N

	The Name of the Rose – a polymath monk investigates murders in a medieval abbey.	Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud Cast: Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, Christian Slater
	Nashville – lives intersect in the city of Nashville over one long weekend. Possibly Altman’s masterpiece.	Director: Robert Altman Cast: Ronee Blakely, Keith Carradine, Lily Tomlin
	Nebraska – an elderly man is convinced he’s won a lottery, so his son agrees to drive him cross country to ‘collect’	Director: Alexander Payne Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb
	Network – ahead-of-its-time media satire, as a TV anchorman loses his mind on and the Network turns him into a “mad prophet”	Director: Sidney Lumet Cast: Peter Finch, William Holden, Faye Dunaway
	Never Look Away – fictionalised biography of Gerard Richter, torn between East and West Germany	Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Cast: Tom Schilling, Sebastian Kock, Paula Beer
	The Next Three Days – a desperate husband risks everything to break his innocent wife out of prison	Director: Paul Haggis Cast: Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Brian Dennehy
	Nicholas and Alexandria – grand biopic of the last Tsar and his wife, a film I grew up watching and have no end of affection for	Director: Franklin J Schaffner Cast: Michael Jayston, Janet Suzman, Laurence Olivier
	Nightmare Alley – a mesmerist is tempted into dark schemes that corrupt him further	Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara
	Nightwatching – a dramatic exploration of the Rembrandt painting, part bizarre conspiracy theory, part art lecture	Director: Peter Greenaway Cast: Martin Freeman, Eva Birthistle, Johdi May
	Nil by Mouth – punishingly raw and shocking marital abuse drama, at times incredibly difficult to watch	Director: Gary Oldman Cast: Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles
	1984 – Orwell adaptation, dripping with dystopian oppression and post-industrial gloom with Hurt perfectly cast	Director: Michael Radford Cast: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton
	1917 – two soldiers are sent with a vital message to save lives in this stylish war film, showily shot in long takes	Director: Sam Mendes Cast: George Mackay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Colin Firth
	Nixon – Oliver Stone makes a surprisingly sympathetic biopic on America’s most infamous President	Director: Oliver Stone Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, James Woods
	No Country for Old Men – Best Picture winning nihilistic thriller; a man finds a suitcase of money, chased by a ruthless hitman	Director: The Coen Brothers Cast: Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones
	No Time to Die – final Craig Bond, a mixed bag of action, world-building and self-importance, way too long	Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga Cast: Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Rami Malek
	Noah – bizarre, imaginative and unique Biblical epic – for all its flaws it does something different	Director: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone
	Nocturnal Animals – a woman reads her ex-husbands horrific book and it leads her to question her life	Director: Tom Ford Cast: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon
	Nomadland – a woman moves from job-to-job in this soulful and poetic Best Picture winner	Director: Chloé Zhao Cast: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn
	Nope – horror, science fiction and media satire combine in Peele’s distinctive but not always satisfying film	Director: Jordan Peele Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun
	North by Northwest – simply the best of all of Hitchcock’s US adventures: Grant is mistaken for a spy and goes on the run	Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
	The Northman – a Viking warrior goes out for blood-soaked revenge in this distinctive twist on Hamlet	Director: Robert Eggers Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy
	Nosferatu – a mysterious vampire travels to a German town in Murnau’s genre-defining masterpiece (that definitely isn’t Dracula)	Director: FW Murnau Cast: Max Schreck, Gustav van Wangenheim, Greta Schroder
	Notes on a Scandal – a teacher has an affair with a student – putting her in the power of a woman obsessed with her	Director: Richard Eyre Cast: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy
	Now, Voyager – a woman escapes her domineering mother and falls in love with a married man during a cruise	Director: Irving Rapper Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
	Now You See Me – a gang of magicians are recruited by a secret organisation for an unknown purpose	Director: Louis Letterier Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson
	The Nun’s Story – biography of a Belgian nun in the first half of the twentieth century, quiet but moving	Director: Fred Zinnemann Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Peter Finch, Edith Evans

O

	Oblivion – the last two people on Earth find that they are part of a terrible wider secret in this ambitious sci-fi	Director: Joseph Kosinski Cast: Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko
	Odd Man Out – Gripping man on the run drama, told with a dreamlike intensity	Director: Carol Reed Cast: James Mason, Kathleen Ryan, Robert Newton
	Odds Against Tomorrow – a foolproof plan falls apart as robbers fall out over racial tensions	Director: Robert Wise Cast: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Ed Begley
	The Odessa File – a German journalist goes undercover to find a secret escape route for Nazis	Director: Ronald Neame Cast: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell, Maria Schell
	An Officer and a Gentleman – a naval candidate learns to be a better man in this kitchen-sink drama masquerading as romance	Director: Taylor Hackford Cast: Richard Gere, Debra Winger, Louis Gossett Jnr
	Oliver! – Best Picture winning musical, sickly sweet and lousy Dickens adaptation, crammed with a total lack of imagination	Director: Carol Reed Cast: Ron Moody, Mark Lester, Jack Wild
	On Chesil Beach – a newly married couple in 60s Britain has a disastrous wedding night that shatters their marriage	Director: Dominic Cooke Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Billy Howle, Emily Watson, Samuel West
	On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – the purist’s James Bond, hampered by having George Lazenby in it	Director: Peter R Hunt Cast: George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas
	On the Basis of Sex – biopic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg which is earnest but traditional	Director: Mimi Leder Cast: Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux
	On the Rocks – a father ‘helps’ his daughter investigate her husband’s possible infidelity	Director: Sofia Coppola Cast: Bill Murray, Rashida Jones, Marlon Wayans, Jessica Henwick
	On the Waterfront – Best Picture winning whistle-blower drama, a wonderful film with some of the greatest scenes in history	Director: Elia Kazan Cast: Marlon Brando, Eva Maria Saint, Karl Malden
	Once Upon a Time in America – Leone’s Godfather riff, a poetic, operatic coming-of-age tale of kids who become gangsters	Director: Sergio Leone Cast: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern
	Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – perverse revenge fantasia on the death of Sharon Tate, a dreadful film	Director: Quentin Tarantino Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie
	Once Upon a Time in the West – magnificently overblown Spaghetti Western, full of long stares and great music	8Director: Sergio Leone Cast: Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson
	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Best Picture masterpiece as a criminal clashes with a stern matron in an asylum	Director: Milos Forman Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif
	127 Hours – a rock climber falls and his arm is trapped; to escape he must make a terrible choice	Director: Danny Boyle Cast: James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn
	One Night in Miami – Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown share thoughts one night	Director: Regina King Cast: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Leslie Odom Jnr, Eli Goree, Aldris Hodge
	Operation Mincemeat – failed wartime spy drama, bogged down in fake details and a love triangle	Director: John Madden Cast: Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, Kelly Macdonald
	Ordinary People – Best Picture winning exploration of grief as a family struggles to overcome the suicide of its oldest son	Director: Robert Redford Cast: Mary Taylor Moore, Donald Sutherland, Timothy Hutton
	Orphée – a poet falls in love with Death in this magic realism masterpiece	Director: Jean Cocteau Cast: Jean Marais, François Périer, María Casares
	Othello – traditional version of Shakespeare, lacking in inspiration	Director: Oliver Parker Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Kenneth Branagh, Irène Jacob
	Our Kind of Traitor – middle ranking Le Carré adaptation, as a Russian works with a writer to ease his defection	Director: Susanna White Cast: Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgård, Damian Lewis
	Out of Africa – Best Picture winner, all show and no depth. A Danish farmer in Africa falls in love with a British adventurer	Director: Sydney Pollack Cast: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer
	Outlaw King – Robert the Bruce picks up the battle against Edward I to get Scotland its freedom	Director: David Mackenzie Cast: Chris Pine, Florence Pugh, Stephen Dillane
	The Ox Bow Incident – Fonda struggles to swing the ‘jury’ in this brilliant lynching drama	Director: William A. Wellman Cast: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Harry Morgan

P

	Pacific Rim – when giant monsters attack the Earth, mankind builds giant machines to fight them. Perfect B-movie silliness	Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi
	Paddington – adorable, perfectly pitched, adaptation of the beloved childhood classic – the sweetest bear you’ll ever see	Director: Paul King Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins
	Pain & Glory – a famed director who hasn’t worked for years reflects on his childhood. Biographical fantasia	Director: Pedro Almodóvar Cast: Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Nora Nacas
	Panic in the Streets – a cop has to stop a deadly plague being unleashed in this exciting realist drama	Director: Elia Kazan Cast: Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara bel Geddes
	The Parallax View – a young journalist goes down a conspiracy rabbit hole, up against forces he can’t control	Director: Alan J Pakula Cast: Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, Hume Cronyn
	Parasite – Best Picture winner, a poor Korean family, worms their way into the lives of a rich one. Brilliant class drama	Director: Bong Joon-Ho Cast: Song Kang-Ho, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam
	Parenthood – a multi-generational family faces all sorts of troubles in this warm and witty comedy drama	Director: Ron Howard Cast: Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest
	A Passage to India – Lean’s handsome Forster adaptation as a Raj woman accuses an Indian doctor of rape – is it true?	Director: David Lean Cast: Judy Davis, Victor Bannerjee, Peggy Ashcroft
	The Passenger – a man steals a dead mans identity, then gets in trouble when he tries to follow in his footsteps	Director: Michelangelo Antonioni Cast: Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Ian Hendry
	Passengers – on a spaceship, a lonely passenger wakes another woman from hypersleep	Director: Morten Tyldum Cast: Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence
	The Passion of Joan of Arc – Dreyer’s searing passion play on the trial of the French saint, shot in glorious, searching close-up	Director: Carl Dreyer Cast: Renée Jeanne Falconetti, Eugène Silvain, André Berley
	Paths of Glory – after a doomed attack, a WW1 French colonel is ordered to choose three to be tried for cowardice	Director: Stanley Kubrick Cast: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou
	Patton – Best Picture winning biopic, very overlooked with a breathtakingly brilliant, transformative performance by Scott	Director: Franklin J Schaffner Cast: George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Bates
	Pawn Sacrifice – misfiring Bobby Fischer biopic that pulls all its punches and checkmates itself	Director: Edward Zwick Cast: Tobey Maguire, Liev Schreiber, Peter Sarsgaard
	The Pawnbroker – hugely depressing drama about a Holocaust survivor, now living in New York, still crushed with guilt	Director: Sidney Lumet Cast: Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters
	The Peacemaker – totally routine “nuclear crisis” film, as mismatched agents hunt a missing bomb	Director: Mimi Leder Cast: George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Marcel Iureş
	The Personal History of David Copperfield – adaptation that focuses more on the comedy than the heart of the novel	Director: Armando Iannucci Cast: Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi
	Peterloo – Leigh’s impassioned, but slightly dry, history lesson on the famous massacre	Director: Mike Leigh Cast: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Pearce Quigley
	Peyton Place – murder and (off-screen) sex but definitely no cuss words in this ridiculous but entertaining soapy drama	Director: Mark Robson Cast: Lana Turner, Diane Varsi, Hope Lange
	Phantom Thread – in 50s Britain, an iconic dress designer marries an assistant – and the two form an unusual partnership	Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville
	The Philadelphia Story – Hepburn saves her career in this brilliant remarriage comedy	Director: George Cukor Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart
	Philomena – an old woman, whose baby was taken from her in her 20s, asks a journalist’s help to track him down	Director: Stephen Frears Cast: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Michelle Fairley
	The Pianist – hugely moving Holocaust drama as a Polish pianist survives the Ghetto	Director: Roman Polanski Cast: Adrien Brody, Emilia Fox, Thomas Kreschmann
	Pickpocket – a thief is convinced he is a superman, in Bresson’s subtle parable about temptation and the possibility of redemption	Director: Robert Bresson Cast: Martin Lasalle, Marika Green, Jean Pelegri
	Pickup on South Street – a thief picks the wrong pocket in this spy thriller	Director: Samuel Fuller Cast: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter
	Picnic – a sexy new arrival in town leads to no end of trouble bubbling to the surface, in this dry Broadway adaptation	Director: Joshua Logan Cast: William Holden, Kim Novak, Rosalind Russell
	Picnic at Hanging Rock – a series of disappearances take place in an Australian all girls school, in this ghostly masterpiece	Director: Peter Weir Cast: Rachel Roberts, Anne-Louise Lambert, Dominic Guard
	Platoon – Best Picture winning semi-autobiographical Vietnam war film, based on Stone’s own experiences	Director: Oliver Stone Cast: Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger
	The Player – vicious Hollywood satire, as a Producer kills a writer and desperately tries to get away with it	Director: Robert Altman Cast: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Whoopi Goldberg
	Plenty – dry theatre adaptation: a female SOE agent finds post-war life dull and oppressive when she returns home	Director: Fred Schepisi Cast: Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, Sam Neill, John Gielgud
	Portrait of a Lady on Fire – beautiful lesbian drama, as a painter arrives to paint the daughter of a countess	Director: Céline Sciamma Cast: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami
	Poseidon – predictable remake that adds nothing to the original	Director: Wolfgang Petersen Cast: Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum,
	The Poseidon Adventure – a cruise liner flips over at sea and the survivors launch a thousand enjoyable disaster film clichés	Director: Ronald Neame Cast: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters
	The Post – the Washington Post carefully weighs their decision about whether to publish the Pentagon Papers	Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson
	Il Postino – sentimental fable about a postman who idolises a Chilean poet in 1950s Italy. Comforting viewing	Director: Michael Radford Cast: Massimo Troisi, Philippe Noiret, Maria Grazia Cucinotta
	The Power of the Dog – thought-provoking, challenging but engrossing drama about a bullying rancher with a secret	Director: Jane Campion Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee
	Pretty Woman – landmark romantic comedy as a businessman falls in love with a hooker.	Director: Garry Marshall Cast: Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, Ralph Bellamy
	Pride and Prejudice – oddly costumed and strangely adapted Austen classic	Director: Robert Z Leonard Cast: Laurence Olivier, Greer Garson, Mary Boland
	Pride and Prejudice – decent but sometimes rather obvious adaptation of Austen	Director: Joe Wright Cast: Keira Knightley, Matthew MacFadyen, Donald Sutherland
	Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – crap film based on a gag gift that does what it says on the tin	Director: Burr Steers Cast: Lily James, Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Matt Smith
	Primal Fear – a hotshot lawyer defends a choir boy with a split personality disorder accused of murder	Director: Gregory Hoblit Cast: Richard Gere, Edward Norton, Laura Linney
	Primary Colors – satirical political drama about the Clinton election campaign	Director: Mike Nichols Cast: John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Adrian Lester
	The Prince of Egypt – luscious animated version of the Moses story	Director: Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, Simon Wells Cast: Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer
	The Prince of Tides – a confident sports coach conceals past trauma in this rich, romantic tear-jerker	Director: Barbra Streisand Cast: Nick Nolte, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner
	The Private Life of Henry VIII – Laughton establishes the public idea of the Merrie Monarch in this early Carry on Henry	Director: Alexander Korda Charles Laughton, Robert Donat, Merle Oberon
	The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes – the purist’s Holmes film of choice, a wonderfully witty deconstruction of the detective	Director: Billy Wilder Cast: Robert Stephens, Colin Blakely, Genevieve Page
	The Program – underwhelming biopic of Lance Armstrong’s rise to the top of cycling, on the back of drugs cheating	Director: Stephen Frears Cast: Ben Foster, Chris O’Dowd, Jesse Plemons
	Promising Young Woman – a young woman provokes men to try and date rape her, to expose their vileness	Director: Emerald Fennell Cast: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown
	The Proposition – dark and violent Aussie western: a man is forced to hunt down his brother, a ruthless killer	Director: John Hillcoat Cast: Guy Pearce, Danny Huston, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson
	Psycho – iconic murder mystery/horror film with the scariest shower scene ever	Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles
	Public Enemies – hyper-realistic biopic of John Dillinger and the FBI agent tracking him down	Director: Michael Mann Cast: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard
	The Public Enemy – iconic Cagney gangster film with the famous grapefruit scene, still rather exciting	Director: William A Wellman Cast: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods
	The Pumpkin Eater – an unhappy novelist struggles to deal with her husband’s infidelity and hold her family together	Director: Jack Clayton Cast: Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason
	Pygmalion – classic adaptation of Shaw’s best known play	Director: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard Cast: Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson

Q

	Quai des Brumes – French romantic gangster tragedy in a seedy docklands	Director: Marcel Carné Cast: Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan
	The Queen – the crown hangs in the balance in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana	Director: Stephen Frears Cast: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell
	Queen and Slim – after accidentally killing a cop after an illegal search, a couple go on the run	Director: Melina Matsoukas Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Bokeem Woodbine
	The Quiet Girl – stunning, low-key but very moving drama as an unloved child finds care for the first time	Director: Colm Bairéad Cast: Catherine Clinch, Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett
	The Quiet Man – an ex-boxer returns home to Ireland to fall in love and try and put his past behind him in this romantic fable	Director: John Ford Cast: John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Victor McLaglen
	A Quiet Place – after an alien attack, even the slightest noise can alert them to where the survivors are	Director: John Krasinski Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds
	Quiz Show – Redford’s best film: quiz show scandal from the 50s, when telegenic contestants were given the answers	Director: Robert Redford Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Rob Morrow, John Turturro, Paul Scofield
	Quo Vadis – one of the first Roman epics, lots of Christian talk even more action and sex	Director: Mervyn LeRoy Cast: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Peter Ustinov