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In Arthur Penn's 1958 film The Left-Handed Gun, Billy The Kid (Paul Newman) was portrayed as a neurotic, self-destructive teen rebel who behaved like James Dean with a six-gun. Penn threw in the framing device of having a journalist follow Billy through his career of crime. Little Big Man (1970) also features a journalist looking to embroider the facts, but this time the writer meets his match in the shape of the wizened, 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman hidden behind several layers of make-up).

Filmed in 1943, with memories of Pearl Harbor still raw, this WWII submarine movie sees Commander Cary Grant steering his boat into Japanese waters. Directed by no-nonsense action man Delmer Daves, the sub warfare is tightly handled, but the film is just as interested in the close interaction of the itchy crew, among them the great John Garfield.

Kurosawa's bold take on King Lear, with the action relocated to 16th-century feudal Japan, still packs a punch 19 years after its original release. DVD transfer showcases the master's lush visual palette to great effect and, while the pace flags over 160 minutes, the two major pre-CGI battle sequences have to be seen to be believed. Glorious stuff.

This unintentionally funny French heist movie is mired by its late-'70s aesthetic. Francis Huster is the swaggering hero, all but popping out of super-tight beige slacks and ruefully mouthing lines that mention "the poetry of the cash balance". The earnest political radicalism seems dated and risible now, but the direction is competent and the bank heist itself is good fun.

Bertolucci's epic tracing the life of Pu Yi, who became China's last Godlike emperor aged three and then, deposed by revolution, had to learn to live as a gardener. Contrasting the splendour of the Forbidden City with the greyness of Communism, it almost gets lost in surfaces, but Peter O'Toole excels as Pu Yi's tutor

Much-misunderstood 1975 John Schlesinger reading of Nathaniel West's classic parody of Hollywood's corrupting influence in the '30s. Bristling with brilliant scenes exposing the individual's vulnerability in a crowd which worships bland celebrity, it lurches between satire and the truly horrifying. Donald Sutherland and Karen Black (miscast) star, while Conrad Hall photographs.

Startling documentary about an American family torn apart by sexual scandal

Candid 1994 documentary about iconic, sexually dysfunctional artist

After all the talk of paying tribute to original 1970s cops David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson throw out any genuine resemblance to those freewheeling dudes and simply take the piss for 90 minutes. There are some canny gags and clever pastiches of buddy-movie clichés, but they give up on it halfway through and just cruise camply.

A labour of love for Jonathan Demme who spent seven years following Haitian human rights activist and broadcaster Jean Dominique. An agronomist by background on an island run by bandits, Dominique's struggle to bring justice to his homeland ended in a hail of bullets outside Radio Haiti in 2000. For all Demme's efforts, you never feel the film quite cracks its subject, but it does throw a grim spotlight on Haiti's interminable agonies.