The story of a director, devoid of inspiration and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, trying to satisfy the anticipation surrounding his next project. Surreal, serio-comic mildly autobiographical and widely acclaimed as one of the great films about movie-making. Fellini's masterpiece. 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...

Resnais's controversial attempt at collaboration with avant garde author Alain Robbe-Grillet. The film sets up a puzzle that is never resolved, a man meets a woman in a rambling hotel and believes he may have had an affair with her the previous year at Marienbad - or did he? Or was it somewhere else? Deliberately scrambling chronology to the point where past, present and future become meaningless, Resnais creates a vaguely unsettling mood by means of stylish composition, long, smooth tracking sh find out more...

'La Jetee' is a milestone in cinematic history, and the inspiration behind Hollywood hit '12 Monkeys'. This classic sci-fi short takes one man on a terrifying journey from the post-apocalyptic world he inhabits, back to his childhood and his one distant memory; the face of a woman at the end of a pier. Stunning. find out more...

Cocteau re-works the Greek myth in contempory terms as Death, a beautiful woman, helps the poet Orpheus rescue his lover from hell. Imaginative, memorable, baffling and beautiful. One of the most poetic movies in the history of cinema. find out more...

The mythical "Colour of Pomegranates", the life of 18th century Armenian poet Sayat Nova, (included in Time Out's 100 greatest all time movie list), double-billed with the "Legend of the Suram Fortress", a Georgian myth about a young boy who saves the constantly crumbling Suram Fortress by allowing himself to be covered with earth and eggs and walled up alive. Eloquent images and obscure symbols constructed in striking tableaux vivants, emblematic gestures or formalised movement. Beautiful, surr find out more...

Using the framing story of a man who discovers how to craft and sell dreams to a series of anxious clients, Richter allotted each dream (seven in all) to various Surrealists/Dadaists; Max Ernst, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder amongst others. For four decades one of the most influential members of the cinematic avant-garde Hans Richter's ‘Dreams That Money Can Buy', shot for just $25,000, went on to win the Venice Film Festival Award for the best original contribution to the progres find out more...

"Thief, if you don't want to die, kill your money !" find out more...

Bergman's fascinating and acclaimed allegorical search for a meaning for human existance. A disillusioned soldier returns from the Crusades to find plague ravaging Europe. Death arrives in person to take his soul, but by beating him at chess he earns a reprieve. Repressive, dark, medieval and superb! find out more...

Bunuel and Dali's early creation that caused both a public furore and critical rapture on release. Only 17 minutes long, it is a paean to surrealism, from the opening shot of a woman's eyeball being cut by a razor, with donkeys on pianos, a swarm of ants, underarm hair, a striped box, all addressing each other opaquely and with everything symbolising something else. Shock value, and some remarkable ideas! find out more...