A man, a woman and a baroque hotel where nothing can be pinned down; the most argued-over puzzle film.
Pod people replace a Californian town; the Cold War paranoia film that still works.
Birds attack Bodega Bay for no reason; the school playground scene.
Three men and a Civil War gold hunt; the graveyard standoff to Morricone.
Cary Grant chased by a crop duster and up Mount Rushmore in the template for the spy thriller.
Hitchcock's obsession film in San Francisco, the dolly zoom and the green light.
Truffaut's own childhood as Antoine Doinel, ending with the freeze frame on the beach.
A newsreader who is "mad as hell" becomes a ratings hit; Chayefsky predicted television.
Mel Brooks in black and white with Gene Wilder; "Puttin' on the Ritz".
A Swinging London photographer enlarges a picture and may have found a murder.
Klaus Kinski leads conquistadors down the Amazon into madness; the raft of monkeys.
Jack Nicholson with a slit nose, the water wars of Los Angeles and "forget it, Jake".
Bertolucci and Storaro's fascist Italy in tilted frames and autumn light.
A wife and a mistress murder the headmaster, then the body vanishes; the twist Hitchcock envied.
Belmondo and Karina drive south in primary colours; Godard at his most alive.
John Wayne, Dean Martin and a jail to hold; Hawks made it as an answer to High Noon.
Lean's Russian Revolution romance, the ice palace and "Lara's Theme".
Three sisters and a maid in a red house while one of them dies.
A disaster movie played straight by Leslie Nielsen; "don't call me Shirley".
A noble family sold into slavery in medieval Japan; the saddest film Mizoguchi made.
Clint Eastwood with a poncho and a cigar; the spaghetti western begins.
Sissy Spacek at the prom, the bucket of pig blood, and the hand from the grave.
Sissy Spacek narrates a killing spree across the Dakota plains; Malick's debut.
A brainwashed war hero, a Queen of Diamonds and a political assassination; paranoia in 1962.
Grieving parents in a winter Venice and a small figure in a red coat.
Peter Sellers as a gardener whose TV platitudes are mistaken for wisdom in Washington.
Benjamin, Mrs Robinson and the bus at the end, to Simon and Garfunkel.
The icon painter through medieval Russia, the Tatar raid and a boy casting a bell.
Alain Delon as a hitman in a trench coat and fedora; Melville's cool influenced every hitman film since.
A woman vanishes on an island and the film forgets to look for her; Antonioni booed at Cannes, then canonised.
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