Fuelled by Cammell's whacked-out erudition and lensed with tyro brilliance by Roeg, this hallucinogenic deconstruction of identity writhes with sex, substances, ultraviolence and good ol' rock'n'roll.

Utterly enthralling, Kirikou And The Sorceress may be modest by Hollywood standards, but it has an enormous heart. Disney, please take note.

The ending stumbles, but not enough to tarnish this study of life lived under society’s radar.

A gloriously entertaining thrill-packer of truly epic proportions.

The World Is Not Enough is, without a doubt, a solidly entertaining chapter in the Bond franchise's chequered history. But while Apted fiddles with the format, this is far from an overhaul of the blueprint, and so lacks the whiff of freshness long-time fans may have been sniffing for.

In later scenes, Guadagnino blurs the boundaries of the various levels of reality on show, which becomes alienating. He may have been inspired by Fellini’s 8½, but this comes across more like sub-David Lynch weirdness.

All the elements of a modern Hitchcock-style murder mystery are brilliantly handled, while the sort of tricks usually deployed to misdirect the audience are intelligently positioned to draw us deeper into Mima's tortured psyche until fantasy blurs into deadly reality. The result is a smart, innovative and gut-wrenchingly disturbing film.

The fairytale-like teaser trailer for this latest interpretation of The Haunting was so seductively eerie that you couldn't be blamed for becoming excited. Alas, the movie itself doesn't deliver on this promise: it's neither eerie nor seductive - in fact, it's a sore disappointment.

A fair amount of decent laughs can't disguise a micro-thin plot which won't keep the kids from fidgeting. But it packs in just enough sci-fi/film references to keep fans amused. Possibly worth a look if you're a groupie.

There's something rotten in Denmark, as Mean Streets meets GoodFellas in Copenhagen, and while it could never rival either of the above, this striking, powerfully gritty tale about a week in the life of a drug dealer is still well worth seeing. A promising debut.

Impressively acted by the unknown cast, and eerily shot in black and white, Nolan successfully creates his own distinctive cinematic world, leaving en route a trail of objects which may or may not have any meaning.

Those under 10 may love Joe, but adults will find him less appealing. Theron almost saves the day, until she flounders under the weight of poor dialogue, dull direction and a role that seems to value her make-up over her acting.

Short, sweet and hilariously unpleasant, Bride Of Chucky packs in the blood and jokes tighter than Jennifer Tilly in a black rubber dress. Both are well worth watching. Don't bother to see the first three Chucky films - this comic horror stands alone.

Bolstered by a fine performance from Nahon, this even merits comparisons with Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Past an impressive siege opening, everything in this `thriller' is terrible: the action, the supposed tension, the dialogue and the plot. Every opportunity to make it good is missed.

As noble as his ideals are, watching a series of interminably lengthy conversations inside a car makes for stultifying viewing. And the abrupt ending, which highlights the fictional nature of the whole enterprise, is mystifying.

Magnificent. A multiplex-friendly critics' movie in the stripped-down Blood Simple/Fargo style, but with a more restrained hint of Raising Arizona slapstick. A crime-sex-drugs-kidnap-bowling-nihilism mystery of the highest order.

A stylistic cross between Se7en and The X-Files, this overlong, rigidly boring affair suffers from a whole list of ailments.

All in all, Bond 18 is an impressive, entertainingly uproarious spy thriller, with a pinch of Goldfinger charm, an oasis of impossible stunts, gorgeous women and throw-away one-liners. Great stuff.

Two-parts entertainment to one-part frustration, Jim Kouf's Gang Related is like a diver who leaps promisingly into a triple twist - - only to smack his head against the board on the way back down.

A simple, slight but delightful slice of life à la Leigh, with some heart-stoppingly committed performances and genuinely moving moments. It won't set the world on fire, but will smoulder in your brain long after you've left the cinema.

Murphy consolidates his comeback with an engaging performance in an often thrilling thriller. Metro mixes high-quality stunts and slick dialogue with enough menace to keep the audience nibbling its cuticles until the closing credits. Welcome back, Edward.

Don't overlook this film. It doesn't have the must-see pull of a Mars Attacks! or a Fierce Creatures, but it's a fine, convincingly played drama, and a superlative adaptation of Mr Miller's play. (Married to Marilyn Monroe, he was. Makes you think...)

Philosophically complex, spiritual but anti-religious, harrowing yet hopeful.

While it paints a convincing vision of lives ruled and ruined by the bottle, none of this makes for compelling viewing. Certainly not an hour-and-a-half of it.

Within the first half-hour, all suspense has been punctured. Not only do you find out who the two men are, and why they and their jiggly testicles are galloping through New York, but you learn exactly who's chasing them and why. Worse still, like a flabby episode of Columbo, you get to know whodunnit right at the start of the film.

She's The One is carefully observed, well-made, enjoyable, thought-provoking and even funny. And: cracking crumpet, Gromit.

The Frighteners is not just Fox's most entertaining picture since Back To The Future, but one of the slickest comedy-horror movies you could hope to see.

Most alluring are the crumbling neon cityscapes, real world/cyberspace fusion and the musings on identity.

A stop-motion charmer.

As Scrooge, Michael Caine rises to the challenge and helps find the pathos beneath the puppetry.

A disco dancing Jamie Lee Curtis is long gone, and so is any sense of logic in this drivelsome fourth Prom, which takes itself far too seriously.

Drawing on their traditions of oral storytelling, it’s lushly photographed and costumed, plus dreamily confusing, yet it vividly brings a past to life.

The Double Life of Véronique makes the familiar seem extraordinary and memorably conjures up the sense of metaphysical forces guiding its characters’ everyday lives.

FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), brainiac cannibal Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) and tackle-tucking serial killer Jame Gumb (Ted Levine) make for one of cinema’s great ménages à trois.

A 25th anniversary restoration of Giuseppe Tornatore’s ode to moving pictures and puppy love.

John McNaughton's movie manages to go beyond the disquieting, distressing or even disturbing. It's downright dismaying.

Conceived on an unprecedented scale in ambition and technique, Otomo’s rich visuals and awe-inspiring action depict a post-apocalyptic dystopia where the threat of feral biker gangs is dwarfed by the rise of an uncontrollable psychic.

Plays like an elegy for the demise of the cool, thick with the small-hours allure of addiction and infatuation but smart enough to see clearly.

Audran is luminous as the centre of a gentle, generous film about grace. Oh, and grub.

Will Richard E Grant ever get a better role than bitter thespian Withnail? Has anyone devised a more iconic comic notion than the Camberwell Carrot? Has any screenplay combined so many quotable lines with such tear-jerking pathos or blatant homophobia?

Directed by John McTiernan, it’s an ’80s classic full of still-thrilling action, quotable one-liners (“Get to the chopper!” “Stick around!”) and sly digs at Uncle Sam’s penchant for unwinnable jungle wars.

Fresh from portraying another counterculture icon in Alex Cox’s Sid And Nancy, the 29-year-old Oldman could hardly have been better cast as the cocksure genius whose saucy farces turned the West End stage on its ear.

For all its Swedish trimmings, the long, syrup-slow takes are unmistakably Tarkovsky’s, and it’s these that provide this arthouse disaster movie with its mesmerising power.

A stylish black-and-white prison romp with a sense of humour as offbeat as its perfectly cast stars (John Lurie, Roberto Benigni and singer Tom Waits).

Isabella Rossellini’s singer Dorothy is a heart-rending open wound, Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth one of cinema’s great nutjobs, and Lynch’s control a thing of nightmarish beauty.

Nothing about the film works. And the festering boil on this arse-end of cinematic quality is the duck suit itself: it’s about as realistic as a builder’s quote, with less than a tenth of the aesthetic charm of the same builder’s bum cleavage.

With his native Prague standing in for Vienna, Forman's images of icy beauty counterpoint the soaring music and grandstanding performances. [2002 Director's Cut]

Time hasn't dulled the agonising richness of the songs, the toe-stiffening stupidity of the on-stage concepts, or the endless pith of Tufnel and St Hubbins' wisdom. Even if you've seen it an unhealthy number of times, have another go.

Shot on 16mm for less than $50,000, Sam Raimi's visceral debut remains a benchmark of modern horror. Plot and acting are minimal - five stooges inadvertently awaken demonic forces - but then this isn't about intellect or intricacy: it's about intensity and intestines. [1 Oct 2001]

From the pitch-perfect characterisation to John Williams’ soaring score to the magical effects, it’s every bit as good as you remember. [2002 re-release]

This is hands-down the best Trek flick made so far.

Most importantly, The Long Good Friday features one of Bob Hoskins' best performances, as Harold Shand, the patriotic mobster who's heading for a fall. Without this towering central performance, it's likely that The Long Good Friday would have been sidelined as "that dodgy '80s gangster film" years ago.

Wonderfully whimsical children’s fantasy about a young boy’s journey through the space-time continuum in the company of six cantankerous dwarves.

The three leads are on outstanding form, while Jack Nitzsche's score shimmers with foreboding.

A grandiose Western based on the Johnson County War of 1892, when cattle barons brought in mercenaries to massacre immigrant settlers, it suffers badly from narrative incoherence. But there’s a grand romantic sweep to the action (enacted by a solid cast including Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken and Isabelle Huppert), the set-pieces are majestic and its disenchanted view of the American frontier myth still rings ominously true.

De Niro is brilliant, as are the then-untried Pesci and Moriarty, and Scorsese pulls out all the tricks (slo-mo, visceral sound effects, twitchy editing) for a truly extraordinary modern classic.

The Shining buzzes madness and malevolence from every frame.

Madness and death hang over Herzog’s Wagner-scored vision like a black cloud, while Kinski adds much poignancy to Dracula, the lonely immortal.

Francis Ford Coppola went into the jungle to make his surreal ’Nam epic and almost lost his mind during one of the most protracted and accident-prone shoots in history. Thankfully the hallucinogenic results justified the means.

If you've never seen Alien on the big screen, this is a must-have cinematic experience that will leave you shivering and adrenalised. And even if you have seen it, the same holds true. It really is that damn good. [2003 re-release]

Largely lensed in the window between sunset and nightfall, it’s a magic-hour masterpiece. [26 Aug. 2011]

Gena Rowlands gives one of her bravest, most startling performances here, waging guerilla combat with the demands of a play she can’t abide, wrestling with demons so real they kick her in the teeth.

Drags like an arthritic snail.

It's a warm, tender movie underpinned by the gentle tug of melancholia.

A brilliantly played, stone-cold '70s classic.

It’s ambitious, artful and unique. As for Bowie… what a star, man.

Watch this 4K restoration of Scorsese’s ’76 masterpiece, its colours a seeping virus, and marvel that he originally planned to shoot on black-and-white video.

Between the vast exteriors and candlelit interiors, the expressive authority of Kubrick’s direction is breathtaking.

Playing the mental-hospital firebrand who rebels against monstrous Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), Nicholson seduces in an anti-establishment classic with a gut-punch exit.

The greatest trick he pulls is making you think he’s not genuine: beneath befuddling, bracing digressions on Picasso, Howard Hughes, biography, confidence tricks, growing beards and “girl-watching” lies a searching interrogation of ideas of authorship.

Robert Altman tore up the filmmaking rulebook in the mid-'70s with this satire on the American country and western scene, for which the cast composed their own songs. It juggles the fortunes of two dozen characters and presciently explores how politics has become another form of showbusiness.

The plotting is elliptical and the sweep intoxicates, but the contrast between De Niro’s meditative Vito and Pacino’s soul-starved eyes brings piercing focus to Coppola’s resonating study of corrupting power.

A truly cerebral fear flick, edgy, brooding, packing the power to freeze your bones and claim your sleepless thoughts at two in the morning.

The story itself is more satisfying, while the power of the jolts is boosted by the immaculate sound and sneakily effective subliminal extra frames. See it and shiver. [2000 re-release]

One of the most dynamic and radical British films ever made.

Refracted through Holly’s naive, emotionally flat narration and Malick’s poetic visual style, this familiar tale is transformed into something strange and oddly beautiful. [29 Aug. 2008]

It’s strong on the details of itinerant life, and allows plotting to take a back seat to character.

Ozu's is a cinema of distillation: no jagged cuts and tracks, just a serenely still camera allowing a purity of emotion to trickle free. The result is a quiet, devastating poignancy that gently envelops you en route to an absolute tear-streamer of an ending.

An engrossing, influential movie, which screams to be watched on the big screen. Few films will provoke your thoughts so fiercely.

There's something patronising about the way Norman Jewison portrays all these poor but cheerful Yiddish types. The choreography is clumsy, the acting caricatured, and the songs themselves painfully overblown.

A worthy tribute to Bogdanovich's idols, Orson Welles and John Ford.

An intriguing forerunner to François Ozon’s Swimming Pool, it’s languidly paced and elegantly lensed, though its prize asset is Delon/ Schneider’s sexual sizzle.

The blend of stunning music and innovative visuals make this a true festival of the senses.

Adapted from the hit Broadway musical, Funny Girl exudes class - there's a terrific array of song and dance numbers, a tear-jerking storyline and a bevy of colourful costumes. Quirky, charming and very funny, Babs screams talent.

Whether you think it's pretentious or profound, you can't deny that Space Odyssey is a significant landmark in the history of cinema. It's also, as the original posters proclaimed, "the ultimate trip..."

Kobayashi's films frequently puncture the legend of the ever-obedient samurai, scrutinising the value of such a rigid feudal system without completely dispensing with the adrenaline-soaked fun of a good old-fashioned sword-fight.

The sight of SPECTRE’s alligator-jawed spacecraft, its maw opening like an evil steel bloom, is one of the single most brilliant visuals in the Bond canon.

It explores two of the filmmaker’s pet themes – the impossibility of true communication, the futility of art – and is set against the Vietnam War. Extraordinary.

Whilst there is plenty of swordplay involved, it's the war of words and ideals that really captures the imagination here.

Mellow and rich in ironic humour, the film carries an undertow of gentle melancholy; as so often with Ozu, its ultimate message is that loneliness is the human condition.

Losey creates an atmosphere of deepening claustrophobic menace shot through with episodes of savage black humour.

A fun, heart-warming adventure.

Breakfast At Tiffany's still exerts an enduring charm, not least because of the poise and waif-like beauty of the bewitching Hepburn. [Review of re-release]

You won't find a more bone-jarring set of fight scenes than the ones on display here, while Mifune's blood-letting drifter offers a masterclass in justice-dispensing cool.

The ambition is bracing, but critical hindsight obscures how exciting Malle’s noir thriller is on its own terms.

For those who think legendary cine-Swede Ingmar Bergman's films are aloof and coldly austere, this warm, welcoming 1957 road movie of aged reflection - the inspiration for Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry - might come as a surprise.

But it’s the precision-tooled plot fashioned by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond that holds it together, creating the perfect farcical playground. Brilliant performances, wondrous comic timing and the greatest pay-off line ever written: this one’s still red hot.