1999 and Sierra Leone is in the midst of civil war, the rebels infamously using an army of indoctrinated children to do their genocidal work. In the midst of this bloodshed two unlikely men are drawn together, one a desperate father whose son has become a rebel soldier, the other a self-serving white Rhodesian mercenary in search of an immense uncut diamond. The two are bound together by their wildly divergent, but inextricably linked, quests and it is here that the action of the film lies as th find out more...

Peter Yates' Oscar-winner is a heart-warming coming-of-age story that has also taken its place as the greatest sports movie about cycling ever made. Four friends graduate from high-school and find themselves looking at an uncertain future in small-town America. Dave's passion is cycling and his dream is to be a world-class champion like the Italians he idolises. His passion for cycling takes on new meaning when he and his friends face a team from the local college in the town's annual bike ra find out more...

A landmark in the history of the cinema; it was ranked Number 1 in the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time in two polls (1998 and 2007) of more than 1,500 film industry movers and shakers and again by UK directors in a BFI poll. "Citizen Kane" narrates the rise and fall of a newspaper tycoon driven by a childhood obssession and is loosely based round the life of William Randolph Hurst, who tried to have it banned, but incorporates elements from the lives of other fat cats il find out more...

Goodnight And Good Luck takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950s America, chronicling the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy, head of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Murrow, his news team and, indeed, CBS itself made a defiant and impassioned stand against McCarthy's increasingly delusional, corrupt and fear-fueled rants and this, George Clooney's second turn in the director's chair, is a beautifully suc find out more...

For those of you not in the know this is a brilliant satire on a bunch of totally cynical New Labour twats, incompetent elected officials and a bunch of muddling bureaucrats. Capaldi is superb, as the PM's foul mouthed attack dog enforcer (Alistair Campbell), as our politicians conspire with both hawks and doves in Washington in the fumbling build-up to a major war to grab oil in the Middle East. find out more...

An intelligent, thoughtful, highly engaging biopic of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco based idealist, who became the first openly gay activist to run for political office in the US. Before his assassination Milk was a leading cog in the battle for civil rights for the gay community, as in the 1978 fight against Proposition 6, which could have banned gay and lesbian individuals from teaching in schools. The story may have been a terriby tragedy, but the tone of the movie is upbeat and vibrant, Gus find out more...

Guillermo Del Toro's blockbusting tale of a young girl struggling to make sense of the violent world around her was a big 2006 arthouse hit. Continuing his exploration of the impact of the Spanish Civil War on his generation (it was also the backdrop for his excellent ghost story, The Devil's Backbone) Del Toro's fantasy mixes strong horror with fairytale-style aesthetics to great effect, making Ofelia's escape into an imaginary realm a poignant response to the cruel realities of her existence. find out more...

Said and Khaled are good friends living in the war torn West Bank, they are also freedom fighters and have just been given the honoured, if unenviable, task of conducting a suicide mission in the heart of Tel Aviv. Remarkably, given the subject matter, Paradise Now retains a certain, if admittedly surreal, normality throughout much of the film and, though dark, there is a realistic, if doom-laden, vein of humour, even a whiff of romance. Director Hany Abu-Assad provides a welcome and much needed find out more...

South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker offend everyone from the neo-conservative Bush administration to the Hollywood liberal mouthpieces as they set about defending the world from villains, despots and anyone else who offends their gung-ho sensibilities. So it's goodbye to the reds, the mullahs and the bleeding heart liberals – bye-bye Paris, bye-bye the Pyramids, and bye-bye WMD toting Arabs. Team America is a work of utterly over the top genius, crass, tacky, neon-lit, pom-pom-waving find out more...

It's 1980s East Germany and our anti-hero, an accomplished surveillance officer, is ordered to spy on a successful and outwardly loyal playwright and his actress girlfriend, but the motive is not entirely political, involving the lust for the girl of a political commissar and the career prospects of his immediate superior. The Stasi officer is dragged into the Kafkaesque web created by this moral duplicity in this compelling and twisting tale. First class. find out more...