La Notte (1961)

Recommended

Italy/France
Feature Film
Original Title: La notte
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers: Michelangelo Antonioni, Ennio Flaiano, Tonino Guerra
Cinematographer: Gianni Di Venanzo
Composer: Giorgio Gaslini
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti, Bernhard Wicki, Vincenzo Corbella

Antonioni’s exquisitely idiosyncratic and rather melancholy mise en scène, along with a pair of wonderful performances from Moreau and the never-lovelier Vitti, ensure that this examination of the listlessness and directionlessness of members of the ennui-ridden upper class is vital if not exactly cheery viewing material. Iain.Stott

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Wilt (1989)

Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Director: Michael Tuchner
Writers: Andrew Marshall, David Renwick, Tom Sharpe
Cinematographer: Norman G. Langley
Composer: Anne Dudley
Cast: Griff Rhys Jones, Mel Smith, Alison Steadman, Diana Quick, Jeremy Clyde, Roger Allam, David Ryall, Roger Lloyd-Pack

This frequently funny farce, depicting the misadventures of Henry Wilt, a henpecked college lecturer accused of the murder of his wife, is, thanks in the main to Griff Rhys Jones’s excellent performance, a thoroughly enjoyable if mildly (relatively) disappointing adaptation of Sharpe’s hilarious novel. Iain.Stott

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They Were Expendable (1945)

Best Avoided

USA
Feature Film
Director: John Ford
Writers: Frank Wead, William L. White
Cinematographer: Joseph H. August
Composer: Herbert Stothart
Cast: Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, Donna Reed, Jack Holt, Ward Bond, Marshall Thompson, Paul Langton, Leon Ames, Arthur Walsh

Ford’s insultingly noble war film is a well made but rather incredible tale, which manages to capture only the smallest traces of human nature, depicting a war in which lives are taken and lost without pain, grief, guilt, or fear; his is a morally certain world in which killing foreigners is only bettered by dying for one’s country – flag-wavingly depressing. Iain.Stott

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A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Essential Viewing

UK

Feature Film
Writer/Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Cinematography: Jack Cardiff
Composer: Allan Gray
Cast: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Marius Goring, Raymond Massey, Abraham Sofaer, Richard Attenborough

David Niven’s Second World War pilot literally cheats death and, as a result, a grand heavenly trial is organised to decide upon his fate. in Powell and Pressburger’s bewitching classic, a beautifully acted, visually ravishing fantasy, which only gets better with age. Iain.Stott

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A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Highly Recommended

UK/USA
Feature Film
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Burgess
Cinematographer: John Alcott
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Michael Bates, Adrienne Corri, Patrick Magee, Warren Clarke, Carl Duering, Michael Gover

With McDowell’s extraordinary performance, Kubrick’s marvellous adaptation of Burgess’s cult novel, a snapshot of a violent, dystopian Britain, proves to be a brilliant and sensual nightmare, which manages to ask important questions about the place of state, society, and freewill in the process of maintaining law and order. Iain.Stott

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42nd Street (1933)

Highly Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Lloyd Bacon
Writers: Rian James, James Seymour, Bradford Ropes
Choreographer: Busby Berkeley
Cinematographer: Sol Polito
Composers: Al Dubin, Harry Warren
Cast: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Guy Kibbee, Una Merkel, Ginger Rogers

Toe-tappingly wonderful musical numbers, vibrantly gorgeous choreography, and stunningly imaginative mise en scène combine with several cracking comic performances to form a thoroughly entertaining backstage musical, which somehow manages to negate some rather hackneyed plotting. Iain.Stott

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8½ (1963)

Highly Recommended

Italy/France
Feature Film
Director: Federico Fellini
Writers: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Brunello Rondi
Cinematographer: Gianni Di Venanzo
Composer: Nino Rota
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, Madeleine Lebeau, Caterina Boratto, Eddra Gale, Guido Alberti

There are moments (but certainly not too many) when Fellini’s personal meditation on the autobiographical nature of the artistic process borders on overindulgence and ostentation, but for the most part, this beautifully shot and delightfully scored film is a moving, insightful, and humorous exploration of the art of film-making. Iain.Stott

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Lord of the Flies (1954)

UK
Novel
Author: William Golding

Golding’s allegorical masterwork - a frightening and cynical look at the dark heart of man through a group of school boys wrecked upon a desert island, and set against the back drop of nuclear war - is a timeless, insightful, and depressingly credible novel. Iain.Stott

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The 39 Steps (2008)

Recommended

UK
Television Film
Director: James Hawes
Writers: Lizzie Mickery, John Buchan
Cinematographer: James Aspinall
Cast: Rupert Penry-Jones, Lydia Leonard, David Haig, Patrick Kennedy, Alex Jennings, Eddie Marsan, Werner Daehn

This logic-defyingly entertaining adaptation of Buchan’s novel, a handsome BBC production, following Richard Hannay in the company of a beautiful and spirited suffragette on the lam to Scotland, pursued by police and German spies, is admittedly rather silly, but it is also really rather sexy, swiftly paced, and shamefully, guiltily pleasurable. Iain.Stott

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National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Harold Ramis
Writer: John Hughes
Cinematography: Victor J. Kemper
Composer: Ralph Burns
Cast: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Anthony Michael Hall, Dana Barron, Imogene Coca, Randy Quaid, Miriam Flynn, Jane Krakowski, John Navin, Eddie Bracken, John Candy, Christie Brinkley

Although the humour is often juvenile and crass, one can’t deny the cumulative comic power of all the silliness in this first outing for the perma-vacationing Griswolds, on this occasion making an incident packed pilgrimage across the country to visit Wally World. Iain.Stott

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A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008)

Recommended

UK
Animated Short Television Film
Director: Nick Park
Writers: Bob Baker, Nick Park
Cast: Peter Sallis, Sally Lindsay

This delightful, farcical murder-mystery, Nick Park’s latest Wallace and Gromit offering, provides a suspense filled, inventive, funny, and luridly charming Christmas Day treat. Iain.Stott

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The Royle Family: The New Sofa (2008)

UK

Television Series Christmas Special
Director: Caroline Aherne
Writers: Caroline Aherne, Craig Cash
Cast: Ricky Tomlinson, Sue Johnston, Caroline Aherne, Craig Cash, Geoffrey Hughes, Tom Courtenay, Helen Fraser

Although it lacks the emotional punch and heart of 2006’s festive offering, this cynically funny Christmas special, depicting a culinarily disastrous family Christmas, is, with the addition of ‘60s kitchen-sink idol, Courtenay, and despite a number of missing faces, a ridiculous, plotless, and irresistible slice-of-life comedy par excellence. Iain.Stott

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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik

Writer: John Hughes

Cinematographer: Thomas Ackerman

Composer: Angelo Badalamenti

Cast: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki, John Randolph, Diane Ladd, E.G. Marshall, Doris Roberts, Randy Quaid, Miriam Flynn, William Hickey, Mae Questel, Nicholas Guest, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Brian Doyle-Murray, Nicolette Scorsese

As low-brow and crass as this seasonal offering often is, one can’t help but become caught up in the good natured lunacy of it all, especially when watched at an appropriate time of year, as this Chevy Chase starring Christmas comedy really does manage to capture the chaotic mess of family gatherings. Iain.Stott

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Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special (2008)

UK
Television Series Christmas Special
Creators: James Corden, Ruth Jones
Cast: Mathew Horne, Joanna Page, James Corden, Ruth Jones, Rob Brydon, Alison Steadman, Larry Lamb, Melanie Walters, Steffan Rhodri, Julia Davis, Adrian Scarborough

The mix of comedy, romance, and pathos doesn’t blend quite so well in this Christmas special as it has previously, but an incident packed festive period, filled with argument, crisis, and turkey recipes, provides a suitable enough backdrop for a number of laugh-out-loud moments. Iain.Stott

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Rab C. Nesbitt Christmas Special (2008)

UK
Television Series Christmas Special
Director: Colin Gilbert
Writer: Ian Pattison
Cast: Gregor Fisher, Elaine C. Smith, Tony Roper, Barbara Rafferty, Gary Lewis, Andrew Fairlie, Kathleen McDermott

Rab C. Nesbitt’s welcome return to our screens after a gap of nearly ten years, in this Christmas special in which our titular hero has kicked the swally and found God, is slightly disappointing in as much as that it has somewhat lost its satirical edge, but there are enough laugh-out-loud moments for us to crave more screen time for this lovable weegie antihero. Iain.Stott

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Survivors: Series 1 (2008)

UK
Television Series
Creator: Adrian Hodges
Cast: Julie Graham, Max Beesley, Paterson Joseph, Zoe Tapper, Phillip Rhys, Chahak Patel, Robyn Addison, Nicholas Gleaves, Ronny Jhutti, Nikki Amuka-Bird

More running, jumping, and explosions; more formulaic, less intelligent, less insightful, less ballsy - This post-pandemic, post-apocalyptic television series certainly doesn’t compare favourably with Terry Nation’s series from the ‘70s, but taken on its own merits, as a light, episodic, undemanding sci-fi series, it just about manages to hold the attention. Iain.Stott

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Morvern Callar (2002)

Essential Viewing

UK

Feature Film
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Writers: Liana Dognini, Lynne Ramsay, Alan Warner
Cinematographer: Alwin H. Kuchler
Cast: Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott, Raife Patrick Burchell

Ramsay’s poetically enigmatic adaptation of Warner‘s novel, beautifully and sensually exploring a young woman’s quite baffling reaction to the suicide of her novelist boyfriend, is a magnificently acted, beautifully paced, visually stunning, and quite unforgettable masterpiece. Iain.Stott

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Enduring Love (2004)

Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Director: Roger Michell
Writers: Joe Penhall, Ian McEwan
Cinematographer: Haris Zambarloukos
Composer: Jeremy Sams
Cast: Daniel Craig, Samantha Morton, Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch, Justin Salinger, Helen McCrory

This cracking Hitcockian thriller, an adaptation of McEwan’s acclaimed novel, depicting the psychological aftermath of a tragic accident, is – with Sams’s excellent Hermannesque score, Zambarloukos’s striking photography, and some brave, visceral performances – an unnerving and thoroughly compelling experience. Iain.Stott

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Summer Hours (2008)

Highly Recommended

France
Feature Film
Original Title: L'heure d'été
Writer/Director: Olivier Assayas
Cinematographer: Eric Gautier
Cast: Charles Berling, Edith Scob, Jeremie Renier, Juliette Binoche, Dominique Reymond, Valérie Bonneton, Isabelle Sadoyan, Alice de Lencquesaing, Emile Berling

Depicting a family’s efforts to come to terms with the death of its popular matriarch, this gorgeous return to form from Assayas proves to be a beautiful, naturalistic, insightful, and very moving exploration of the passing of time and the transience of art, familial relationships, and traditions. Iain.Stott

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The Battle of the Somme (1916)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary
Cinematographer/Directors: Geoffrey H. Malins, J.B. McDowell

This interesting if not particularly illuminating documentary, taking a first-hand look at the titular battle during the First World War, is a rather toothless, bloodless, and inconsequential depiction of tragic and horrific events; a missed opportunity.

Iain.Stott

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Notorious (1946)

Highly Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Ben Hecht, John Taintor Foote
Cinematographer: Ted Tetzlaff
Composer: Roy Webb
Cast: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern, Leopoldine Konstantin, Reinhold Schünzel, Moroni Olsen

Nuanced and moving performances from Grant and Bergman combine to form the heart of Hitchcock’s tense and sexy film, a wartime thriller with Bergman’s disgraced-daughter-of-a-convicted-Nazi-spy spying, at the behest of the Americans, on her father’s old friends in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Iain.Stott

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A Cool Million (1934)

USA

Novel
Author: Nathanael West

Brilliant, parodic, ironic, grotesque, hilarious, cynical, accusatory, deadpan; West’s sadly still very relevant third novel, a critique of American politics and literature, an exposé of cruelty, racism, poverty, and wilful ignorance, is a guilt-inducingly entertaining read that is let down only by its complete lack of any sign of humanity. Iain.Stott

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Regeneration (1997)

Recommended

UK/Canada

Feature Film
Director: Gillies MacKinnon
Writers: Allan Scott, Pat Barker
Cinematographer: Glen MacPherson
Composer: Mychael Danna
Cast: Jonathan Pryce, James Wilby, Jonny Lee Miller, Stuart Bunce, Tanya Allen, David Robb, Kevin McKidd

Fine performances abound in this moving, nuanced, and well-made if slightly rushed adaptation of Barker’s acclaimed novel, an examination of the relationship between a doctor and his patients in a psychiatric hospital towards the end of the First World War. Iain.Stott

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Trading Places (1983)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film
Director: John Landis
Writers: Timothy Harris, Herschel Weingrod
Cinematographer: Robert Paynter
Composer: Elmer Bernstein
Cast: Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Denholm Elliott, Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy, Kristin Holby

Landis’s tremendously satisfying film, with some cracking comic performances and a decidedly witty script, is, despite a couple of rather silly scenes on a train towards the end, an often hilarious and delightfully critical look at Reagan’s America. Iain.Stott

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Scrooge (1951)

Recommended

UK

Feature Film
Director: Brian Desmond Hurst
Writers: Noel Langley, Charles Dickens
Cinematographer: C. Pennington-Richards
Composer: Richard Addinsell
Cast: Alastair Sim, Mervyn Johns, Michael Hordern, Michael Dolan, Francis de Wolff, George Cole, Rona Anderson, Carol Marsh, Hermione Baddeley, Kathleen Harrison, Ernest Thesiger, Louise Hampton

This engaging adaptation of Dickens’s leftist classic, A Christmas Carol, depicting Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation from heartless capitalist to bubbly humanist, following a visitation from four ghosts, is, despite the occasional lapse into sentimentality, a brilliantly acted, gorgeously photographed, and thoroughly entertaining festive treat. Iain.Stott

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Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988)

UK
Television Series Christmas Special
Director: Richard Boden
Writers: Richard Curtis, Ben Elton
Cinematographer: Henry Barber
Composer: Howard Goodall
Cast: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Robbie Coltrane, Miriam Margolyes, Jim Broadbent, Patsy Byrne

Curtis and Elton’s delightful inversion of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, following Ebenezer Blackadder’s transformation from the Nicest Man in England to a bad tempered and cruel miser, thanks to a visit from the Spirit of Christmas, is, with its uniformly excellent performances, a brilliantly written and absolutely hilarious anti-festive treat. Iain.Stott

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28 Days Later... (2002)

Recommended

UK

Feature Film
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle
Composer: John Murphy
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Christopher Eccleston, Megan Burns, Luke Mably, Stuart McQuarrie, Ricci Harnett, Leo Bill, Junior Laniyan, Ray Panthaki, Sanjay Rambaruth, Marvin Campbell

Boyle and Garland’s vibrantly visceral collaboration, depicting a Britain ravaged by a virus that has left its victims blood-thirsty, cannibalistic animals, is a hugely thrilling and compelling if somewhat uneven “zombie” film, which mines much of the same ground as Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985). Iain.Stott

Followed by 28 Weeks Later (2007).

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24 Hour Party People (2002)

Recommended

UK

Feature Film
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Writer: Frank Cottrell Boyce
Cinematographer: Robby Müller
Cast: Steve Coogan, Lennie James, Shirley Henderson, Paddy Considine, John Simm, Danny Cunningham, Ralf Little, Sean Harris, Andy Serkis, Peter Kay

Winterbottom’s playfully irreverent biopic, following the misadventures Tony Wilson – newsreader, record label founder, and piss-poor businessman – is an episodic, frequently funny, occasionally moving, and slightly nostalgic look-back at the Manchester music scene of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Iain.Stott

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Cheers: Season 1 (1982-1983)

USA

Television Series
Creators: James Burrows, Glen Charles, Les Charles
Cast: Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman, Nicholas Colasanto, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger

The first season of this long running and ever popular sitcom, taking a bitter-sweet look at the lives of the inhabitants of a Boston bar (Mass. not Lincs.), is a gently funny series, dripping with pathos and humanity, that only gets better with age. Iain.Stott

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2 Days in Paris (2007)

Recommended

France/Germany

Feature Film
Writer/Director/Composer: Julie Delpy
Cinematographer: Lubomir Bakchev
Cast: Adam Goldberg, Julie Delpy, Daniel Brühl, Marie Pillet, Albert Delpy, Aleksia Landeau, Adan Jodorowsky, Alexandre Nahon

Delpy’s often delightful film, a farcical look at a failing cross-cultural relationship, and the effects that a transatlantic holiday, numerous exes, a dose of Delhi-belly, and severe insecurity has upon it, is a funny, insightful, and, ultimately, rather moving film. Iain.Stott

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Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)

USA

Novel
Author: Nathanael West

West’s blackly comic second novel, a brief look at the complicated life of the eponymous, male agony aunt, exploring the pain, suffering, and general pessimism of America during the Great Depression, is a cynical and brilliant yet depressing snapshot of desperate times. Iain.Stott

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A Christmassy Ted (1996)

UK
Television Series Christmas Special
Director: Declan Lowney
Writers: Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews
Cinematographer: Eugene O'Connor
Cast: Dermot Morgan, Ardal O'Hanlon, Frank Kelly, Pauline McLynn, Gerard McSorley, Dervla Kirwan, Stephen Tompkinson, Tony Guilfoyle, Sean Barrett, Donncha Crowley, Colum Gallivan, Neil McCaul, Kevin McKidd, Joe Taylor

This Father Ted Christmas special, boasting eight priests lost in Ireland’s largest lingerie department, an award for the priest of the year, an unwanted house guest, and at least one unwanted Christmas present, is a cynical, satirical, and irreverent festive treat. Iain.Stott

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11'09''01 - September 11 (2002)

Recommended

USA/France/Japan/Egypt/Iran/UK/Mexico
Short Film Compendium
Directors: Youssef Chahine, Amos Gitai, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Imamura Shohei, Claude Lelouch, Ken Loach, Samira Makhmalbaf, Mira Nair, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Sean Penn, Danis Tanovic

11'09''01 - September 11 is a collection of 11 short films, each lasting 11 minutes, 9 seconds, and 1 frame, produced in response to the terrorist attacks upon the titular date; a collection of unsurprisingly mixed quality, with Chahine’s effort being an embarrassing low point, and Loach’s documentary segment an accusatory high point. Iain.Stott

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11:14 (2003)

Feature Film | Thriller | USA/Canada | English | 1h26m

Dir: Greg Marcks | Scr: Greg Marcks | Ph: Shane Hurlbut | Prod: Beau Flynn & John Morrissey | Mus: Clint Mansell | Ed: Dan Lebental & Richard Nord | PD: Devorah Herbert | AD: Macie Vener | Snd: Mike Le Mare | Cast: Henry Thomas, Barbara Hershey, Hilary Swank, Shawn Hatosy, Colin Hanks, Patrick Swayze, Rachael Leigh Cook, Clark Gregg, Blake Heron, Stark Sands, Ben Foster

Five interconnecting tales of tomfoolery, skulduggery, and downright nastiness converge at the titular time, in Marcks’s intelligently assembled, intricately plotted, and thoroughly entertaining thriller. A drunk driver mistakenly believes that he has hit and killed a pedestrian; three teenaged friends, out causing mischief, hit a classmate with their van; a man disposes of a corpse, believing his daughter to be guilty of its murder; a convenience store clerk with money troubles convinces a co-worker to allow him to rob the store; and a teenaged girl’s graveyard sexual dalliance turns grisly.

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The Trial (1962)

Highly Recommended

France/West Germany/Italy

Feature Film
Original Title: Le procès
Director: Orson Welles
Writers: Orson Welles, Franz Kafka
Cinematographer: Edmond Richard
Composer: Jean Ledrut
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Elsa Martinelli, Suzanne Flon, Akim Tamiroff, Madeleine Robinson, Arnoldo Foà

Welles’s allegorical minor masterpiece, an adaptation of Kafka’s acclaimed novel, following a man accused of an unnamed crime as he strives to prove his innocence, is a beautifully photographed and nightmarish vision of the futility of one man’s attempts to achieve freedom in the shadow of the ruling class’s needs and wants. Iain.Stott

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100 Girls (2000)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Michael Davis
Cinematographer: James Lawrence Spencer
Composer: Kevin Bassinson
Cast: Jonathan Tucker, Emmanuelle Chriqui, James DeBello, Katherine Heigl, Larisa Oleynik, Jaime Pressly, Marissa Ribisi, Aimee Graham

Davis’s surprisingly insightful teen comedy, following a college freshman’s attempts to find the girl with whom he had a brief carnal lift-bound encounter during a power cut, is, with some good performances from its likable young cast, an enjoyable and atypically thoughtful addition to a generally sophomoric genre. Iain.Stott

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10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Gil Junger
Writers: Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith
Cinematographer: Mark Irwin
Composer: Richard Gibbs
Cast: Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, David Krumholtz, Andrew Keegan, Susan May Pratt, Gabrielle Union, Larry Miller, Daryl Mitchell, Allison Janney

As clichéd, well-worn, and predictable as the plot may be, this enjoyable teen comedy, loosely updating Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, is, thanks to the likable young cast and some excellent comedic support, an often irreverent, charming, and funny romantic comedy. Iain.Stott

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The Worst Christmas of My Life (2006)

UK

Television Series Christmas Special
Creators: Mark Bussell, Justin Sbresni
Cast: Ben Miller, Sarah Alexander, Alison Steadman, Geoffrey Whitehead, Janine Duvitski, Ronald Pickup, Sian Thomas, Kim Wall, Michael Cochrane, Carmen du Sautoy, Oliver Milburn

This often laugh-out-loud funny Christmas special of the consistently entertaining sitcom, The Worst Week of My Life, presenting the usual array of improbable, cringe-worthy, and highly embarrassing accidents, is, with a throng of excellent comic performances, an hilarious festive treat. Iain.Stott

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The Woman Next Door (1981)

Not Recommended

France
Feature Film
Original Title: La femme d'à côté
Director: François Truffaut
Writers: François Truffaut, Jean Aurel, Suzanne Schiffman
Cinematographer: William Lubtchansky
Composer: Georges Delerue
Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Fanny Ardant, Véronique Silver, Henri Garcin, Michèle Baumgartner, Roger Van Hool

Typically fine performances form Depardieu and Ardant raise Truffaut’s mildly diverting drama, an exploration of the effects of secrets, lies, infidelity, and obsession on bourgeois domesticity, above its undercooked and never-quite-credible screenplay, but by the time its tragic denouement arrives, it all feels rather silly. Iain.Stott

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To Sleep with Anger (1990)

Highly Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Charles Burnett
Cinematographer: Walt Lloyd
Composer: Stephen James Taylor
Cast: Danny Glover, Paul Butler, Mary Alice, Richard Brooks, Carl Lumbly, Vonetta McGee, Sheryl Lee Ralph

Exploring the consequences of a bourgeoisificated family being rudely reminded of its working class routes, Burnett’s engrossing allegorical fable provides an intelligent, well acted, and thoroughly entertaining look at the relationships between past & present, young & old, and rich & poor. Iain.Stott

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Fingersmith (2005)

Cautiously Recommended

UK
Television Mini-Series
Director: Aisling Walsh
Writers: Peter Ransley, Sarah Waters
Cinematographer: Simon Kossoff
Composer: Richard Blackford
Cast: Elaine Cassidy, Sally Hawkins, Rupert Evans, Imelda Staunton, Charles Dance, Stephen Wight

This fun adaptation of Waters’s novel, a tale of cross, double-cross, and Sapphic love in Victorian England, is, thanks in the main to the ever wonderful Cassidy and Hawkins, a surprising and entertaining, if rather light and perhaps forgettable, television mini-series. Iain.Stott

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Regeneration (1990)

UK

Novel
Author: Pat Barker

Elegantly mixing fact with fiction, Barker’s moving novel, an exploration of the lives of a doctor and his disparate patients in a psychiatric hospital during the First World War, is an episodic and beautifully drawn portrait of damaged lives, and a valuable reminder of troubled times. Iain.Stott

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The Threepenny Opera (1931)

Not Recommended

Germany
Feature Film
Original Title: Die 3 Groschen-Oper
Director: G.W. Pabst
Writers: Brecht, Balazs, Lania, Vajda
Cinematographer: F.A. Wagner
Composer: Kurt Weill
Cast: Rudolf Forster, Carola Neher, Reinhold Schünzel, Fritz Rasp, Valeska Gert, Lotte Lenya, Wladimir Sokolow

Pabst’s stuttering version of Brecht’s updating of The Beggar’s Opera, depicting the aftermath of the marriage between Mack the Knife and Polly Peachum, daughter of the King of the beggars in early twentieth century London, is a visually stunning work that is unfortunately fatally let down by some rather stilted dialogue and a general lack of credibility. Iain.Stott

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Un Chant d'Amour (1950)

Highly Recommended

France

Short Film
Original Title: Un chant d'amour
Writer/Director: Jean Genet
Cinematography: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Java, Coco Le Martiniquais, Lucien Sénémaud

What on paper must have read like gay porn – a prison guard watches and fantasises about the masturbatory and sexual habits of prison inmates – is, with Cocteau’s peerless cinematography and Simon Fisher Turner’s sexy 2004 score, an intimate, sensual, and stunningly beautiful short film. Iain.Stott

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Under Capricorn (1949)

Best Avoided

UK
Feature Film
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: James Bridie, Hume Cronyn, Helen Simpson, John Colton, Margaret Linden
Cinematographer: Jack Cardiff
Composer: Richard Addinsell
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotton, Michael Wilding, Margaret Leighton, Cecil Parker

Hitchcock’s portentous period drama, depicting a tug-of-love between Cotton’s angry ex-con and Wilding’s happy-go-lucky Irish aristocrat over Bergman’s weepy, perma-drunk fallen lady in 19th Century Australia, proves to be a hammy, melodramatic mess of a movie, which lacks any of the qualities that make up his best work. Iain.Stott

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Wagon Master (1950)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: John Ford
Writers: Patrick Ford, Frank Nugent
Cinematographer: Bert Glennon
Composer: Richard Hageman
Cast: Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper, Alan Mowbray, Jane Darwell, Ruth Clifford

Ford’s relaxed, episodic western, following an eclectically peopled wagon train through the harsh desert in search of a better life, is a beautifully drawn, frequently surprising, and effortlessly entertaining portrait of those on the outskirts of society. Iain.Stott

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Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Recommended

Soviet Union
Feature Film
Original Title: Броненосец Потёмкин
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Writer: N.F. Agadzhanova-Shutko
Cinematographer: Eduard Tisse
Cast: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Grigori Aleksandrov, I. Bobrov, Mikhail Gomorov, Aleksandr Levshin, N. Poltavseva, Konstantin Feldman, Prokopenko, A. Glauberman, Beatrice Vitoldi

Set to the stirring music of Dimitri Shostakovich, Eisenstein’s most acclaimed film, depicting the mutiny upon the titular battleship and its bloody aftermath, is an undeniably powerful and even moving experience, and is undoubtedly one cinema’s greatest action films, but it is let down somewhat by the rather melodramatic acting and some tremendously ridiculous, moustache-twirling villains. Iain.Stott

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À Bout de Souffle (1960)

Recommended

France
Feature Film
Original Title: À bout de souffle
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Writers: Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut
Cinematographer: Raoul Coutard
Composer: Martial Solal
Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger, Jean-Pierre Melville

Critic-turned-film-maker Godard’s acclaimed debut, following the misadventures of a slightly ostentatious small-time hood and his American sometime girlfriend, provides an undeniably fun and entertaining experience, but also a somewhat empty feeling and slightly pretentious one. Iain.Stott

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Highly Recommended

UK/USA
Feature Film
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick
Cinematographer: Geoffrey Unsworth
Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Douglas Rain

Kubrick’s enigmatic minor-masterpiece, following a group’s expedition to Jupiter to discover the origins of a large, mysterious, black monolith, proves to be, with its stunning soundtrack and exceptional model-work, a beautifully paced, hypnotic, and strangely visceral experience, which is quite unlike anything else. Iain.Stott

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