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Starring: David Bennent, Angela Winkler, Daniel Olbrychski Director: Volker Schlondorff Rated: MA Distributor: Umbrella Before shooting began on The Tin Drum, director Volker Scholndorff gathered his cast and crew together and made an announcement that he expected their combined efforts to win the Palme D’Or at Cannes. They must have taken his words to heart …

Starring: Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Orson Welles Director: Carol Reed Rated: Distributor: Universal Orson Welles had just had a screaming success as director, producer and star of Citizen Kane when he was approached to play the part of Harry Lime in The Third Man. Tempted by the chance to embody the mysterious titular character who, …

Starring: Charlton Heston; Anne Baxter; Yul Brynner Director: Cecil B. De Mille Rated: PG (15+) Distributor: Paramount Golden Classics If there was one person in all of Hollywood who knew about over-the-top movie making it was Cecil b. De Mille. Indeed, his name became synonymous with epic following his 1923 silent black-and-white film The Ten …

Starring: Frank Mills, Sam Crew, Jack Innis, Will Coyne Director: Charles Tait Rated: G Distributor: Madman Entertainment It seems that the distributors may have underestimated the popularity of the surviving 20 minutes or so of what could very well be the world’s first feature length narrative film. Recently released in a juicy box set to …

Starring: Katherine Ross; Paula Prentiss; Peter Masterson; Nanette Newman Director: Bryan Forbes Rated: PG Distributor: Paramount When a camp classic from the mid seventies is revamped in the mid noughties it’s bound to have a few contemporary resonances. Take The Stepford Wives where the underlying theme is the quest for perfection – a modern day …

Starring: Julie Andrews; Christopher Plummer; Eleanor Parker Director: Robert Wise Rated: G Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment From dirndls and lederhosen to singing nuns and Nazis, this film has got the lot. Shot in DeLuxe colour in the Austrian Alps around Salzburg and intercut with scenes filmed at Fox’s Hollywood studios in Los Angeles, …

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Millie Perkins Director: Monte Hellman Rated: PG Distributor: First Look International/ Madman One can only guess at the sort of fee that a star like Jack Nicholson commands for a film role these days but back in the mid ’60s he was pretty much a gun for hire. In 1963 he co-starred …

Starring: John Malkovich, Debra Winger, Campbell Scott Director: Bernardo Bertolucci Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment Kit and Port Moresby are American travellers who are trying save their ailing marriage by finding (or loosing) themselves in North Africa for a year. However, tagging along for the ride is their mutual friend George Tunner, turning company into …

Starring: Max von Sydow, Bengt Ekerot, Bibi Anderson Director: Ingmar Bergman Rated: PG Distributor: Roadshow Entertainment With the legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman now dead, it seems like an appropriate time to revisit what many claim to be his finest film. Set in the Middle Ages, The Seventh Seal follows the final journey of a …

Starring: Eric Idle; Neil Innes; Rikki Fataar; John Halsey Directors: Gary Weis; Eric Idle Rated: G Distributor: The AV channel With the release of The Rutles in 1978, a whole new genre was born – the rock mockumentary. Irreverent, ridiculous and utterly hilarious, this film charts the rise and rise of ‘the pre-fab four’, a …

Starring: Nora Gregor, Marcel Dalino, Roland Toutain, Jean Renoir Director: Jean Renoir Rated: G Distributor: Umbrella World cinema There’s a disclaimer at the start of this cinema classic stating that all events and characters are purely fictitious. The renown director, Jean Renoir even introduces the DVD release with a voice-over re-iterating this point. But what …

Starring: Dan Simmonds, John Hargreaves, Kate Fitzpatrick, Jackie Weaver Director: Tom Jeffrey Rated: MA Distributor: Umbrella Aussie DVD In 1975, the Australian Film Commission was established and as part of it’s mission to share our film culture with the world, several cans of celluloid were shipped off to the Cannes Film Festival. Among them was …

Starring: Gene Hackman; Shelly Winters; Ernest Borgnine Director: Ronald Neame Rated: PG Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Ever had the feeling that your world’s been turned upside down? Literally? Writer Paul Gallico had a taste of it in 1937 as he was crossing the Atlantic on the luxury liner RMS Queen Mary. He and …

Starring: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill Director: Jane Campion Rated: M Distributor: Magna Pacific Call it a badge of honour or a gross gender imbalance, the fact remains that Jane Campion is the only woman director to have won the Palme D’Or in the 60-year history of the Cannes Film Festival. She was awarded …

Starring: Al Pacino; Kitty Winn Director: Jerry Schatzberg Rated: R (18+) Distributor: DV1 Fans of Al Pacino will relish the opportunity to see the actor cutting a swathe across the screen in his first leading role as Bobby, a New York junkie working the intersection between Broadway and 72nd Street. This is the location of …

Starring: (the voices of) Chris Sarandon; Catherine O’Hara; William Hickey Director: Henry Selick Rated: PG Distributor: Disney Videos With Tim Burton’s marvellous Charlie and the Chocolate Factory dazzling audiences all over the world, interest is mounting in his back catalogue. For starters, there’s the freaky Beetlejuice (’88), Batman (’87) and the fabulous Edward Scissorhands (’90). …

Starring: Constance Towers, Anthony Eisley, Michael Dante Director: Samuel Fuller Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment If the intent of pulp is to shock then The Naked Kiss achieves its goal within seconds. A brunette wearing only a bra and skirt beats a man senseless with her stiletto. During the tussle he grabs her hair and …

Starring: Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, River Phoenix Director: Peter Weir Rated: PG Distributor: Warner Brothers Entertainment “Ice is civilisation!” declares Allie Fox, a mad inventor who abandons the train wreck that he firmly believes is the U.S.A for a new life in the uncharted nether regions of Central America. With the blueprint for his ‘Fat …

Starring: Sophia Loren; Peter Sellers Director: Anthony Asquith Rated: G Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment 1960 was a good year for Sophia Loren. She made a huge splash starring in Vittorio de Sica’s Two Women, a role which won her an Oscar for Best Actress. Then, as if to counter the intensity of that performance, she appeared …

Starring: Tom Burlinson; Sigrid Thornton; Kirk Douglas; Jack Thompson Director: George Miller (2) Rated: PG Distributor: Roadshow Banjo Patterson might have written a bush ballad about a guy called Clancy, a bloke named Harrison, and a lad who became a man but it took almost a century for director George Miller (2) and producer Geoff …

Starring: Elijah Wood; Viggo Mortensen; Ian McKellen Director: Peter Jackson Rated: M Distributor: New Line It stands as one of the most ambitious film projects ever undertaken – the screen adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Brought to us over three tantalizing years, the films (The Fellowship of the Ring, …

Starring: Burt Lancaster; Alain Delon; Claudia Cardinale Director: Luchino Visconti Rated: PG Distributor: Madman Cinema Is there a more sublime film than The Leopard? Luchino Visconti’s 1963 adaptation of Giusseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novella ‘Il Gattopardo’ surely qualifies as one of the great masterpieces of world cinema. Set in Sicily a century before it was …

Starring: Catherine Deneuve; Gerard Depardieu Director: Francois Truffaut Rated: PG Distributor: Umbrella World Cinema DVD There have been many films about the German occupation of France but perhaps none so dramatic as Francois Truffaut’s The Last Metro. Centred, as it is, on the goings on at one of the many playhouses operating in Paris at …

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner Director: Robert Siodmak Rated: M Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment Could film get any more noir than The Killers? Surely a more fatale femme than Ava Gardener’s Kitty Collins would be hard to find. And as for her victim, Burt Lancaster’s ‘The Swede’ has got it coming to him from the get …

Starring: Robert Evans Director: Nanette Burstein; Brett Morgen Rated: Distributor: Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, The Odd Couple, Marathon Man, Harold and Maud…. How’s that for a list of classics? And to think that the man behind every one of them, the producer par excellence, started out as a p-grade actor in bombs …