A landmark in the history of the cinema; it was ranked Number 1 in the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time in two polls (1998 and 2007) of more than 1,500 film industry movers and shakers and again by UK directors in a BFI poll. "Citizen Kane" narrates the rise and fall of a newspaper tycoon driven by a childhood obssession and is loosely based round the life of William Randolph Hurst, who tried to have it banned, but incorporates elements from the lives of other fat cats il find out more...

Texan rancher Bick Benedict visits a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse. Whilst there he meets and falls in love with the owner's daughter Leslie, they are married immediately and return to his ranch. The story of their family and its rivalry with cowboy and (later oil tycoon) Jett Rink unfolds across two generations. James Dean earned his second Oscar nomination in this tale of frustration and revenge, wealth and racial oppression in Texas. find out more...

The series (11 episodes) tells the story of the village of Schabbach, in the impoverished Hunsrueck hills in Germany through the years 1919-1982. The central character is Maria, at the beginning a teenage girl, by the end an elderly matriarch, and her family who, like the rest of the German people, live through the crises of 1920s, Nazism and eventual rebirth following WWII. Heimat is a superb cinematic chronicle of social and political change, beautifully shot and breathtaking in its depth and 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...

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...

Admirably sumptuous film version of Gunter Grass's epic surreal novel. Depicting German history through the eyes of three year old Oskar who decides, through sheer will-power, never to grow up. Bizarre, amusing and frequently grotesque this is deservedly acclaimed as a milestone in modern cinema. find out more...

Al Capone and the Chicago gangsters versus Elliot Ness and the incorruptable men of his special task force, all set against a brilliantly re-created period background. Very much a traditional gangster movie, good guys are very good and the bad guys, especialy De Niro as Capone, are very bad. find out more...