225 Love and Other Catastrophes (1996 / Emma-Kate Croghan)
One of the more obscure titles on this list has never had a DVD release in any region. The deceptively simple story of a day in the life of two film school students in Australia it both touching and funny. The promising director’s career fizzled out after this, though there are rumours of a comeback move starring Love and Other Catastrophe’s Radha Mitchell.
224 Psycho (1960 / Alfred Hitchcock)
What more can be said about Hitchcock’s most notorious film with one of the most famous sequences in movie history? No matter how many times you see it still has the power to shock and the performances of Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh remain perfect.
223 The Magnificent Seven (1960 / John Sturges)
Here’s how to a do a remake! I love the early scenes of the gathering together of the seven, and the final climatic shootout is one the finest in Westerns history. Plus you have Steve McQueen at his coolest and that terrific Elmer Bernstein score.
222 Marathon Man (1976 / John Schlesinger)
Is it safe? Probably not if you have a fear of dentists in this top notch thriller. Presented in typically paranoiac 1970s style with a great lead performance by Dustin Hoffman.
221 Dr Strangelove (1964 / Stanley Kubrick)
Arguably Peter Sellers finest performance, or should I say performances, as he plays as English captain, the American president and the titular doctor. This gloriously blackly comic cold war satire, was I believe, Kubrick’s best film.
220 Goldfinger (1964 / Guy Hamilton)
Probably the most famous of all Bond films, starring the best of all Bonds. I remember from my childhood that there was always a Bond film on ITV on Christmas Day afternoon (3.10 after the Queen, who for some reason you had to watch on the BBC!), and everyone was pleased if Goldfinger was the offering! The famous title song, Shirley Eaton’s fate, Pussy Galore, the Aston Martin and Fort Knox: so many iconic moments.
219 Singin’ in the Rain (1952 / Stanley Donan)
The golden age of musicals was coming to a close in the 1950s with only High Society of any real note to come. Apt then that this classic movie celebrated that golden age. A perfect combination of memorable songs and dance routines and great humour. Gene Kelly was never better.
218 An Autumn Tale (1999 / Eric Rohmer)
Rohmer was an underrated director when compared to his counterparts such as Truffaut. My favourites films of his were the four seasons series he produced in the 90s, and this is the concluding part of that quartet. It is a charming and simple story of friends trying to find a new husband for a widowed winemaker, featuring a well-judged central performance by Béatrice Romand.
217 The Thing (1982 / John Carpenter)
John Carpenter’s scary Antarctic set horror bears little resemblance to the also excellent 1951 original. The slow building tension is helped by Carpenter’s score.
216 The Ipcress File (1965 / Sidney J Furie)
The role that really shot Michael Caine to stardom, Harry Palmer, is one that he revisited four more times. A spy seen as the anti James Bond, the film really does justice to Len Deighton’s book.
215 Charade (1963 / Stanley Donan)
A sparkling comedy suspense movie with Hitchcockian influences provided Cary Grant with his last great role and Audrey Hepburn with her best one. Walter Matthau cast against type as a bad guy also stands out.
214 Repulsion (1965 / Roman Polanski)
Polanski’s first film in English and the one that truly established him as one of the world’s foremost film makers. The brilliant Catherine Deneuve plays a young French girl in London who succumbs to a total mental breakdown. The stark black and white photography adds to the air of menace and desperation.
213 Three Colours: Red (1994 / Krzystof Kieslowski)
My favourite of the Three Colours trilogy and sadly the director’s final film before his tragically early death. The stunning Irene Jacob plays a model who encounters a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who likes to eavesdrop on his neighbours. Cool and slow moving, give it time and it will grip you.
212 A Night at the Opera (1935 / Sam Wood)
Certainly the Marx Brothers most lavish film and one of their most celebrated. Whilst, like all their MGM films, it suffers from having a romantic subplot and musical numbers, it still has some extremely funny moments. The standout being the contract clause discussion, as we know, there ain’t no sanity claus!
211 The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959 / Terence Fisher)
Not the best telling of this famous tale but a very colourful and fast paced one. Produced by Hammer so it benefits from the classic pairing of Peter Cushing as Holmes and Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville. Unfortunately, the public didn’t take to a Hammer film without monsters so this didn’t pan out into the planned series.
210 Night Train to Munich (1940 / Carol Reed)
An underrated and overlooked British thriller from the war years made by a director more famous for The Third Man. Excellently paced with a good performance from Margaret Lockwood as scientist’s daughter trying to escape from the Nazis. It is also a joy to see Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne reprise their Charters and Caldicott roles from Hitchcock’s the Lady Vanishes, parts which they would go on to play twice more.
209 Rififi (1954 / Jules Dassin)
An impeccably made heist movie, featuring a famous 32 minute robbery sequence without a single word of dialogue that will have you in a vice like grip. Stories circulated for years afterwards of criminal gangs copying the methods of the crooks in Rififi.
208 The Candidate (1972 / Michael Ritchie)
Robert Redford stars as a young politician running for the US senate in this clever, cynical movie that has not dated at all.
207 Shadows and Fog (1991 / Woody Allen)
This Allen film was unloved by most critics but I found it captivating. Far removed from his comedies, it tells the story of a vigilante group hunting a serial killer. Beautiful black and white photography by Carlo Di Palma and as you would expect uniformly excellent performances. As well as Allen, Jodie Foster, John Cusack and Julie Kavner catch the eye.
206 City of Hope (1991 / John Sayles)
Sayles is one of the finest current American filmmakers, but he rarely gets the recognition he deserves. He followed up the brilliant Matewan and Eight Men Out with City of Hope, a slice of life tale about political machinations in an American city. Altmanesque in its overlapping stories, this is a forgotten gem of a film.
205 The Virgin Spring (1960 / Ingmar Bergman)
Bergman haters often criticise his films for being depressing, and in this case it is hard to argue. A young girl is brutally raped and murdered, and her parents take the opportunity to exact dreadful revenge on her attackers. Powerful and distressing, it will live long in your memory.
204 Land and Freedom (1995 / Ken Loach)
One of Loach’s most overtly political films set in the Spanish civil war. Ian Hart, who’s movie career never quite took off as I expected, plays a young Liverpudlian who joins the fight against the fascists. Not one to convert non Loach fans.
203 Magnolia (1999 / Paul Thomas Anderson)
This is both the best film made by Anderson and, by a distance, Tom Cruise’s best ever performance in a supporting role as a self-help charlatan in this multi-layered tale of inter-related lives. In fact, outstanding performances abound, amongst some of the most celebrated actors of their time – Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robards – and Melora Walters tops them all. The ending may annoy some, but I thought it was great.
202 Life of Brian (1979 / Terry Jones)
The most famous an notorious Monty Python film full of quotable dialogue and memorable scenes. Stands the test of time and multiple viewings.
201 Judgement at Nuremberg (1961 / Stanley Kramer)
An important film about Nazi war crimes also works as superior court room drama. A heavyweight cast including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark and Maximilian Schell add the necessary gravitas. Willliam Shatner appears in a supporting role but fortunately is not too hammy!
