An uneasy mixture of European art movie (the Resnais-like flashbacks that punctuate the narrative) and American ciné-vérité (it was shot on the streets of New York), The Pawnbroker never achieves the intensity its subject matter threatens.

Much ado about background authenticity is nullified by the cardboard characters, but the starry cast makes it all relatively painless.

In Frankenheimer's hands, the whole paraphernalia of trains, tracks and shunting yards acquires an almost hypnotic fascination as the screen becomes a giant chessboard on which huge metallic pawns are manoeuvred, probing for some fatal weakness but seemingly engaged in some deadly primeval struggle.

Sinatra displays great competence as an action director, and a sequence where the Americans attempt to capture a boat laboriously built by the Japanese is beautifully choreographed, ending with a memorable shot of both sides staring in silence as a hand-grenade destroys their only means of escape.

The sets, costumes (by Cecil Beaton), photography, and Hermes Pan's choreography are all sumptuously impressive, and Harrison makes a fine, arrogant Professor Higgins; but Hepburn is clearly awkward as the Cockney Eliza in the first half, and in general the adaptation is a little too reverential to really come alive.

Reynolds and Curtis (in a disposable role as Charlie's permanently aghast best pal) race at full speed through reams of dud dialogue, while Minnelli amuses himself colour coordinating costumes and set decorations. Based, very noticeably, on a stage play (by George Axelrod).

Witty despite Hiller's direction.

Eclipsed by its contemporary, Dr Strangelove, Fail Safe eschews the former's black humour and opts for a deadly serious mix of cold-war melodrama and rampant psychosis.

The film can hardly contain itself with its catalogue of memorable songs, battery of dance routines, and strong supporting cast.

It's as sour a vision of male-female interaction as Vertigo, though far less bleak and universal in its implications. That said, it's still thrilling to watch, lush, cool and oddly moving.

Like its predecessor, Siegel's version is at its best while setting up the chillingly ruthless detail of the opening execution (here unnervingly set in an asylum for the blind), less satisfying when it starts providing an answer to the mysterious passivity of the victim (Cassavetes).

Less polished than The Tomb of Ligeia, but still the best and most ambitious of Corman's Poe cycle.

Zulu is a fairly tough-minded and interesting account of a company of Welsh soldiers doing their bit for somebody else's Queen and Country in an alien land.

Explicitly quoting Chaplin-style routines, Lewis bends the sentimentality into shape to produce a witty and magical essay on comedy, illusionism and fear.

Thin even by Presley standards.

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.

Pictorially it's amazing, and even the script and dubbing are way above average.

It takes a little swallowing, but Fuller's grasp of character and milieu is so sure that the film gradually imposes itself as a scathing exposé of hypocrisy.

Live action cartoonery had been underworked since Tashlin mapped its possibilities with Jerry Lewis, but the novelty value of Sellers' disaster-prone Inspector Clouseau, funny French accent and all, wore off quicker than its commercial value.

Frankenheimer's fascination with gadgetry is used to create a striking visual metaphor for control by the military machine. Highly enjoyable.

Perhaps Kubrick's most perfectly realised film.

It has some good moments, though its surreal beginning promises a generation war of apocalyptic dimensions that is never delivered, and the film finally falls into some unconvincing liberal moralising.

Certainly, it is one of the finest movies to deal with the plight of those thousands of immigrants who travelled in steerage to Ellis Island at the turn of the century.

While hardly as sturdy or provoking an entertainment as North by Northwest, say, it remains an entertainment.

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.

Triumphantly painful Disney adventure; guaranteed to sear the memory, in spite of the 'Derek the Lonely Dingo'-style narration that has always stood for 'nature' in Walt's wonderful world.

Kramer's 'comedy to end all comedy' stretches its material to snapping point but offers happy hours of star-spotting.

With just three actors, a boat, and a huge expanse of water, [Polanski] and script-writer Jerzy Skolimowski milk the situation for all it's worth, rarely descending into dramatic contrivance, but managing to heap up the tension and ambiguities.