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...

Bobby Sands was the IRA member who led the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike as part of a campaign to achieve the status of political prisoners and not that of criminals. The first section of film deals with daily prison life, the 'dirty' protest and the violence, the second is a long discussion on the meaning of life with a sympathetic priest and the third depicts the last weeks and death of a man voluntarily dying of starvation. find out more...

Far more a portrait than a biopic this stunning film dissects the later years of Giulio Andreotti, a key player in Italian politics from the 70s through till today (he still sits in the Italian Senate (2009)), implicating him as the central instigator behind 'The Strategy of Tension', a policy that involved the murders of hundreds of innocent people, and blaming 'the left/Red Brigades' so as to allow the growth of an authoritarian state. Sorrentino fingers Andreotti for many political assassinat find out more...

A masterpiece of Soviet Socialist Realism. In 1547, Ivan IV (1530-1584), archduke of Moscow, crowns himself Tsar of Russia and sets about reclaiming lost Russian territory. In scenes of his coronation, his wedding to Anastasia, his campaign against the Tartars in Kazan, his illness when all think he will die, recovery, campaigns in the Baltic and Crimea, self-imposed exile in Alexandrov, and the petition of Muscovites that he return, his enemies among the boyars threaten his success. Chief among find out more...

Ivan takes on the boyars in a battle for power in the second part of Eisenstein's projected trilogy. This was not released till 1958 as Stalin sensed its critical nature, especially its depictation of the secret police. Eisenstein's untimely death robbed us of the chance to see the final part. A Classic. find out more...

Forget that this is a Scorsese movie, 'cos there's not a gangster or a grifter in sight. Stunningly shot, this is the visually breathtaking account of the early life of the 14th Dalai Lama, starting with his discovery by Buddhist monks in the northern Tibet of 1935. Meticulously detailed but well-paced, it's a rich, riveting movie with a powerfully haunting soundtrack from Philip Glass. find out more...

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In the mid-C19th William Walker operated out of Latin America as a soldier of fortune, but he was not merely a mercenary for hire, he was also a doctor, a lawyer and, most dangerous of all, an idealist. When Walker invaded Nicaragua, at the behest of robber baron Wanderbilt, he decided against handing the country over, instead declaring himself President, and sighting that America was obligated to "protect our neighbours from oppression". A glorious and bloody re-interpretation of history, ‘Walk find out more...