An all time classic 60s movie glamourising the real life story of the Barrow gang who terrorised the American South in the early 30s. 'Reclaiming the American gangster movie, after it had been stolen by the Nouvelle Vague, Penn's film was so successful (and so imitated) that it inevitably met with some grudging devaluation. But it's still great, half comic fairytale, half brutal fact, it reflects the essential ambiguity of its heroes by treading a no man's land suspended between reality and fant 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...

Grace is on the run, and in the small backwater town of Dogville it would seem she has found some safety. But the town's inhabitants are not so understanding when the Mob turn up looking for the errant outsider and as Grace's former saviours begin to turn against her she sets in motion a string of events that may leave the townsfolk of Dogville rueing the day she ever entered their lives. Dogville is the latest from the master of mainstream experimental, Lars Von Trier, a dark, hypnotic, visuall 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...

Crusading frontier policeman Captain Stanley captures the fugitive Burns brothers, Charley and Mikey, at the scene of a bloody rape and murder. Informing Charley that he must kill his older brother, Arthur, in order to avoid the execution of Mikey, Stanley retreats to an old jailhouse and awaits the bloody outcome. Director John Hillcoat's second collaboration with Nick Cave (here contributing the film's screenplay and soundtrack), is a taut and often brutal character study of desperation ami find out more...

A veteran samurai, who has fallen on hard times, answers a village's request for protection from bandits. He gathers 6 other samurai to help him and they teach the townspeople how to defend themselves in return for three small meals a day. The film culminates in a giant battle when 40 bandits attack the village. Considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made and the inspiration for "The Magnificent Seven", to be enjoyed both by film buffs and action fans. find out more...