightmare sequence), but it's filled with richly observed characters and a real feeling for the joys of nature and youth.

It’s impossible entirely to recreate the effect of being in the room with this play, but this ear for eye is still essential for the art and power and relevance of tucker green’s unique wordplay.

Prepare to fawn at Bergman’s most metaphysically profound film; you may even laugh.

An elegant and eloquent film, nevertheless, even if the characteristically laconic Fordian poetry seems more contrived here (not least in the uncharacteristic use of an offscreen narration).

This bearish sequel will leave you with a heart so warmed, you could trek across the Antarctic in shorts.

This return to traditional Disney territory is geared to captivate children while allowing them to maintain their street cred, largely by combining extravagant animated technique with ranging musical styles.

The Coens nod at some familiar stylistic tropes – florid swearing, sexual euphemism, crusty, aged characters – but the film’s potency is rooted in quiet precision and detailed realisation.

The original (and best) version of the cockle-warming tale of a man who claims to be the real-life Santa Claus.

Significantly, Hitchcock didn't use much of Raymond Chandler's original script, because Chandler was too concerned with the characters' motivation. In place of that, Hitchcock erects a web of guilt around Granger, who 'agreed' to his wife's murder, a murder that suits him very well, and structures his film around a series of set pieces.

It’s a film of deep empathy, but a tough one, too.

Alternately funny, touching, tough and hopeful, In Transit never tells you how to feel, but it sure makes it easy to feel it.

The resulting account contains a quietly powerful political statement.

Crisply photographed and directed with understated grace, the film can feel a little standoffish given the emotive subject matter. But with strong performances from the young leads and a vice-like air of mounting tension, it’s well worth revisiting.

It will test your faith in humanity, but Hersonski's film is nonetheless a brilliant reminder of the importance of bearing witness.

The auteur’s style — dramatic zooms, winking symmetry — is balanced against a newfound political context; this one’s his "To Be or Not to Be."

Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is a peach of a picture. At once miniaturist yet epic, it’s an exquisite film that touches on every human emotion – agony, ecstasy, discovery, surprise, togetherness, loneliness – without contrivance or strain.

Calling the new A Star Is Born a “valentine” from its star, Lady Gaga, to her fans sounds a bit coy and delicate, so let’s call it what it really is: a hot French kiss (with full-on tongue), filled with passion, tears and a staggering amount of chutzpah.

For the many people impacted by dementia, it won’t be an easy watch – and for those who have experienced it in the past, it may feel like a gentle pressure on an old wound. But it’s a real window into an affliction that is both commonplace and unfathomable. And in that sense, it’s a gift.