‘Jaws’ remains the definitive thriller about man vs. nature, and one of the best pure entertaining rides you'll ever have with a movie.

Girlhood's non-patronising and credible representation of class, race and gender is a rare and perceptive illustration of the intricacies of social inequality.

Director Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows is a truly unique coming-of-age film. It is intensely personal – no surprise, given that it is substantially autobiographical. 

Adapted from Lisa Genova’s 2007 novel of the same name, Still Alice is a very serious story beautifully told.

Based on the short experimental film ‘La Jetée’, it is a warning to those in power today not to forget that our children will inherit our mistakes. Director James Cameron has created a post-holocaust nightmare… set in A.D.2029, where brainy machines have crushed most of the human populace

 Henri-Georges Clouzot was a pivotal and divisive figure of Forties and Fifties French cinema, often referred to as ‘the French Hitchcock’ as he dealt in misanthropic, black-humoured tales of greed, jealousy, murder, immorality, and revenge. The films we also stinging critiques of bourgeois society and had an unflinching view of the sordid side of life…

'Contempt' was Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 attempt at a big-budget, big- star production, and more or less satisfied his curiosity. It was not the direction he wanted to move in, and the rest of his career can be seen, in a way, as a reaction to the experience. 

Comic genius Jacques Tati’s wonderful character and alter ego Monsieur Hulot first seen here in ‘Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot’ has deservedly became one of the finest comic creations of all time. 

‘Manon of the Spring’ moves with a majestic pacing over the affairs of four generations, demonstrating that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.

Clouzot has been endlessly accused of cruelly manipulating both his characters and audience and with Les Diabolques – a work of audacious trickery - he entirely reinvented the rules for mystery cinema. 

Director Jean Cocteau’s French classic (1946) is a magical masterpiece that casts a unique spell. This is simply poetry on screen and possibly the loveliest film ever made.

Jezebel is a movie just as concerned with the fate of a strong-willed woman in a rigid society as Gone With The Wind, but more harshly realistic about the ways society revenges itself.

This whimsical feel-good movie about a man who really wants to escape reality is jam-packed with innocence, acceptance and messages of individuality and living life without fear - a beautiful comedy or errors. ‘Harvey’s is one of cinema’s best-loved creations.

Birdman is consistently entertaining, thought-provoking, funny, and genuinely surreal – a remarkable achievement and a deserved Oscar success.

The unlikely collaboration between actor Robert Mitchum and actor turned Director Charles Laughton produced a slice of cinematic magic. Mitchum was a troublemaker – part myth and part reality – Laughton was a perfectionist – could this dynamic work? The film has now quite correctly become a cult classic

The pairing of William Powell and Myrna Loy spurned 16 films in all – six of which were as the lovely couple Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man films.

In many ways not a film about drumming at all but rather a psychological study; this is a truly gripping, fascinating and hugely entertaining movie…

Jean Renoir's effortless masterpiece – a satirical comedy Boudu Saved From Drowning, adapted from the play of the same name by René Fauchois, opened in France in 1932 and like most of Renoir’s films it deals in social commentary.

Director James Kent, whose background is in television drama and documentary here tells of a British woman’s coming of age during World War I using Vera Brittain’s autobiography as his source material and Juliette Towhidi (writer of Calendar Girls) has written this with drama and a heart.

Set in Belfast in 1971, debut director Yann Demange has taken the brave decision to look at the ‘troubles’ through the eyes of naïve soldier Gary Hook (Jack O'Connell), a young English recruit.