An all time classic 60s movie glamourising the real life story of the Barrow gang who terrorised the American South in the early 30s. 'Reclaiming the American gangster movie, after it had been stolen by the Nouvelle Vague, Penn's film was so successful (and so imitated) that it inevitably met with some grudging devaluation. But it's still great, half comic fairytale, half brutal fact, it reflects the essential ambiguity of its heroes by treading a no man's land suspended between reality and fant
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CHINATOWN (1974)
Certification18 Our Rating
Polanski has a go at the film noir detective thriller, very bleak, very twisted and very menacing it is to. Nicholson plays a private-eye in pre-war LA who is hired to pursue an adultery case, but finds himself embroiled in a complicated murder investigation.
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CITIZEN KANE (1941)
CertificationU Our Rating
A landmark in the history of the cinema; it was ranked Number 1 in the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time in two polls (1998 and 2007) of more than 1,500 film industry movers and shakers and again by UK directors in a BFI poll. "Citizen Kane" narrates the rise and fall of a newspaper tycoon driven by a childhood obssession and is loosely based round the life of William Randolph Hurst, who tried to have it banned, but incorporates elements from the lives of other fat cats il
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THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Made almost contemporaneously with the 1930s setting, this authentically portrays the poverty and repression of the migrant 'Okies', evicted from their dustbowl farms and treated like slaves in California. Adapted from Steinbeck's book, often called 'THE Great American Novel' and with outstanding performances coming from Henry Fonda (Tom Joad) and John Carradine (John Casey) a preacher with a fondess for vice, but a true heart... fantastic.
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WATER FOR ELEPHANTS (2011)
Certification12 Our Rating
Set during the Great Depression, Jacob Janowski finds his promising career as a vetinary student shattered by family tragedy. Bereft and confused Jacob joins the Benzini Brothers circus as the vet for their animals and in particular the company’s elephant, Rosie. But it is the ringmaster’s wife that really holds the young Jacob’s attention, and it is this mutual attraction that forms the heart of the story. Based on Sara Gruen’s best selling novel, ‘Water for Elephants’ is a sumptuous but relati
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