"I am dying in time to the splash of their oars - if arms as steady as these had embraced me in life...". This film is Jarman's vision of the life of the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573 - 1610). Caravaggio revisits periods of his tempestuous life in a series of deathbed flashbacks and prose-poem voice-overs, focusing particularly on the intense relationship between himself and a couple who model for him in Rome, Lena and Ranuccio. This sexual and violent love triangle eve find out more...

Truffaut's much-admired portrait of a twenty year menage a trois that has Moreau playing the enchanting Catherine in one of her finest film roles. She holds her two boyfriends in thrall, as their relationship develops over the years. Worth watching for the inimitable style and panache alone! find out more...

This masterpiece is understandably on many people's all time favourite list. The lives of six Parisians are intertwined against the backdrop of the early-19th Century popular theatre and underworld, with the film a multi-layered meditation on the nature of performance. Flawlessly executed and cast. find out more...

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It's 1929 on America's East coast. In an unnamed city, Leo and his right hand man Tom run the show unchallenged, but their friendship is threatened when they fall for the same girl and a bloody struggle for power erupts among their fellow gangsters. Classy, witty, violent and utterly brilliant. find out more...

A truly remarkable adaptation of Woolf's novel. Tilda Swanton is enthralling as the androgenous and ageless Orlando seeking love in a 400 year odyssey; from the finery of Elizabeth the First's court, through the Civil War, the early colonial period, the literary salons of 1750, by which time Orlando is a woman, the Victorian era of property, and finally to the present day. Potter's direction adds a marvellous period feel. Superb, this is a magical story . find out more...

In 1930s North China, a young girl is given to a 50-year-old leper in exchange for a mule, but as she's carried to him through the wilderness she is saved from bandits by a handsome young peasant. Later the leper mysteriously dies and the peasant returns and the pair settle down to make the traditional red sorghum wine. The film shifts from fable to realism when Japanese troops invade the area, destroying the fields with forced labour from the vineyard until the workers revolt against them. find out more...

Jane Campion's outstanding and acclaimed dramatic masterpiece. Hunter turns in an incredible performance as the mute Ada, sold into a marriage with Neill. Her piano is her voice and she must earn it back from Baines, key by key, in a moving emotional bargain. Stunning - the best film of the year. find out more...

One of the all-time classic film noirs. Sultry Lana Turner is hypnotic as the bored, beautiful wife whose dreary life takes a dramatic turn when enigmatic drifter Frank walks into the diner she runs. Only her good-natured husband stands in the way of the pair's deadly passion. Superb stuff. find out more...

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is on his deathbed; looking at photographs brings memories of his childhood, his youth, his lovers and the way the Great War put an end to a stratum of society. His memories are in no particular order, they move back and forth in time. Marcel at various ages interacts with Odette, with the beautiful Gilberte and her doomed husband, with the pleasure seeking Baron de Charlus, with Marcel's lover Albertine, and with others; present also in memory are Marcel's beloved moth find out more...