Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes in 2004, Siddiq Barmak's extraordinary 'Osama' was the first feature film to be made in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. Visually audacious and emotionally compelling, the film follows a girl who is forced to disguise herself as a boy in order to earn the money to feed her hungry all female family. The lead actress Marina Golbahari was, literally, chosen off the street by the director and gives an outstanding performance whi find out more...

Huge epic, set during the heyday of Republican Rome, in all its ostentatious glory. The story details the purchase and selection of slaves, the harsh discipline and routine of the gladiators' school, the new comradeship balked by the realisation that a gladiator must kill or be killed. Then the film really comes into its own with the superbly staged revolt and escape, led by the slave who, with his unlikely army, holds the Roman army at bay for four years. Magnificent, masterful....a classic! find out more...

A young boy lives in a small floating temple on a beautiful lake, together with an elderly master who teaches him the ways of the Buddha. Years later the boy, now a young man, experiences his sexual awakening with a girl who has come to the temple to be healed by the master. Returning from a disastrous trip to the outside world the young monk must pay penance and, in the last of four vignettes, he returns to the lake temple to find spiritual enlightenment. find out more...

A luxurious visual interpretation of the biblical text performed entirely by non-professionals. The director's Catholicism and Marxism serve him well here as the Messiah is presented as a distinctly political figure fuelled by anger at social injustice, while the miracles are just incidental. Pasolini's stunning photography combined with a magnificent musical score, from Bach to Billie Holiday, make this a breath-taking feast. Both religiously and politically powerful. find out more...

An innocent nun full of the milk of human kindness is shown the other (realistic?) side of life when she goes on a visit to her uncle. Her altruism is greeted with cruelty and ridicule. A legendary film containing a black parody of the last supper set to Handel's 'Messiah'. Banned by the Vatican. find out more...

A brilliant study of the bizarre hinterland of rural America and a whacky travelling preacher who collects some pretty whacky converts. Adapted from satirical Flannery O'Connor's first novel. find out more...