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A Man Called Horse

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This charming but thoroughly odd film from 1970 sees Richard Harris play John Morgan, an eccentric British aristocrat kidnapped by the Sioux in the American Wild West in the early 19th century. Reflecting the liberal concerns of the time, the film is meticulous in its re-creation of Indian customs, particularly the gruesome Sun Vow initiation.

This charming but thoroughly odd film from 1970 sees Richard Harris play John Morgan, an eccentric British aristocrat kidnapped by the Sioux in the American Wild West in the early 19th century. Reflecting the liberal concerns of the time, the film is meticulous in its re-creation of Indian customs, particularly the gruesome Sun Vow initiation.

Black And White

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Craig Lahiff's impassioned, if wearily familiar, courtroom drama is based on Australia's (apparently) infamous 1958 "Max Stuart Case"?where a rape and murder confession was beaten out of a young aborigine. It's got two crusading, system-shaking lawyers (Robert Carlyle and Kerry Fox), an oily Crown Prosecutor (Charles Dance) and plenty of rousing speeches about justice. Watchable.

Craig Lahiff’s impassioned, if wearily familiar, courtroom drama is based on Australia’s (apparently) infamous 1958 “Max Stuart Case”?where a rape and murder confession was beaten out of a young aborigine. It’s got two crusading, system-shaking lawyers (Robert Carlyle and Kerry Fox), an oily Crown Prosecutor (Charles Dance) and plenty of rousing speeches about justice. Watchable.

Gettysburg – Gods And Generals

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Ted Turner's pet Civil War projects, both directed by Ronald F Maxwell. 1993's Gettysburg tells the tale of the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil while its prequel, 2003's Gods And Generals, recounts three earlier battles (Manassas, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville) through the eyes of Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), Stonewall Jackson (Stephen Lang) and Robert E Lee (Robert Duvall). Solid, stirring stuff, if you can sit through the three hours-plus running times of both these films.

Ted Turner’s pet Civil War projects, both directed by Ronald F Maxwell. 1993’s Gettysburg tells the tale of the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil while its prequel, 2003’s Gods And Generals, recounts three earlier battles (Manassas, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville) through the eyes of Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), Stonewall Jackson (Stephen Lang) and Robert E Lee (Robert Duvall). Solid, stirring stuff, if you can sit through the three hours-plus running times of both these films.

Something’s Gotta Give

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Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton prompt begrudging smiles in this long, over-elaborate rom-com which tells the ageing intended audience what it wants to hear: you can still get laid at 60. It helps if you're Jack, here an incorrigible Lothario servicing Amanda Peet until he picks on someone his own age, her mum (Keaton, Oscar-nominated). Keanu Reeves and Fran McDormand make with the filler plot and chuckles.

Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton prompt begrudging smiles in this long, over-elaborate rom-com which tells the ageing intended audience what it wants to hear: you can still get laid at 60. It helps if you’re Jack, here an incorrigible Lothario servicing Amanda Peet until he picks on someone his own age, her mum (Keaton, Oscar-nominated). Keanu Reeves and Fran McDormand make with the filler plot and chuckles.

The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes

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Sad, funny and cynical, Billy Wilder's 1970 movie presents a classically Holmesian mystery?a missing person case which ends with the Loch Ness Monster?as cover for an exploration of the great detective's myth, seeking to identify the crippled man behind the machine-like facade. Beautifully shot, the movie was cut by the studio and ignored by critics, but it's gorgeous. Robert Stephens is a complex Holmes, Colin Blakely a most human Watson.

Sad, funny and cynical, Billy Wilder’s 1970 movie presents a classically Holmesian mystery?a missing person case which ends with the Loch Ness Monster?as cover for an exploration of the great detective’s myth, seeking to identify the crippled man behind the machine-like facade. Beautifully shot, the movie was cut by the studio and ignored by critics, but it’s gorgeous. Robert Stephens is a complex Holmes, Colin Blakely a most human Watson.

Classic Monster Collection

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A triple bill of iconic horror: Boris Karloff's Frankenstein's monster, Bela Lugosi's Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr's Wolfman. Admittedly creaky, these black-and-white chillers from the '30s and '40s still boast amazing gothic sets, mesmerising atmosphere and some riveting performances. More enchanting than scary, the best of them?James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein?appears here in its uncut form.

A triple bill of iconic horror: Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein’s monster, Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr’s Wolfman. Admittedly creaky, these black-and-white chillers from the ’30s and ’40s still boast amazing gothic sets, mesmerising atmosphere and some riveting performances. More enchanting than scary, the best of them?James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein?appears here in its uncut form.

Spartacus: Special Edition

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Exhaustive two-disc release of this superlative restored cut of producer/star Kirk Douglas and wunderkind director Stanley Kubrick's epic tale of the legendary slave-turned-rebel-leader. All together now: "I'M SPARTACUS!"

Exhaustive two-disc release of this superlative restored cut of producer/star Kirk Douglas and wunderkind director Stanley Kubrick’s epic tale of the legendary slave-turned-rebel-leader. All together now: “I’M SPARTACUS!”

The Runaway Jury

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Possibly the best John Grisham-based flick since The Firm: OK, the rest were lousy, but Gary Fleder rattles this courtroom thriller along with pace and panache, and a stellar cast. Lawyers Dustin Hoffman (anti-guns) and Gene Hackman (pro-his own fat pay cheque) face off as a widow claims damages for her husband's shooting. But jury rigger John Cusack and his moll RachelWeisz are the wild cards. Classy potboiler.

Possibly the best John Grisham-based flick since The Firm: OK, the rest were lousy, but Gary Fleder rattles this courtroom thriller along with pace and panache, and a stellar cast. Lawyers Dustin Hoffman (anti-guns) and Gene Hackman (pro-his own fat pay cheque) face off as a widow claims damages for her husband’s shooting. But jury rigger John Cusack and his moll RachelWeisz are the wild cards. Classy potboiler.

Paycheck

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Based on a Philip K Dick short story and directed by John Woo, Paycheck plays like a made-for-TV Minority Report. It boasts a screenplay from, ahem, Dean Georgaris (Tomb Raider 2?nuff said), it stars Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman at their charmless worst, and it's Woo's dullest action-direction in years. No John, slo-mo doesn't make it better!

Based on a Philip K Dick short story and directed by John Woo, Paycheck plays like a made-for-TV Minority Report. It boasts a screenplay from, ahem, Dean Georgaris (Tomb Raider 2?nuff said), it stars Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman at their charmless worst, and it’s Woo’s dullest action-direction in years. No John, slo-mo doesn’t make it better!

Coming Home

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The Vietnam war had been over for three years by the time Hal Ashby made Coming Home in 1978. Those who'd survived the combat zones of South-East Asia had returned to find themselves shunned and quarantined, like lepers in their home towns; a living, breathing reminder of a shameful war many back home would rather forget had ever happened. Some of those who came back perhaps wished they'd died out there in the jungles?the paraplegics, the traumatised, forever dreading the nameless, shapeless things that whispered to them in the night. The return of the veterans inspired 'New Hollywood' to explore the home front's reaction to Vietnam, giving rise to a cycle of movies like Taxi Driver (1976), Heroes (1977), Rolling Thunder (1977) and Coming Home. This was Ashby's sixth movie, made on the back of his biopic of protest singer Woody Guthrie, Bound For Glory. Ashby was a freewheeling hippie with a strong anti-establishment streak, and accordingly Coming Home was shot through with a dark cynicism. He cast as his female lead Jane Fonda, a vocal opponent of the war, and peppered the movie's soundtrack with '60s counterculture icons like the Stones, Dylan, Hendrix and Tim Buckley. At one point, Jon Voight says: "I'm not the enemy, the enemy is this war." Ashby's intentions couldn't have been clearer. Fonda's Sally is an army wife, her husband, Bob (Bruce Dern), a Marine captain sent to Vietnam in 1968. In Bob's absence Sally takes a job in the Veterans Hospital in LA, where she meets Luke (Voight), an old high school friend who took a bullet in the back and is now in a wheelchair. Luke's eaten up with rage and bitterness, but Sally's kindness tempers his anger. Sally, meanwhile, the stereotypical homely wife, finds herself questioning her beliefs and falling for Luke. The two embark on an affair. Then Bob comes home. It's almost impossible to find fault with Ashby's film. As a meditation on the effects of war, on the scars it leaves, it's an astonishing work. The leads are uniformly excellent and Voight rails against the establishment with real passion. We need movies like this, now more than ever. Damn shame Ashby's been dead 15 years and there's no one out there willing to take his place.

The Vietnam war had been over for three years by the time Hal Ashby made Coming Home in 1978. Those who’d survived the combat zones of South-East Asia had returned to find themselves shunned and quarantined, like lepers in their home towns; a living, breathing reminder of a shameful war many back home would rather forget had ever happened. Some of those who came back perhaps wished they’d died out there in the jungles?the paraplegics, the traumatised, forever dreading the nameless, shapeless things that whispered to them in the night. The return of the veterans inspired ‘New Hollywood’ to explore the home front’s reaction to Vietnam, giving rise to a cycle of movies like Taxi Driver (1976), Heroes (1977), Rolling Thunder (1977) and Coming Home. This was Ashby’s sixth movie, made on the back of his biopic of protest singer Woody Guthrie, Bound For Glory. Ashby was a freewheeling hippie with a strong anti-establishment streak, and accordingly Coming Home was shot through with a dark cynicism. He cast as his female lead Jane Fonda, a vocal opponent of the war, and peppered the movie’s soundtrack with ’60s counterculture icons like the Stones, Dylan, Hendrix and Tim Buckley. At one point, Jon Voight says: “I’m not the enemy, the enemy is this war.” Ashby’s intentions couldn’t have been clearer.

Fonda’s Sally is an army wife, her husband, Bob (Bruce Dern), a Marine captain sent to Vietnam in 1968. In Bob’s absence Sally takes a job in the Veterans Hospital in LA, where she meets Luke (Voight), an old high school friend who took a bullet in the back and is now in a wheelchair. Luke’s eaten up with rage and bitterness, but Sally’s kindness tempers his anger. Sally, meanwhile, the stereotypical homely wife, finds herself questioning her beliefs and falling for Luke. The two embark on an affair. Then Bob comes home.

It’s almost impossible to find fault with Ashby’s film. As a meditation on the effects of war, on the scars it leaves, it’s an astonishing work. The leads are uniformly excellent and Voight rails against the establishment with real passion. We need movies like this, now more than ever. Damn shame Ashby’s been dead 15 years and there’s no one out there willing to take his place.

American Splendor

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Paul Giamatti, a character actor who's embodied a host of losers and creeps, always merited a lead role, and was surely born to play Harvey Pekar, the grumpy but ultimately likeable (not lovable) hospital clerk who finds a means of expression through his comic books/graphic novels. Inspired by friend Robert Crumb (and this is a superior film to the 1994 documentary Crumb), our obsessive-compulsive antihero depicts and ponders the mundane and everyday through his work, and the world and his wife relate. Celebrity, which isn't what it's cracked up to be, ensues. Splicing acted sequences with cartoons and real footage of Pekar and his motley entourage, this unconventional biopic, bristling with indignant intelligence, even tackles Pekar's later illness head on, as his misanthropy (slightly) mellows. Hope Davis is pitch-perfect as Pekar's scatty but forceful wife, and the film brilliantly blends cynical humour with justified pathos. Splendid.

Paul Giamatti, a character actor who’s embodied a host of losers and creeps, always merited a lead role, and was surely born to play Harvey Pekar, the grumpy but ultimately likeable (not lovable) hospital clerk who finds a means of expression through his comic books/graphic novels. Inspired by friend Robert Crumb (and this is a superior film to the 1994 documentary Crumb), our obsessive-compulsive antihero depicts and ponders the mundane and everyday through his work, and the world and his wife relate. Celebrity, which isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, ensues.

Splicing acted sequences with cartoons and real footage of Pekar and his motley entourage, this unconventional biopic, bristling with indignant intelligence, even tackles Pekar’s later illness head on, as his misanthropy (slightly) mellows. Hope Davis is pitch-perfect as Pekar’s scatty but forceful wife, and the film brilliantly blends cynical humour with justified pathos. Splendid.

Nevada Smith

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Henry Hathaway's Nevada Smith takes one of the characters from Harold Robbins' Hollywood potboiler The Carpetbaggers (filmed by Edward Dmytryk two years earlier, with Alan Ladd in the role) and wraps an entire movie round him. Steve McQueen stars as the young Smith, a half-breed cowboy hellbent on tracking down his parents' killers. Beautifully shot by Lucien Ballard, McQueen is as quietly hypnotic as ever.

Henry Hathaway’s Nevada Smith takes one of the characters from Harold Robbins’ Hollywood potboiler The Carpetbaggers (filmed by Edward Dmytryk two years earlier, with Alan Ladd in the role) and wraps an entire movie round him. Steve McQueen stars as the young Smith, a half-breed cowboy hellbent on tracking down his parents’ killers. Beautifully shot by Lucien Ballard, McQueen is as quietly hypnotic as ever.

Roger Dodger

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One of the most gratifying indie dark horses of last year, with writer/director Dylan Kidd giving Campbell Scott the role of a lifetime. As ageing Lothario Roger, getting bitter as he realises his sleazy charms are fading, Scott is dynamic, demanding no sympathy as he educates and corrupts his eager-to-learn-the-ropes nephew. Jennifer Beals and Elizabeth Berkley turn their noses up. Honest to a fault.

One of the most gratifying indie dark horses of last year, with writer/director Dylan Kidd giving Campbell Scott the role of a lifetime. As ageing Lothario Roger, getting bitter as he realises his sleazy charms are fading, Scott is dynamic, demanding no sympathy as he educates and corrupts his eager-to-learn-the-ropes nephew. Jennifer Beals and Elizabeth Berkley turn their noses up. Honest to a fault.

The Eagle Has Landed

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This 1976 adaptation of Jack Higgins' best-selling WWII novel was a fitting late-'70s swan song for John Sturges. Michael Caine leads a band of principled, Nazi-hating German commandos off to invade Blighty on the sly. Robert Duvall, Donald Sutherland, Jenny Agutter and Donald Pleasance join the action.

This 1976 adaptation of Jack Higgins’ best-selling WWII novel was a fitting late-’70s swan song for John Sturges. Michael Caine leads a band of principled, Nazi-hating German commandos off to invade Blighty on the sly. Robert Duvall, Donald Sutherland, Jenny Agutter and Donald Pleasance join the action.

Hud

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Paul Newman, all Texan swagger and mesmerising Marlboro sneers, completely redefines the concept of 'iconic' as the eponymous heavy-drinking, skirt-chasing, joy-riding cattleman and self-declared "cold-blooded bastard" in Martin Ritt's 1962 classic. Able support comes from sultry Patricia Neal, suitably green Brandon DeWilde (Shane) and James Wong Howe's perfect black-and-white cinematography.

Paul Newman, all Texan swagger and mesmerising Marlboro sneers, completely redefines the concept of ‘iconic’ as the eponymous heavy-drinking, skirt-chasing, joy-riding cattleman and self-declared “cold-blooded bastard” in Martin Ritt’s 1962 classic. Able support comes from sultry Patricia Neal, suitably green Brandon DeWilde (Shane) and James Wong Howe’s perfect black-and-white cinematography.

To Sleep With Anger

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A superb lyrical antidote to the countless guns-and-gangs depictions of life in the black communities of LA, Charles Burnett directs Danny Glover as Harry Mention, a man who stirs up past tensions when he comes to visit old family friends. With an excellent blues, gospel and jazz soundtrack to boot.

A superb lyrical antidote to the countless guns-and-gangs depictions of life in the black communities of LA, Charles Burnett directs Danny Glover as Harry Mention, a man who stirs up past tensions when he comes to visit old family friends. With an excellent blues, gospel and jazz soundtrack to boot.

Taps

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Harold Becker's tale of US Military School cadets squaring up against greedy property developers stars Timothy Hutton and a youthful Sean Penn and Tom Cruise. It's a faintly ludicrous story that works thanks to Becker's understated direction and three strong leading performances, made all the more interesting when you consider that a post-breakthrough Penn and Cruise would have been cast the other way round. Here, Cruise is the hothead and Penn the conscience-stricken man of reason.

Harold Becker’s tale of US Military School cadets squaring up against greedy property developers stars Timothy Hutton and a youthful Sean Penn and Tom Cruise. It’s a faintly ludicrous story that works thanks to Becker’s understated direction and three strong leading performances, made all the more interesting when you consider that a post-breakthrough Penn and Cruise would have been cast the other way round. Here, Cruise is the hothead and Penn the conscience-stricken man of reason.

Tommy: The Collector’s Edition

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Ken Russell's 1975 adaptation of The Who's rock opera cast Roger Daltrey as the deaf, dumb and blind boy who finds enlightenment, but downplayed the mysticism in favour of addled Freudian guff. It's a real mish-mash, with some truly embarrassing moments (Paul Nicholas, for one), but is redeemed by the performances of Ann-Margret and Oliver Reed, interesting cameos from Elton John and Tina Turner, and a stylish sense of design.

Ken Russell’s 1975 adaptation of The Who’s rock opera cast Roger Daltrey as the deaf, dumb and blind boy who finds enlightenment, but downplayed the mysticism in favour of addled Freudian guff. It’s a real mish-mash, with some truly embarrassing moments (Paul Nicholas, for one), but is redeemed by the performances of Ann-Margret and Oliver Reed, interesting cameos from Elton John and Tina Turner, and a stylish sense of design.

Year Of The Dragon

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Considering the testosterone on display both in front of and behind the camera (Mickey Rourke stars, Michael Cimino directs, screenplay by Oliver Stone), this 1985 cop thriller, with Rourke's decorated Viet Vet turned NYPD cop taking on the Triads in Chinatown, is nowhere near as deranged as you'd hope. The two set pieces?a gun battle in a Chinese restaurant and the final shoot-out?barely compensate for a disappointingly muted feel.

Considering the testosterone on display both in front of and behind the camera (Mickey Rourke stars, Michael Cimino directs, screenplay by Oliver Stone), this 1985 cop thriller, with Rourke’s decorated Viet Vet turned NYPD cop taking on the Triads in Chinatown, is nowhere near as deranged as you’d hope. The two set pieces?a gun battle in a Chinese restaurant and the final shoot-out?barely compensate for a disappointingly muted feel.

Halls Of Montezuma

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Tense and grim war manoeuvres from director Lewis Milestone. Richard Widmark brings hints of mania to his portrayal of a Marine lieutenant leading his troops into enemy territory, scouring a battered Pacific island for prisoners who can reveal the whereabouts of a Japanese rocket base. Plagued by migraines, Widmark is a tough guy, but constantly in touch with fear he tries to mask from his men, among them the more fully neurotic Jack Palance.

Tense and grim war manoeuvres from director Lewis Milestone. Richard Widmark brings hints of mania to his portrayal of a Marine lieutenant leading his troops into enemy territory, scouring a battered Pacific island for prisoners who can reveal the whereabouts of a Japanese rocket base. Plagued by migraines, Widmark is a tough guy, but constantly in touch with fear he tries to mask from his men, among them the more fully neurotic Jack Palance.

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