In the eighties, the high-concept movie was in vogue, its number increasing. Thanks largely to blockbusters “Jaws” and “Star Wars”, the eighties saw what was tried and trusted in the decade before it and simply repackaged the thrills for an audience wanting exactly the same entertainment.
The industry was drastically changing from the top down. Huge, multinational conglomerates who, quite rightly, viewed their acquisition as a profitable arm of the company bought a number of studios. United Artists merged with MGM in 1981, while 20th Century Fox was bought by oil …

“Do you like baseball…do you, Anderson?”
“Yeah, I do. You know, it’s the only time when a black man can wave a stick at a white man and not start a riot.” – Mississippi Burning, 1988 (Directed by Alan Parker)
The Birth of Film: The Birth of a Nation
Hollywood has addressed the difficult and often destructive theme of race and prejudice since its early beginnings. The most iconic film of early silent cinema is D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation”. It is one of the most lauded films of the period, …

World Cinema fan? – World Cinema bargains on Amazon.co.uk
10. Mark Lee (AKA Mark Gor)
Played by Chow Yun-Fat
Gangster Mark sports a duster, Alain Delon sunglasses and constantly chews a toothpick – and it’s a well known fact it doesn’t get any cooler than that (in fact, Quentin Tarantino reportedly copied the look and sported it for months after watching the movie). Mark isn’t just the epitome of cool though – he is a hitman of considerable skill and flair, and you cross him at …

KEN LOACH’S TOP 10 FILMS
1. A Bout de Souffle (Godard, 1959)
2. The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1965)
3. A Blonde in Love (Forman, 1965)
4. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
5. Closely Observed Trains (Menzel, 1966)
6. Fireman’s Ball (Forman, 1967)
7. Jules et Jim (Truffaut, 1962)
8. La Règle du Jeu (Renoir, 1939)
9. The Tree of the Wooden Clogs (Olmi, 1978)
10. Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)

MICHAEL MANN’S TOP 10 FILMS
1. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
2. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
3. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4. Dr Strangelove (Kubrick, 1963)
5. Faust (Murnau, 1926)
6. Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais, 1961)
7. My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946)
8. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
9. Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)
10. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)

JOE DANTE’S TOP 10 FILMS
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. City Lights (Chaplin)
3. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
4. Les Enfants du paradis (Carné)
5. The Dead (Brakhage)
6. Rashomon (Kurosawa)
7. Psycho (Hitchcock)
8. Raging Bull (Scorsese)
9. The Searchers (Ford)
10. Once upon a Time in the West (Leone)

If Top 10 lists tell us more about the person or persons making them than the films themselves, Quentin Tarantino’s favourite movies confirms he is the true nerd of modern cinema. He loves cult films that operate away from the mainstream and generally below the sort of critical appreciation offered by his contemporaries, and prefers niche genre tactics over classical Hollywood narrative (apart from his inclusion of “His Girl Friday”).
John Walker, who compiled a list of the greatest 1000 movies ever made, said of Tarantino’s choices, “he lives up to …

Foreign Policy writer Abel Kerevel took a look at Iranian cinema in the summer of 2009. After the success of Abbas Kiarostami’s Palme d’Or winning film Taste of Cherry at Cannes in 1997, western cinemagoers have taken a vested interested in Iranian film.
And why not? Kerevel’s list takes in everything from the social-problem movie (a common trait of Iranian cinema) to slapstick comedy. There are also anti-war films looking at Iran’s conflict with Iraq, antiheroes, and feminist themes from female directors.
For Kerevel’s comments on each of his choices visit …