In the build-up to the 1972 US elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward investigated what seemed to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters, the editor of the Post was prepared to run with the story and assigned Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. Their painstaking research found the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party and, eventually, into the White House itself and led to the downfall of Nixon. An intelligent and exciting dramatic reconstruction.< find out more...

Polanski has a go at the film noir detective thriller, very bleak, very twisted and very menacing it is to. Nicholson plays a private-eye in pre-war LA who is hired to pursue an adultery case, but finds himself embroiled in a complicated murder investigation. find out more...

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...

PC Nicholas Angel is the best of the best, in fact he's so damn good he's making his fellow Metropolitan colleagues look inept, there's only one answer, ship him off to a sleepy West Country village. It soon becomes clear however that the market town of Sandford is a den of genteel psychotics, the number of ‘accidental' deaths reaching a frenzy that even Midsomer Norton would deem preposterous. It's time for PC Angel to take it up a gear and along for the ride is his immensely keen but dim witte find out more...

Stunning adaptation of James Ellroy's stylishly sinister 50s crime novel, cruelly robbed of its just desserts by a sinking ship at the Academy Awards farce. An awesomely authentic 1953 Los Angeles provides the backdrop, while the story focuses on a dodgy trio of LA's not-so-finest, united by mutual loathing, and all up to their necks in nefarious goings-on. Kim Basinger deservedly bagged the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her sultry Veronica Lake lookalike hooker, but all the performances are find out more...

Detective Leon Zat is assigned the case of a woman who has disappeared, but the further he delves the more complicated things become and the more people appear to be involved. The web of deceit seems to revolve around infidelity and the deeper Leon delves the more his trawl through humanity begins to affect his own personal world. Lantana is a grippingly intelligent psychological thriller, superbly performed and hypnotically atmospheric. find out more...

A cracking Coen brothers caper with an absolutely magnificent Jeff Bridges as ageing hippy, Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski, happily bumbling through life, which in his case means getting stoned and hanging out at the bowling alley, until his peaceful existence is rudely interrupted by a couple of bungling crooks who visit his apartment late one night and pee on his rug. Realising he's been mistaken for his crippled, millionaire namesake, Jeff visits the real intended victim seeking compensation for th find out more...

The original and best version of the detective thriller classic. Philip Marlowe is hired to investigate the gambling debts of a rich man's daughter, but is plunged into a twilight world of intrigue, blackmail and violence. Stylish and gripping. find out more...

Tense mystery thriller with Gene Hackman as an ace surveillance expert who begins to question the morality of his own work. Listening in on a young couple during an apparently routine job, he realises he's involved in something far more sinister than he thought. Gripping and thought provoking. find out more...

This is, along with Hawks' The Big Sleep, easily the most intelligent of all screen adaptations of Chandler's work. Altman in fact stays pretty close to the novel's basic narrative (though there are a couple of crucial changes), but where he comes up with something totally original is in his ironic updating of the story and characters: Gould's Marlowe is a laid-back, shambling slob who, despite his incessant claim that everything is 'OK with me,' actually harbours the same honourable ideals as C find out more...