Atom Egoyan has created a world within a world, shifting between the contemporary and, through the making of a film about the events, the tragic genocidal slaughter of the Armenians in turn of the 20th Century Turkey. Ararat is a thoughtful and thought provoking drama of the highest order. find out more...

Adapted from the classic, absurdist, anti-war novel by Joseph Heller. "Catch-22" is the story of Yossarian, a pilot who trys to opt out of flying bombing missions by being declared insane, the catch being that anyone trying to avoid bombing missions by being insane must be sane. This dark classic catches much of the flavour of the book, the insanity, the corruption and the absurdity of war. Think MASH, but non-linear - flawed but awesome. find out more...

Elem Klimov's powerful, mesmerising and dynamic award winning feature has been deservedly hailed as one of the greatest war films ever produced. find out more...

A psychotic American commander worried about the subversive effects of water fluoridisation on his "vital bodily fluids" starts off an attack on the Soviet Union. No-one can stop the fighters and no-one, as yet, knows about the failsafe Doomsday Machine. Brilliant black comedy. find out more...

Cut off from the world by war, a small psychiatric hospital finds life relatively unchanged, that is until the staff desert it and the patients find themselves their own keepers. House of Fools is at times life affirmingly crazy and touchingly poignant. Though easy to draw comparisons with ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' this is not a story about the inadvertent fascism of an institutional ‘caring' beaurocracy but the dangers of an encroaching and largely ambivalent outside worl find out more...

A young American soldier is wounded by a shell in WWI, losing his arms, legs and eyes as well as his ability to hear, speak or smell. Lying in hospital he is barely able to distinguish if he is awake or dreaming and he relives his story in strange dreams and memories. One day Joe finds a way to communicate with the doctors ... find out more...

Part 2, and surely the greatest, of Wajda's trilogy describes the last days of the failed 1944 Warsaw uprising against the Nazis. The imagery of the sewers, to which the Polish fighters retreat, is superbly used to represent both their desperation and their new Soviet prison. Made in 1956 despite Stalinist censorship. find out more...

An acclaimed and gloriously visual epic that follows the life of Avik, a young half-Eskimo boy, in his search for love and identity. It takes him across continents, through the hell of war, and into a painful reunion with Aubertine, his childhood sweet-heart. Moving, beautiful and superbly filmed. find out more...

Three men are trapped in between their lines, two Bosnian and one Serb, while the beaurocracy of the UN peacekeeping force and the world's media rages around them. Tanovic's 'No Man's Land' is a masterfully dark satire on the absurdity of war, a film that manages to be genuinely funny and painfully sad while also allowing us an insight into the basic humanity but also idiocy and ingrained bigotry of those who hold the weapons. find out more...

Guillermo Del Toro's blockbusting tale of a young girl struggling to make sense of the violent world around her was a big 2006 arthouse hit. Continuing his exploration of the impact of the Spanish Civil War on his generation (it was also the backdrop for his excellent ghost story, The Devil's Backbone) Del Toro's fantasy mixes strong horror with fairytale-style aesthetics to great effect, making Ofelia's escape into an imaginary realm a poignant response to the cruel realities of her existence. find out more...