A
 | A Bout de Souffle – a Bogart-obsessed young man commits crimes and falls in love in Godard’s French New Wave classic | Director: Jean-Luc Godard Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger |
 | About Schmidt – a retired meek widower travels to his daughter’s wedding, and comes to realisations about his life | Director: Alexander Payne Cast: Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis |
 | Ace in the Hole – sharply bitter journalism satire, as an ambitious reporter exploits an accident for his own career | Director: Billy Wilder Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur |
 | Ad Astra – in this Heart of Darkness twist, a son journeys to his father, a lost astronaut who has resurfaced near Neptune | Director: James Gray Cast: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler |
 | Adam’s Rib – battle of the sexes courtroom drama, as a married couple take opposite sides in a big case | Director: George Cukor Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday |
 | Addams Family Values – much-better sequel as the kids deal with summer camp | Director: Barry Sonnenfeld Cast: Anjelica Huston, Raúl Juliá, Christine Ricci |
 | The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension – cultish OTT sci-fi as a polymath takes on ruthless aliens | Director: WD Richter Cast: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin |
 | The Adventures of Robin Hood – the classic Robin Hood film, best swashbuckler ever made and one of the most influential | Director: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone |
 | The Aeronauts – a scientist and a famous balloonist ascend to the highest heights | Director: Tom Harper Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Himesh Patel |
 | The African Queen – a working class sailor and a missionary sail down a jungle river and fall in love | Director: John Huston Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley |
 | After Love – a Muslim convert, finds out after her husband’s death that he had a second family; poetic tearjerker | Director: Aleem Khan Cast: Joanna Scanlan, Nathalie Richard, Talid Ariss |
 | Aftersun – mesmeric, thought-provoking, film as a woman remembers holidaying with her father 20 years ago | Director: Charlotte Wells Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowison-Hall |
 | The Age of Innocence – James’ adaptation as a man in 1890s New York falls in love with a disgraced woman. Lush but cold | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder |
 | The Agony and the Ecstasy – Michaelangelo takes a very, very, long time to paint the Sistine Chapel in this flawed but enjoyable epic | Director: Carol Reed Cast: Charlton Heston, Rex Harrison, Harry Andrews |
 | Airport – laughable, turgid and terrible soap, full of cardboard characters and ends with a disaster epilogue. A massive hit | Director: George Seaton Cast: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg |
 | Aladdin – basically a shot by shot remake with an added subplot and a big special effects ending, but half as good | Director: Guy Ritchie Cast: Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott |
 | The Alamo – faintly revisionist history, a notorious flop as it seemed, contrary to the poster, people had forgotten | Director: John Lee Hancock Cast: Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric |
 | Albert Nobbs – in late 19th century Dublin, a woman disguises herself as a man so she can find work in a hotel | Director: Rodrigo Garcia Cast: Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, Mia Wasikowski |
 | Alexander Nevsky – Eisenstein shoots in a traditional style a great propaganda epic, as Russia defeats the Germans | Director: Sergei Eisenstein Cast: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolay Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov |
 | Alfie – a heartless cockney wide-boy gets himself into all sorts of entanglements in this expose of swinging sixties London | Director: Lewis Gilbert Cast: Michael Caine, Shelley Winters, Millicent Martin |
 | Ali – Will Smith captures The Greatest in a film that misses the fire and passion of Muhammad Ali | Director: Michael Mann Cast: Will Smith, Jon Voight, Jamie Foxx |
 | Alien – the classic space horror has the crew of a ship are haunted by a relentless monster. | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm |
 | Aliens – brilliant sequel that resets the original wonderfully. Ripley leads marines to save a colony from more Aliens. | Director: James Cameron Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen |
 | Alien 3 – not-so-good Alien film, as Ripley crashlands on a prison planet with an Alien queen growing inside her | Director: David Fincher Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Charles S Dutton, Charles Dance |
 | Alien: Covenant – Prometheus sequel that runs out of ideas as a crew arrives on an abandoned planet | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup |
 | All About Eve – Best Picture winning drama about theatrical feuds, full of biting witty dialogue and huge fun. | Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders |
 | All is Lost – a sailor, alone at sea, battles against the elements and the waves to keep his ship afloat | Director: JC Chandor Cast: Robert Redford |
 | All is True – Shakespeare retires to Stratford and struggles to make amends with his family (the role Branagh was born for?) | Director: Kenneth Branagh Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen |
 | All Quiet on the Western Front – WW1 trenches drama and Best Picture winner with powerful anti-war message | Director: Lewis Milestone Cast: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray |
 | All Quiet on the Western Front – impressively made but tells the same message in the same style, as other films | Director: Edward Berger Cast: Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Daniel Brühl |
 | All That Jazz – autobiographical film based on Bob Fosse’s life. Electric and dynamic, an overlooked classic. | Director: Bob Fosse Cast: Roy Scheider, Ann Reinking, Leland Palmer |
 | All the King’s Men – Best Picture winning political corruption drama who definitely isn’t Huey P Long | Director: Robert Rossen Cast: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge |
 | All the Money in the World – billionaire John Paul Getty’s grandson is kidnapped – but he refuses the pay the ransom | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, Christopher Plummer |
 | All This and Heaven Too – slow scandal drama, as a count falls in love with a governess and murders his wife | Director: Anatole Litvak Cast: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Barbara O’Neil |
 | Almost Famous – Cameron Crowe’s autobiography of his life as a teenage journalist following a rock band around America | Director: Cameron Crowe Cast: Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup |
 | Amadeus – Best Picture winning epic on the life of Mozart and the envy of his (unacknowledged) rival Salieri. I love this film | Director: Milos Forman Cast: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge |
 | Amazing Grace – earnest, Sunday-afternoonish William Wilberforce biopic | Director: Michael Apted Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Romola Garai, Benedict Cumberbatch |
 | The Amazing Spider Man 2 – franchise killer as Spiderman takes on multiple foes with sharply diminishing return | Director: Marc Webb Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx |
 | American Beauty – a depressed man becomes fixated on an attractive teenager. Looked like a landmark classic in 1999. | Director: Sam Mendes Cast: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Chris Cooper |
 | American Gangster – in 1970s Harlem, a secretive Black gangster takes over the drugs trade, while a cop tries to identify him | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor |
 | American Hustle – conmen are forced by the FBI to help with a sting operation for a politician believed to be corrupt | Director: David O Russell Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper |
 | An American in Paris – romance, Gershwin and dancing in this gorgeous Best Picture winning musical | Director: Vincente Minnelli Cast: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Nina Foch |
 | The American President – a widowed President’s falls in love with a lobbyist, in Sorkin’s West Wing dry run | Director: Rob Reiner Cast: Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen |
 | American Sniper – sensitive biopic: an Iraq war marine sniper deals with PTSD, helping veterans before his tragic death | Director: Clint Eastwood Cast Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller |
 | An American Werewolf in London – After being attacked by a crazed wolf, a backpacker develops a terrible new condition | Director: John Landis Cast: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne |
 | Amistad – courtroom drama covering the dispute on ‘ownership’ of the cargo of the ship Amistad: that cargo being slaves. | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins |
 | Amores Perros – a series of interconnected stories in Mexico city, all of them connected to dogs. Director’s edgy calling card | Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu Cast: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo |
 | Amsterdam – whimsy and indulgent politics abound as 30s conspiracy unsuccessfully meet Jules et Jim | Director: David O. Russell Cast: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington |
 | Amour – a husband and wife struggle to cope after a series of strokes strip her of strength, character and mind | Director: Michael Haneke Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert |
 | Anatomy of a Murder – brilliantly cynical courtroom drama about lawyers who will use almost any trick to get the result they need | Director: Otto Preminger Cast: James Stewart, George C Scott, Lee Remick |
 | The Anderson Tapes – a criminal, recently released from prison, plans a heist – but is unprepared for modern surveillance | Director: Sidney Lumet Cast: Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam |
 | Angels with Dirty Faces – Cagney weeps on the way to the chair in this classic gangster flick | Director: Michael Curtiz Cast: James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart |
 | Anne of the Thousand Days – Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn: it doesn’t end well in this richly mounted but empty Tudor epic | Director: Charles Jarrott Cast: Richard Burton, Genevieve Bujold, Anthony Quayle |
 | Annie Hall – Woody Allen’s Best Picture winner about a neurotic man in a relationship with a lovable ditz. Genuinely funny. | Director: Woody Allen Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts |
 | Anonymous – dreadful Oxfordian conspiracy theory that argues (wrongly) that the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays | Director: Roland Emmerich Cast: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Rafe Spall |
 | Another Round – four depressed teachers decide to reinvigorate their lives through drinking. Mistake perhaps? | Director: Thomas Vinterberg Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang |
 | Another Year – a contented married couple offer support (but not help?) to their less well-adjusted friends | Director: Mike Leigh Cast: Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville |
 | Ant Man – a thief is recruited by a scientist with a shrinking suit that gives him control over ants in this witty Marvel entry | Director: Peyton Reed Cast: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly |
 | Anthropoid – unfortunately titled thriller about the plot to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich in Prague 1942 | Director Sean Ellis Cast: Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan, Toby Jones |
 | The Apartment – Best Picture winner about an ambitious worker who lends his apartment out for his bosses affairs | Director: Billy Wilder Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray |
 | Apocalypse Now – landmark Vietnam epic, a demented fever dream version of Hearts of Darkness. I have mixed feelings | Director: Francis Ford Coppola Cast: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall |
 | Apocalypto – a man runs for his life in the Aztec empire, in this epic chase movie, unique for being in Mayan | Director: Mel Gibson Cast: Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernández, Jonathan Brewer |
 | Apollo 13 – superb dramatisation of the near disastrous space mission, one of the best true-life stories ever made | Director: Ron Howard Cast: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris |
 | Aquaman – big, loud and silly film: Aquaman must return to claim his throne in Atlantis | Director: James Wan Cast: Jason Mamoa, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe |
 | Argo – average Best Picture winner: a CIA agent smuggles diplomats out of Iran, by disguising them as a film crew | Director: Ben Affleck Cast: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, John Goodman |
 | Armageddon – a meteor heads to Earth – and only oil rig drillers can stop it apparently. Loudest space film ever | Director: Michael Bay Cast: Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler |
 | Around the World in 80 Days – Best Picture winning global trip based on the novel, with a star face around every corner | Director: Michael Anderson Cast: David Niven, Cantinflas, Shirley MacLaine |
 | Arrival – fascinating and engrossing sci-fi as a female linguist works out how to communicate with aliens | Director: Denis Villeneuve Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker |
 | The Artist – Best Picture winning pastiche silent-film: an actor struggles in Hollywood after the introduction of sound | Director: Michel Hazanavicius Cast: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell |
 | As Good As It Gets – a misanthropic writer with OCD has to make a bond with a waitress and gay artist in this sitcom set-up | Director: James L. Brooks Cast: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear |
 | The Asphalt Jungle – one of the best small-scale “man with a plan” heist thrillers, with crooks falling out | Director: John Huston Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffe, Jean Hagen |
 | The Assistant – an office worker in a Hollywood Production office has to turn a blind eye to the studio head’s behaviour | Director: Kitty Green Cast: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh |
 | At Eternity’s Gate – the final weeks of Van Gogh’s life, as he deals with depression and failure | Director: Julian Schabnel Cast: Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac |
 | Atlantic City – a loser in a crumbling city tries to seduce a dreamer in this low-key, observant drama | Director: Louis Malle Cast: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Michel Piccoli |
 | Atonement – a couple are denied happiness after a series of misunderstandings at a house party | Director: Joe Wright Cast: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan |
 | Au hasard, Balthasar – Bresson makes a striking Christ-like parable in this simple but moving film | Director: Robert Bresson Cast: Anne Wiazemsky, Walter Green, François Lafarge |
 | Avatar – James Cameron’s huge hit with small cultural impact: a man sides with his adopted culture on a rich alien world | Director: James Cameron Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver |
 | Avatar: The Way of Water – belated sequel, a huge success, but way too long and short on new ideas | Director: James Cameron Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver |
 | Avengers: Age of Ultron – the Avengers battle a genius robot intend on wiping out humanity to save the world | Director: Joss Whedon Cast: Robert Downey Jnr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth |
 | Avengers: Endgame – its all been building to this as our heroes fight to restore the universe. Perfect blockbuster entertainment | Director: Joe & Anthony Russo Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jnr, Chris Hemsworth |
 | Avengers: Infinity War – a supervillain collects the legendary infinity stones, to reshape the universe. Can he be stopped? | Director: Joe & Anthony Russo Cast: Josh Brolin, Robert Downey Jnr, Chris Hemsworth |
 | The Aviator – gorgeous homage to old-school Hollywood, a biopic of Howard Hughes, focusing on his passion and OCD | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale |
 | The Awful Truth – remarriage comedy as a feuding couple faces ‘the awful truth’: they’re in love, Grant’s first ever “Cary Grant” role | Director: Leo McCarey Cast: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy |
B
 | Back to the Future – a teenager time travels and screws up his parents meeting. Can he get them back together? 80s classic | Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover |
 | Back to the Future Part II – terrible sequel that goes to the future then an alternative 1985 then back to 1955 : a mess | Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson |
 | Back to the Future Part III – return to form in this sparkling Western spoof, easily the second best in the series | Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen |
 | Bad Day at Black Rock – a one armed WW2 veteran arrives in town to find the killer of his friend, a Japanese businessman. Brilliant. | Director: John Sturges Cast: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis |
 | Badlands – two young people fall in love, kill people and hit the road in this lyrical, poetic debut from Terrence Malick | Director: Terrence Malick Cast: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacey, Warren Oates |
 | The Band Wagon – love and creative differences abound behind-the-scenes of a Broadway show in a love-letter to theatre | Director: Vincente Minnelli Cast: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Jack Buchanan |
 | The Banshees of Inisherin – two friends fall out on on a 1920s Irish island in this striking universal metaphor | Director: Martin McDonagh Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon |
 | The Barefoot Contessa – cynicism abounds in this curious semi-satire about a nobody who becomes a Hollywood star | Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien |
 | Barry Lyndon – an Irish chancer rises up the social ladder in 18th century England in this cold and distant epic | Director: Stanley Kubrick Cast: Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, Michael Hordern |
 | Batman – first big serious comic book movie, looks campier now than it did, but showed comics could be dark and serious | Director: Tim Burton Cast: Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger |
 | Batman Begins – Batman goes back to basics in the first of Nolan’s extraordinary, genre redefining trilogy | Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine |
 | The Batman – another relaunch, Batman as a PI chasing down a serial-killer in a rain-soaked, noirish Gotham | Director: Matt Reeves Cast: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano |
 | Battle Los Angeles – aliens attack Los Angeles and only the army stands in their way. A guilty pleasure. | Director: Jonathan Liebesman Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Ramon Rodriguez |
 | The Battle of Algiers – hugely influential documentary style dramatisation of the uprising against the French in Algiers | Director: Gilles Pontecorvo Cast: Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Brahim Hadjadi |
 | Battleship Potemkin – one of the most influential films, a triumph of montage and the greatest propaganda film ever made | Director: Sergei Eisenstein Cast: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Grigori Aleksandrov |
 | Beat the Devil – slightly surreal conmen drama set in Africa, the sort of bizarre film that becomes a cult favourite | Director: John Huston Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley |
 | Beau Travail – a foreign legionnaire develops an irrational hatred for a new recruit in Denis’ poetic masterpiece | Director: Claire Denis Cast: Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin |
 | A Beautiful Mind – Best Picture winning, old-fashioned and sanitised biopic of troubled mathematician John Nash | Director: Ron Howard Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany |
 | Beauty and the Beast – absolutely heart-breakingly perfect Disney musical, from when the House of Mouse was top of the world | Director: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise Cast: Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Angela Lansbury |
 | Beauty and the Beast – live-action remake, a box office smash but half the film the original is | Director: Bill Condon Cast: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Emma Thompson |
 | Becket – Henry II and Thomas Becket fall out and feud in this grand, literary historical epic | Director: Peter Glenville Cast: Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole, John Gielgud |
 | Beginners – a reserved son struggles to know how to react when his widowed father comes out as gay | Director: Mike Mills Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent |
 | The Beguiled – during the Civil War a wounded solider arrives at a all-female house, leading to tensions | Director: Sofia Coppola Cast: Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell |
 | Being John Malkovich – a puppeteer finds a secret portal into John Malkovich’s brain in this iconic, oddball comedy satire | Director: Spike Jonze Cast: John Cusack, John Malkovich, Cameron Diaz |
 | Being the Ricardos – difficulties pile on top of each other during one week of the making of I Love Lucy | Director: Aaron Sorkin Cast: Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, JK Simmons |
 | Being There – a mentally handicapped gardener, who has never left his home, is hailed as a sage by the rich and powerful. | Director: Hal Ashby Cast: Peter Sellers, Melvyn Douglas, Shirley Maclaine |
 | Belfast – a twelve-year old Branagh in 70s Belfast, is unable to understand why his parents are considering leaving | Director: Kenneth Branagh Cast: Jude Hill, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds |
 | Belle – a mixed-race relative of a rich family is wooed for her wealth; her uncle, the Chief Justice, adjudicates the Zorg case | Director: Amma Assante Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wikinson, Sam Reid |
 | Ben-Hur – massive Best Picture winning epic about a Jewish prince at the time of Jesus. An average film, right place at the right time | Director: Wiliam Wyler Cast: Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Hara Hayeet |
 | Beowulf – motion-capture retelling of the legend, gory but surprisingly thoughtful | Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie |
 | The Best Years of Our Lives – wonderful Best Picture winning veterans drama, one of the best winners of all time | Director: William Wyler Cast: Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Harold Russell |
 | The BFG – faithful but somehow boring Spielberg Dahl adaptation with very little appeal to kids | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton |
 | Bicycle Thieves – hugely influential neo-realist film: one man goes to huge lengths to find his vital bike | Director: Vittorio de Sica Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola |
 | The Big Country – a stranger arrives in town and finds himself in the middle of one heck of a feud in this large scale, hugely entertaining Western | Director: William Wyler Cast: Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives |
 | The Big Heat – an obsessed cop takes on gangsters no matter what in Lang’s superb critique of America | Director: Fritz Lang Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin |
 | The Big Short – investors predict the 2008 crash and best against the economy: smart but cold comedy-drama | Director: Adam McKay Cast: Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell |
 | Birdman – smug and showy Best Picture winner: an actor best known for playing a superhero puts on a Broadway show | Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu Cast: Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Ed Norton |
 | Birdman of Alcatraz – a lifer in prison dedicates his time to becoming a leading expert on ornithology | Director: John Frankenheimer Cast: Burt Lancaster, Karl Malden, Thelma Ritter |
 | The Birds – our feathered friends go crazy in this apocalyptic Hitchcock horror film based on a du Maurier short story | Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Tippi Hedron, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy |
 | Black Hawk Down – Immersive combat film, about the Battle of Mogadishu, brilliantly made, controversial for its politics | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana |
 | The Black Hole – feeble attempt by Disney to do Star Wars with a demented scientist trying to control the power of a black hole | Director: Gary Nelson Cast: Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster |
 | Black Mass – biopic of a notorious gangster | Director: Scott Cooper Cast: Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Edgerton |
 | Black Narcissus – sex leads to madness in a secluded nunnery in this beautifully made film | Director: Powell & Pressburger Cast: Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar |
 | Black Panther – the heir to the kingdom of Wakanda faces a challenge from his cousin | Director: Ryan Coogler Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita N’yongo |
 | Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – grief is central here, a Marvel film strongest when dealing with Boseman’s death | Director: Ryan Coogler Cast: Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira |
 | Black Swan – a ballerina wins the lead dancer role, but can her fragile mental health survive the pressure | Director: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassell |
 | Black Widow – half-hearted prequel, that exists to give its star a payday in the sun and introduce her replacement. | Director: Cate Shortland Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz |
 | BlacKkKlansman – a black cop (with a Jewish cop as the front man) goes undercover with the KKK in this electric race drama | Director: Spike Lee Cast: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier |
 | Blade Runner – a detective is hired to find (and terminate) rogue replicants in this influential dystopian sci-fi classic | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young |
 | Blade Runner 2049 – brilliant sequel (better than the original?) as a replicant hunts other replicants | Director: Denis Villeneuve Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana da Armas |
 | The Blind Side – sentimental family drama: a rich white woman adopts a struggling Black teenager with a gift for football | Director: John Lee Hancock Cast: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron |
 | Blonde – exploitative, pretentious biopic of Marilyn Monroe that doubles down on the misery and salacious gossip | Director: Andrew Dominik Cast: Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale |
 | Blonde Venus – melodrama about a woman’s desperate attempt to save her husband’s life | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant |
 | Blood Diamond – a father searches for his kidnapped son – but others are interested in the priceless diamond he carries | Director: Edward Zwick Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly |
 | The Blue Angel – a Professor is smitten by a cabaret singer – just as von Sternberg became smitten with Dietrich | Director: Josef von Sternberg Cast: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Gerron |
 | Blue Collar – in a car factory, three workers deal with heartless management in this rare slice of Loachian style US film-making | Director: Paul Schrader Cast: Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto |
 | Blue Jasmine – a socialite has to cope with sudden poverty in this twist on Streetcar Named Desire | Director: Woody Allen Cast: Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin |
 | Body of Lies – in an Middle East, a CIA agent battles terrorists… and the political incompetence of his handlers at Langley | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong |
 | Bohemian Rhapsody – Freddie Mercury biopic and mega-hit, squeamish about homosexuality | Director: Bryan Singer Cast: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee |
 | Boiling Point – one terrible night of service comes to a head in a restaurant in this superb one-shot film | Director: Philip Barantini Cast: Stephen Graham, Vinette Robinson, Alice Feetham |
 | Bonnie and Clyde – two young killers love fame, crime and themselves in this violent, influential “American New Wave” film | Director: Arthur Penn Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J Pollard |
 | The Book Thief – in Nazi Germany, a young girl loves books: but she draws attention to her family, secretly hiding a Jew | Director: Brian Percival Cast: Sophie Nélisse, Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson |
 | Born Yesterday – Pygmalion-like comedy, as a Gangster’s moll learns about culture from an earnest journalist | Director: George Cukor Cast: Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden |
 | The Bounty – revisionist version of the mutiny that sympathises more with Bligh than usual. | Director: Roger Donaldson Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Laurence Olivier |
 | The Bourne Legacy – failed spin-off about another spy, that spends most of its run time justifying its existence | Director: Tony Gilroy Cast: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton |
 | The Boxer – a man released from prison wants to return to his dream of a boxing career – but the IRA won’t let him | Director: Jim Sheridan Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Brian Cox |
 | Boyhood – shot over a decade, Linklater’s beautiful film charts the formative years of a young boy becoming a teenager | Director: Richard Linklater Cast: Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette |
 | Bram Stoker’s Dracula – overblown and camp Gothic horror, full of colours, silly accents and lots of sex | Director: Francis Ford Coppola Cast: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins |
 | Braveheart – Best picture winning epic on the life of William Wallace, a big, silly film that works hard to look important | Director: Mel Gibson Cast: Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Patrick McGoohan |
 | Breaker Morant – three Australian officers go on trial for murder in the Boer War in this superb denunciation of war | Director: Bruce Beresford Cast: Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson |
 | Brideshead Revisited – terrible version of Waugh’s classic, that turns it into a bog-standard romantic plot-boiler | Director: Julian Jarrold Cast: Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell, Ben Whishaw |
 | Bridge of Spies – a lawyer defends an unmasked Soviet spy facing the electric chair | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan |
 | The Bridge on the River Kwai – Best Picture winner: a British POW misguidedly builds a bridge for Japanese captors | Director: David Lean Cast: Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins |
 | A Bridge Too Far – reconstruction of the disastrous Battle of Arnhem. A personal favourite and also a powerful call for peace. | Director: Richard Attenborough Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Sean Connery, Michael Caine |
 | Brief Encounter – the classic romance-that-can-never-be, it’s a film it’s impossible not to love | Director: David Lean Cast: Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson, Stanley Holloway |
 | Broadcast News – heavy-handed media satire: a producer is torn between an empty-headed anchor and a sanctimonious reporter | Director: James L Brooks Cast: Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Albert Brooks |
 | The Broadway Melody – Best Picture winning sound musical, from a time when seeing a film with actual singing would have been revolutionary. | Director: Harry Beaumont Cast: Anita Page, Bessie Love, Charles King |
 | Brooklyn – an Irish migrant to the US is torn between two men, one American, one back home in Ireland | Director: John Crowley Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson |
 | Bugsy – a Beatty passion project, luscious biopic of Bugsy Siegel, the gangster who started Las Vegas | Director: Barry Levinson Cast: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Ben Kingsley |
 | Bumblebee – charming Transformers reboot, that for once you’d be happy to show to children | Director: Travis Knight Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jnr |
 | Bunny Lake is Missing – a woman insists her daughter has gone missing – but there seems to be no record that her daughter even exists | Director: Otto Preminger Cast: Laurence Olivier, Carl Lynley, Kier Dullea |
 | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – two outlaws form a lasting, witty bond while dealing with disaster | Director: George Roy Hill Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross |
 | The Butler – a Black butler serves many of the Presidents of the 20th century, in this gentle and polite civil rights story | Director: Lee Daniels Cast: Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo |
C
 | Call Me By Your Name – in 1970s Italy a young bisexual man has a coming-of-age relationship with an older man | Director: Luca Guadagnino Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg |
 | Calm with Horses – a former boxer works as an enforcer for an Irish gang, but begins to doubt his choices | Director: Nick Rowland Cast: Cosmo Jarvis, Barry Keoghan, Niamh Algar |
 | Can You Ever Forgive Me – a failed writer makes a fortune forging personal letters of the literary rich and famous | Director: Marielle Heller Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant |
 | The Candidate – a young man runs for Senate largely because he looks like Robert Redford and can win. Will he keep his idealism? | Director: Michael Ritchie Cast: Robert Redford, Peter Boyle, Melvyn Douglas |
 | Cape Fear – a psychopathic released killer goes after the family of the lawyer who failed to get him off: OTT thriller | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange |
 | Capote – austere biopic of Truman Capote, focusing on his writing of In Cold Blood | Director: Bennett Miller Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Chris Cooper |
 | Captain America: Civil War – the Avengers split over who controls them and attitudes to Cap’s friend ex-killer Bucky | Director: Anthony & Joe Russo Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jnr, Scarlett Johansson |
 | Captain Marvel – a woman on an alien planet has strange memories of a place like Earth – what can it mean? | Director: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck Cast: Brie Larsen, Jude Law, Samuel L. Jackson |
 | Captain Phillips – the captain of tanker is kidnapped when his ship is hijacked by Somali pirates | Director: Paul Greengrass Cast: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi |
 | Caravaggio – post-modern biopic of the artist, with plenty of killing and added motorbikes | Director: Derek Jarmon Cast: Nigel Terry, Tilda Swinton, Sean Bean |
 | Carlito’s Way – a criminal, out from prison, wants to go straight, but is pulled in one for one-last-job before he can | Director: Brian de Palma Cast: Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller |
 | Carol – sensitive and beautiful drama about two women who fall in love in 1950s America | Director: Todd Haynes Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson |
 | Casablanca – legendary Best Picture winner; a cynical cafe owner helps his lost love escape the Nazis | Director: Michael Curtiz Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains |
 | Casino – gangsters set up Las Vegas, make loads of money, but quickly turn on each other and destroy themselves | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone |
 | Catch Me If You Can – a young conman is pursued by a dedicated FBI Agent in this old-school caper | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken |
 | Cavalcade – Best picture winning Noel Coward adaptation of a posh British family saga | Director: Frank Lloyd Cast: Diana Wynyard, Clive Brook, Una O’Connor |
 | Centurion – Roman soldiers, caught behind Hadrian’s Wall, have to keep ahead of furious tribes to get home | Director: Neil Marshall Cast: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, David Morrissey |
 | Chariots of Fire – Best Picture winning biopic of 1924 British Olympic Gold medal winners with possibly the most famous score ever | Director: Hugh Hudson Cast: Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Ian Holm |
 | Charley Varrick – after a job gone wrong, a low-time crook has to use his cunning to escape from the clutches of the mafia | Director: Don Siegel Cast: Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Andy Robinson |
 | Charlie Bubbles – a working class lad turned Hollywood scriptwriter struggles with ennui, his unmanly job and his love life | Director: Albert Finney Cast: Albert Finney, Liza Minnelli, Billie Whitelaw |
 | Charlie Wilson’s War – a congressman wins secret funding for Afghan rebels against the USSR | Director: Mike Nichols Cast: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman |
 | Chicago – Best Picture winning musical: its all about show not truth, as two women are tried for murder | Director: Rob Marshall Cast: Renée Zellweger, Richard Gere, Catherine Zeta Jones |
 | Child 44 – failed thriller: a disgraced NKVD officer struggles to convince superiors a serial killer can exist in the USSR. | Director: Daniel Espinosa Cast: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman |
 | Children of Men – fantastic dystopian sci-fi: in a future where humanity is infertile, a pregnant woman is in danger | Director: Alfonso Cuarón Cast: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine |
 | The Children’s Hour – two teachers are accused of being lesbians leading to local scandal in this play adaptation | Director: William Wyler Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner |
 | The China Syndrome – a near-meltdown at a nuclear plant is covered up in this well made conspiracy thriller | Director: James Bridges Cast: Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas |
 | Chinatown – after a PI he is set up, he tries to find out why. His investigation leads to murder and dark secrets | Director: Roman Polanski Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston |
 | Chocolat – vomit-inducing sugar overload, as a chocolatier arrives in a small French town and changes everyone for the better | Director: Lasse Hallström Cast: Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp |
 | Churchill – the Prime Minister worries about the possible failure of D-Day and campaigns against it | Director: Jonathan Teplitzky Cast: Brian Cox, Miranda Richardson, John Slattery |
 | El Cid – a Spanish lord makes allies with the Muslims, to the fury of his King in this sweeping epic | Director: Anthony Mann Cast: Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Herbert Lom |
 | The Cider House Rules – a young man is raised as a doctor’s protege, but leaves to find out more about the world | Director: Lasse Hallström Cast: Tobey Maguire, Michael Caine, Charlize Theron |
 | Cimarron – terrible, semi-racist Western, Best Picture winner – possibly the worst ever winner, following the growth of a town | Director: Wesley Ruggles Cast: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor |
 | The Circle – terrible adaptation of a dystopian novel about a Google-esque company that completely misses the point | Director: James Ponsoldt Cast: Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, John Boyega |
 | Citizen Kane – possibly the greatest film ever made; ignore the doubters, like the poster says “it’s terrific!” | Director: Orson Welles Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore |
 | City of God – set in Rio de Janerio; kids have little to choose than which gang to join in this episodic, influential, electric film | Director: Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund Cast: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino |
 | Clash of the Titans – Perseus needs the head of the Gorgon to save a princess in this past-its-best Harryhausen epic | Director: Desmond Davis Cast: Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker, Burgess Meredith |
 | Clear and Present Danger – Clancy’s Jack Ryan finds himself at the centre of a War on Drugs conspiracy that goes to the top | Director: Philip Noyce Cast: Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Joaquim de Almedia |
 | Cleopatra – the epic that nearly sunk a studio, fascinating and a mess at the same time. | Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison |
 | A Clockwork Orange – Kubrick’s violent dystopian counter-culture film, banned for decades in the UK. Scared its director | Director: Stanley Kubrick Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates |
 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind – a number of people have alien encounters and receive a strange calling. Magical film | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr |
 | Clueless – smart version of Emma, set among the mean girls of a high school | Director: Amy Heckerling Cast: Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Stacey Dash |
 | Cold Mountain – in the Civil War, a man deserts to return to his love in this slightly distant epic, too polished to be moving | Director: Anthony Minghella Cast: Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger |
 | Cold War – Pawlikowski fictionalises his parents lives in Poland, the Cold War constantly preventing their happiness | Director: Paweł Pawlikowski Cast: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot |
 | Colette – solid biopic of the French writer, who fought to publish under her own name, rather than her husband’s | Director: Wash Westmoreland Cast: Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson |
 | Collateral – a hitman hires a taxi driver to escort him from hit-to-hit and they strike up an odd near friendship | Director: Michael Mann Cast: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith |
 | The Collector – a disturbed young man kidnaps a woman, hoping she will fall in love with him | Director: William Wyler Cast: Terence Stamp, Samantha Egger |
 | The Color of Money – Scorsese’s one for the money with this belated Hustler sequel: Fast Eddie Felson trains a protege | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio |
 | Concussion – a doctor is attacked when he blows the whistle on the dangers of head injury in American football | Director: Peter Landesman Cast: Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks |
 | The Conformist – Psycho-analysis mixes with politics as a Fascist conformer plots assassination in this gorgeous, complex masterpiece | Director: Bernardo Bertolucci Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda |
 | The Constant Gardener – superb, emotional Le Carré film: a diplomat investigates his wife’s murder in Kenya | Director: Fernando Meirelles Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Bill Nighy, Danny Huston |
 | Contagion – a virus outbreak drives the world in chaos in a film that felt very real in 2020 | Director: Steven Soderbergh Cast: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne |
 | Control – beautifully made and heart-rending biopic of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis | Director: Anton Corbijn Cast: Sam Riley, Alexandra Maria Lara, Samantha Morton |
 | The Core – hilariously silly sci-fi: scientists must drill to the centre of the Earth to start the earth rotating again | Director: Jon Amiel Cast: Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Stanley Tucci |
 | Corsage – Empress Sisi struggles with expectation in this eccentric film that doesn’t completely succeed | Director: Marie Kreutzler Cast: Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister, Katharine Lorenz |
 | The Count of Monte Cristo – a man, wrongly imprisoned for years, vows revenge on the friend who betrayed him | Director: Kevin Reynolds Cast: Jim Caviezel, Guy Pearce, Dagmara Dominczyk |
 | The Courier – true-life drama as a Russian spy and his British courier work to save the world from Cuban Missile crisis | Director: Dominic Cooke Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Merab Ninidze, Rachel Brosnahan |
 | Crash – infamous Best Picture winner: racial tensions divide ordinary people in Los Angeles | Director: Paul Haggis Cast: Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle |
 | Creed – the son of Apollo Creed is mentored by Rocky as he aims for a title shot in this franchise reboot | Director: Ryan Coogler Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson |
 | Creed II – the son of Ivan Drago wants a match with the son of Apollo Creed – its a grudge match in every way | Director: Steven Caple Jnr Cast: Michael B Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson |
 | Crimes and Misdemeanors – a celebrated doctor has his mistress murdered in this flattering-to-deceive Allen picture | Director: Woody Allen Cast: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Alan Alda, Mia Farrow |
 | Crimson Tide – the captain and first officer of a nuclear sub disagree over an unclear message about launching missiles | Director: Tony Scott Cast: Gene Hackman, Denzel Washington, George Dzundza |
 | Cromwell – wildly inaccurate but spiritually faithful dramatisation of the English Civil War, the only sympathetic Cromwell flick out there | Director: Ken Hughes Cast: Richard Harris, Alec Guinness, Dorothy Tutin |
 | Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – smash hit martial arts film, as warriors feud over the ownership of a legendary sword | Director: Ang Lee Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi |
 | Croupier – a would-be writer returns to his first passion: taking people’s money in this slow-burn, compelling crime drama | Director: Mike Hodges Cast: Clive Owen, Alex Kingston, Gina McKee |
 | The Crucible – wonderful adaptation of Arthur Miller’s classic play, a masterclass in re-working theatre for the screen | Director: Nicholas Hytner Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Joan Allen, Paul Scofield |
 | The Cruel Sea – in WW2 a naval captain deals with the unbearable burden of command | Director: Charles Frend Cast: Jack Hawkins, Donald Sinden, John Stratten |
 | The Crying Game – an IRA killer on the run, falls in love with a nightclub singer in this daring film with a killer twist | Director: Neil Jordan Cast: Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, Miranda Richardson |
 | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – a man grows old backwards in this whimsical shaggy dog story | Director: David Fincher Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson |
Movie Musings 