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...

David Lean's epic romance set against the turbulant backdrop of the Russian revolution. One man's struggle for moral political and personal survival amidst the complex web of intrigue and tangled loyalties that accompanied the fall of the Tsar.

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Phyllis Dietrichson is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who inspires in her nothing but contempt, but rather than leave him Phyllis decides to kill him and collect on the insurance policy she's had set up with the help of her lover, and naive partner in crime, insurance salesman Walter Neff. The only flaws in their plan are the company's reluctance to pay out so much, the diligence of Neff's increasingly suspicious colleague, (and his 'little man'), and the exemplary ruthlessness of Ph find out more...

Elmer Gantry is a man on a mission, a mission from God, but behind the raging sermons of fire and brimstone there lurks a man whose conscience has long ago deserted him. A hustler par excellence Elmer has no qualms about what he takes and who he may hurt, but when an old flame re-enters his life the carefully constructed world he has created starts to dramatically fall apart. Elmer Gantry is a powerhouse performance from Burt Lancaster who deservedly won an Oscar in a role of awesome intensit find out more...

 Frank Capra's classic bittersweet drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), a small town businessman who has long considered himself a failure. Things come to a head one Christmas Eve in 1946, when facing financial ruin and arrest he contemplates suicide. Standing on a bridge and ready to jump George's fate now rests in the hands of an Angel eager to earn his wings. It's a Wonderful Life is widely considered to be one of the finest films ever made, it is certainly one of the greatest f find out more...

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

Luchino Visconti's masterpiece of a society in transition follows the declining fortunes of the family of Prince Salina, a wealthy Sicilian landowner, during the war of unification in the 1860s. Superbly photographed, evocatively scored and wonderfully performed, the new transfer, with restored sound and picture, allows 'The Leopard' to be experienced in all its original, uncut glory. A true classic. find out more...

One of the finest of the genre, this classic western follows two men whose initial contempt for each other's methods, one a hard man rancher, the other a naively honest lawyer, develops into respect when faced with the the town's local hoodlum. Tense, absorbing and not without wit. Superb. find out more...

Laughton's only stab at directing, with Mitchum giving a stunning performance as the psychopathic preacher who, whilst in jail for a minor offence, hatches a devious plan to get his hands on the loot stashed by his condemned cell-mate. Set in '30s rural America, the film polarises into a struggle between good and evil for the souls of innocent children. Laughton's deliberately old-fashioned direction throws up a startling array of images: an amalgam of Mark Twain-like exteriors (idyllic riversid find out more...

Bergman's fascinating and acclaimed allegorical search for a meaning for human existance. A disillusioned soldier returns from the Crusades to find plague ravaging Europe. Death arrives in person to take his soul, but by beating him at chess he earns a reprieve. Repressive, dark, medieval and superb! find out more...