1560, Peru. In a beautiful poetic opening scene the conquistadors cross an Andes pass, situated between the peaks and the valleys, between conquered land and unexplored forests, between 'heaven' and 'earth', shrouded in mists, they make their way down a narrow path. Aguirre's meglomania grows as around him his comrades mutiny and die in his search for the lost city of El Dorado. Herzog's best film, an unforgetable tour de force. Made before the director himself gave in to meglomania on a later t find out more...

Babette is a refugee from Paris who flees to a small ultrapuritan Danish community to work as a cook. Their only diet is one of ale-bread and fish soup, so when she offers to prepare a feast they are determined not to enjoy it. Oscar winning film whose style changes to fit the mood of the plot. find out more...

A beautiful and elegantly simple film about the life and works of Francesco Di Assisi, founder of a religious order that expressed Christianity in a form devoid of materialism but rich in compassion; a faith that the orthodox church, by the time of Francesco's birth in the late 12th century, had long dispensed with. Neorealistic in style and obviously close to Rossellini's heart, this is now acknowledged as one of his greatest masterpieces. 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...

In the 17th Century a group of nuns claimed to be possessed by the devil with Joan, the convent head, leading the possession stakes with at least 8 demons on her slate. An innocent young priest, the latest in a long line sent to investigate, is going to have to go to hell and back to save her soul. Chronologically the film acts as a sequel to Ken Russell's 1971 shocker 'The Devils', and if you've seen that you'll know what a lying bitch Joan is. Superb black and white photography gives an expres find out more...

Astonishingly rich and beautiful film, rightly acclaimed as one of the finest examples of Chinese cinema. A young girl becomes the fourth wife of a powerful clan chief and finds that life revolves around the jealousies of her rivals. A poignant study of one woman's fate under feudalism. find out more...

An atmospheric medieval allegory for which Bergman won his first Oscar and International Critics Prize at Cannes. On her way to church, a 15-year-old peasant girl is raped and murdered by two goatherds. Later, in a bizarre twist of fate, the culprits ask for food and shelter at the house of the dead girl's parents. Discovering the truth, when the goatherds offer to sell them their dead daughter's bloodstained clothes, the parents exact a brutal revenge. The formal simplicity and overt symbolism, find out more...

1913; a strict Protestant village in northern Germany and the locals are plagued by a series of malevolences; a farmer's wife falls through rotten floorboards, a wire placed at knee-height has brought down the the doctor's horse, a window is opened exposing a newborn baby to the cold of the winter, cabbages are beheaded with a scythe, one of the Baron's sons is discovered bound and lashed by a whip, a barn is set on fire, a farmer hangs himself, a handicapped child is found tied to a tree with a find out more...