One night, while investigating strange noises, artist, Ku, meets the beautiful Yang, who is living in a reputedly haunted abandoned fort. She is being pursued by the Imperial police and Ku finds himself caught up in many fights in her struggle to survive. This historical epic, set in the Ming Dynasty is action adventure with a lyrical feel, a kung fu film with a strong spiritual element, a combination of both Chinese and Japanese legend that mixes fantasy with political intrigue - Zen Buddhism i 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...

The year is 1932 and the world of the aristocracy is drawing to an inevitable close, but in the house of Sir William McCordle such realities are forgotten for a weekend shooting party. As the eclectic mixture of guests arrive so the belly of the house also swells with various valets and personal servants; but as characters develop it becomes clear that some have neglected to know their place and before the weekend is out a murder has been committed. 'Gosford Park' is a quite stunning recreation find out more...

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...

The definitive gangster-epic; violent? Yes, but never mindless. The Jewish Mafia's coming of age on the Lower East Side in 1923, their rise to wealth during Prohibition, and their fall in 1933, provide the background to a story of friendship and betrayal, love and death. Leone's masterful cinematography evokes both the harshness of the vice-ridden decades before and after Prohibition, but also the philosophy behind it. Splendid performances by De Niro and Woods and a stupendous score by Ennio Mo find out more...

Leone's superb all-encompassing epic portraying the death of the mythical 'Wild West'. A superb cast, the collaborations of Bertolucci and Argento, and Morricone's brilliantly atmospheric score all add to the incredible style and weight of Leone's creation. A true cinematic masterpiece! A candidate for greatest movie ever made, if you haven't... then you must. find out more...

Set in medieval Kyoto, this is an engrossing tale of rape and murder in which contradictory accounts of events are later related from the perspectives of four of those involved. A film which awakened the West to the richness of Japanese cinema. find out more...

One of the finest of the genre, this classic western follows two men whose initial contempt for each other's methods, one a hard man rancher, the other a naively honest lawyer, develops into respect when faced with the the town's local hoodlum. Tense, absorbing and not without wit. Superb. 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...

Josey Wales is a peaceful Missouri farmer in the days near the end of the Civil War. After his home is burned and his family murdered, he hardens into a human bullet, dedicated to destroying the renegades who took his "life." He joins a band of unreconstructed rebel guerilla fighters, who continue to fight the Union even after the official surrender of the Confederacy, an action which makes them, legally, outlaws. Josey is driven by vengeance, but, after a while, that's not enough. Back before h find out more...