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...

The greatest movie ever made? A soldier is sent into the Heart of Darkness to retrieve a commander gone AWOL in an insane reality of tin-pot power, paranoia and inglorious killing. The horror of war is stripped naked in a surreal twilight world. The crew nearly went mad making it, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack and Coppola flew so far beyond budget that the word 'bankrupt' was nearly redefined. See "Heart of Darkness"... find out more...

The definitive 'Apocalypse Now' (as if the original wasn't pretty definitive) this has nearly an hour of extra footage fleshing out the surreal journey of our central protagonists and, though it brings the film to a whisker short of three and a half hours, much of it explains what happens to the eclectic characters we meet. The cut version of 'Apocalypse Now' stands as one of the most awesome films of modern cinema, anyone who has seen it will inevitably see it again, it's just that now you have 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...

Herzog's epic movie about a man's obsessive attempt to bring opera to the Indians living deep in the Peruvian jungle. To do this he must take a steamship/tub way up the Amazon river system, a monumental task, at one point involving transporting it over a not unconsiderable hill, with the help of a system of pulleys and massed Indian labour. A surreal comment on madness, power and vision. There is also a documentary, Burden of Dreams, about the notoriously fraught making of the film. find out more...

Cahit's life is on the rocks, his wife's dead, his job's collecting empties in a rock bar, his clothes are a mess and his flat is a garbage tip. He meets fellow third generation Turkish-German Sibel, who wishes nothing more than to escape the embraces of her deeply religious family, and who proposes a marriage of convenience. The film charts the long and tortuous relationship of these two self-destructive rock'n'rollers in a 'narcotically vivid love story'. More than just a movie. find out more...

The world as a lunatic asylum. Jack Nicholson plays the anarchist determined to challenge the smug system of authority and obedience that rule the roost. The first film by Czech dissident Forman after migrating from Czechoslovakia to the United States, and a superb comment on society! Won Best Picture plus others at 1975 Academy Awards. find out more...

Ran, Kurosawa's last great epic, is a Jidaigeki (Japanese period drama) depicting the fall of Hidetora Ichimonj, an ageing Sengoku-era warlord who abdicates as ruler in favor of his three sons. His kingdom slowly disintegrates as the sons struggle for power, murdering rivals and laying waste to the land, and Hidetora goes insane after watching his retainers slaughtered in an epic massacre, the centrepiece of the film. As the kingdom crumbles and rival warlords move in for the kill, the Ichimonji find out more...

It's the end of WW2 and highly strung Grace and her two photosensitive children are awaiting the return of her husband. Grace lives an isolated and twilght existence but after the arrival of three uninvited servants she becomes convinced that the house is haunted by malevolent spirits. The Others is a stylish, spooky, highly intelligent ghost story that builds up the tension without having to resort to blood and guts.

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Thinking it'll give him a chance to work on his novel, ex-school teacher Jack takes a job caretaking an isolated hotel with his family during the winter season. Soon the evil spirit of the place begins to take him over, leading to a truly shattering, horrific climax... it's redrum! find out more...