It's a visual feast, from the moody, horror-flick style opening which hovers over the gates of man-made mountain Xanadu, to the opera-house scene when we levitate hundreds of metres from Susan's awful stage debut to the workmen flinching in the rafters.

Everything from the masterly opening sequence to the ambiguous final shot indicates that this is the work of a prodigiously talented director.

A peerless example of Hollywood studio moviemaking, director Michael Curtiz turning the Warner backlot into a gloriously romantic vision of WW2-era Morocco crammed with real-life European exiles and larger-than-life character actors.

Extraordinary in form, ‘ordinary’ in content, Boyhood is ambitious, intimate and unforgettable. It might just be the apex of Linklater’s life’s work.

Sensitive, subtle and heartfelt, Jenkins’ genre-buster is a significant work that will knock you out.

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.

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh create their own sizzle as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in a lavish four-hour epic that juxtaposes scenes of jaw-dropping majesty – that aerial shot of the Confederates’ wounded, for example – with moments of elegant intimacy and playful verbal jousting.

Riddled with post-war despair, The Third Man is one of the great British movies. The zither music, the noirish cinematography, the taut writing and the raft of excellent performances combine in an engrossing thriller that matches America's finest.

Bong has once more proved what an exciting filmmaker he is, and Parasite is strong contender for Oscar Best Picture.

Visceral, vital and anchored by its earnest performances, this is a potent portrait of a shameful historical truth.

If ever there was a film that epitomised the saying ‘no pain, no gain’, this is it. Packs a real wallop.

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.

A stunning space saga that takes off for new technical frontiers without leaving its humanity behind.

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

Paul Thomas Anderson's bravura comic satire is a serious film of the year contender, and one of the best studio movies in years. An instant classic.

Wells has crafted a feature that gets its hooks into you before you’ve had a chance to work out what it’s doing.

A compassionate, masterful work that deservedly won Haneke a second Palme d'Or after "The White Ribbon's" 2009 victory. Best to avoid on a first date, though.

Breathlessly tense, thrillingly orchestrated and intellectually complex, this damn fine piece of rigorous, meticulous filmmaking enhances Kathryn Bigelow's status as one of her generation's most accomplished directors.

Under Haynes’ sure hand, Blanchett and Mara deliver a love story to melt to. Every glance means something, no strain shows: it’s filmmaking as natural as breathing.

A more-than-worthy, expectations-exceeding chapter in one of modern cinema’s finest love stories. As honest, convincing, funny, intimate and natural as its predecessors.

Haunting, thrilling and emotional, Dunkirk is a prestige pic with guts and glory that demands multiple views. Especially in IMAX.

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.

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

One great British artist pays tribute to another in a lengthy but rewarding homage that boasts a titanic turn at its centre. Rarely has watching paint dry been so fascinating.

The ghosts of Scorsese’s past can be found in these gaunt GoodFellas. An engrossing and, yes, haunting epic.

Like the Toy Story trilogy, Inside Out is about leaving childhood behind. It’s not quite as moving as those films but it is A-grade Pixar, full of Sadness and Joy.

In its precision, perversity and stinging wit, Sunset Boulevard still has mighty sharp teeth.

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.

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

As the film glides towards its climax, Song dismantles your heart with the cool proficiency of a bomb-disposal expert.

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]

Peachy keen. A luminous, sun-kissed Italian love story brimming with warmth, passion and feeling. This is utterly unmissable.

Driver and Johansson face off to stunning effect in Baumbach’s finest feature to date. So good it hurts.

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

Could have been a grand folly but instead it’s just grand. Will make audiences break into grins like its characters break into song.

Smart, funny and emotional, Lady Bird is a Trojan horse movie – sneaking its way into hearts and minds via well-worn tropes.

Its relentless pot shots at war, religion and just about everything else making it more controlled chaos than movie.

Strikingly original, brilliantly acted, this serio-comic masterpiece constantly swerves expectations.

Adam Sandler is off-the-scale good in the Safdies’ latest: a scuzzy shot of adrenaline into the crime pic’s heart.

The Coen brothers on top sardonic form with a winning tale of an incorrigible loser. Hits the right note on every level, from period vibe to performance (human and feline).

Recalling the likes of All About Eve and Amadeus, TÁR asks pertinent questions about cancel culture, artistic integrity and gender, while also providing a primer on orchestral politics and musical history.

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

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.

A rigorously detailed telling of an important story that never loses sight of the human devastation. Terrific turns from the ensemble cast.

This is the flip side to his samurai films, an introspective, naturalistic contemporary drama combining progressive social criticism with a universal humanist message.

This phantasmagorical fantasy really does represent old-school MGM filmmaking at its best – sets, make-up, costumes and music combining to quite stunning effect.

Poverty and poetry, delinquency and deluxe wonder… this child’s-eye view of lives on a knife-edge is terrific.

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]

Apocalypse Now Redux is a reassuring rarity. It's an extended, re-edited version of Francis Ford Coppola's 'Nam masterpiece, with 49-minutes' worth of extra material spliced in, and the result is a genuinely stronger film. That's right - one of the best movies ever made just got better.

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

This is a challenging and troubling film that asks a lot of the viewer, before sending them away with a great deal to consider. There won’t be many films this year that you’ll turn over more thoroughly in the hours, days, and weeks that follow.

A World Cinema Dramatic prize winner at Sundance, Hogg’s best film yet is an instant British classic.

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.

A film to make your blood run cold, Nemes’ first-person account of life, and death, in a concentration camp contains horrors you can’t – and shouldn’t – unsee.

For all its techno-focus, a very human love story about our need for connection. Strange, witty, honest and curiously comforting.

Greta Gerwig’s warm, woke take on America’s classic girlhood novel takes liberties, but makes a tender, engrossing tale.

With Huston spending most of the shoot big-game hunting, it’s probably cameraman Jack Cardiff who deserves kudos for turning this odd-couple romance into such a colourful escapade through east Africa.

Amazing stories. Heart- tweaking, brain-teasing and hugely enjoyable, Polley’s tangled memoir confirms her as an unflinching anatomist of secrets and lies.

Miyazaki’s first film in 10 years proves that he’s still a master of the medium. And if it’s his last film, it’s a fine one to go out on.

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.

Baker controls the narrative with real aplomb, crafting a time-bomb mix of physical comedy and high drama. Better still, the final third alights on real pathos.

A spiky, pithy, and unconventional delight.

Drawing on the testimonies of some fascinating interviewees, and filled with dazzling digital images of galaxies and landscapes, it’s a film that makes you ponder the mysteries of human existence anew.

A lunatic vision, as hilarious as it is hellish. And some of the greatest action ever put on screen.

Told with economy, and evading any easy genre classification - it’s part romance, part fantasy, part thriller, and more besides - it’s a very moving piece of work, and a testament to the power of love.

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.

Fearless, relatable and beautiful, this is one of the year’s best. Holding you so close for so long, you won’t want to break free.

Anderson crafts another classic of obsession and strange love, played by dynamite leads: Day-Lewis retires in style, Krieps is revelatory.

An existential flipbook and a heartbreaking black joke: stickmen have never looked so alive.

Drawing on revealing clips from Panahi's previous films, TINAF reveals not only the realities of artistic censorship, but its firework-laden finale shows how cinema thrives on spontaneity.

The H2O theme fits in with the main feature, its tale of a clownfish searching for his son constituting Pixar’s most effective amalgam of comedy, artistry and emotional pull.

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.

Taut and sprawling, riveting and haunting: firing on all cylinders, Nolan tackles world-changing history with fearsome force and focus.

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.

With the entire cast on their A-game, depths are found in characters that could’ve easily been caricatures.

Patient, non-judgemental docu-making yields psychologically rich results in Jesse Moss’s potent dispatch from recession-hit America.

Marches to the beat of its own drum… Lands with a bang… There just aren’t enough musical clichés to describe Whiplash. A masterclass in technique, power and rhythm, it stings and sings like nothing else.

Weaving the Tulsa race riots, the KKK and the Masons into its tapestry, Scorsese’s opus questions the misdeeds of America in the last century while linking them to the pressing issues of today. Addressing racial violence, nationalism, the continued epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and even our lurid obsession with true crime, Killers of the Flower Moon paints a robust picture of a moment in history that invites viewer introspection.

A complex film that sidesteps every cliché. Paul Verhoeven and Isabelle Huppert are at the top of their game.

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

Awkwafina and Zhao shine in a deft comedy-drama with a higher US per-screen take than Avengers: Endgame.

Over-long, but a work of great artistry and emotion. As the woodcutter says upon finding our heroine: “A gift from heaven”.

True, it has a tendency to meander and lands Last Night in Soho’s Thomasin McKenzie with an underwritten role. But at its heart is a brooding Cumberbatch, offering one of the shrewdest performances of his career. The Road’s Smit-McPhee also impresses, especially as his character grows more important in the film’s final, unexpected third.

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]

Dean's profoundly influential sullen charisma is still captivating.

Charlie Kaufman shows us what it is to be human. Plus the best use of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ in the movies.

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.

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.

A feel good sequel only marmalade haters could resist.

The Death of Stalin review: "A frighteningly funny satire that finds humour in historical horror"

The initially cryptic plotting and low-key realism are familiar from Iranian dramas; what’s striking is how Rasoulof shifts into such a lucid, gut-punching tale of persecution. The film’s flaws are forgivable; its very existence should be applauded.

McDormand is an unstoppable force in a fiercely intelligent, profanely poetic movie that shifts tonal gears at breakneck speed.

Filmmaker Jonathan Olshefski illuminates the rich, strife-filled lives of these extraordinary people.

Wes Anderson’s eighth feature has a heft beneath its icing, heart behind its artifice. Check in, and you won’t want to leave.

Bleak but beautiful, this terrific chamber drama confirms Ceylan as one of world cinema’s leading lights. The bum-numbing length may intimidate, but there’s more than enough quality to offset it.

True, Cooper’s film could do with a tighter edit, especially in the second act, where it has a tendency to drag. But all told, A Star is Born is a big achievement: raw, romantic, tragic, and tumultuous.

Snowden proves surprisingly sympathetic. His intentions appear to have no subtext, but sadly neither does the doc; the irony of an infodump approach to mass surveillance goes disappointingly unexploited.

Do not throw away your shot at watching Hamilton’s original cast both make and recreate history. ‘Satisfied’? You will be.