If not, as it's perennially voted, one of the 10 greatest films ever made, 1952's Singin' In The Rain is at the very least the sharpest Hollywood musical bar none. Fifty years on, it's still as gooey a plot as they come but with a lethal dose of feel-good factor as sumptuous as its kaleidoscopic colours and Gene Kelly's ingenious choreography, who's complaining?
Unconventional, witty rom-com chooses its inspirations carefully in Woody Allen and Seinfeld. Jessica's a New York singleton who can't find Mr Right, and so decides to give Ms Right a fling. But she doesn't quite know how to go about this trendy Sapphic stuff, and whenever the film veers on cheese it snaps back sharply. Surprisingly wry.
One of the great Sidney Lumet's thoroughly hypnotic New York movies, where you can smell the sweat of the tension and the barely-repressed panic in the streets. An Oscar-nominated Al Pacino is in hell-for-leather form. Made in '73 and based on Peter Maas' book of the trials faced by real-life cop Frank Serpico, who ended an 11-year career by blowing the whistle on his colleagues, it follows Pacino as the committed crusader exposing corruption in the force. He's abused, ostracised, and ultimately has to flee the country.
