A group of abducted Africans break free from their shackles aboard a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, so setting the scene for a lengthy courtroom drama played out against a backdrop of 19th Century slavery. Matthew McConaughy is the noble young lawyer fighting for the slaves' freedom, while Anthony Hopkins is mesmerising as decrepit former President John Quincy Adams. Superb sets and an authentic atmosphere, and it's pretty gruesome at times too. Typically Spielberg-esque epic. find out more...

Romantic period drama, adapted from the novel by Joseph Conrad. Cornish servant girl Amy is an outcast in her small community, shunned even by her own family and suspected of being a witch by the locals. When a Ukranian ship is wrecked in a storm, Amy claims the sole survivor, Yanko, as her own. But the villagers, who believe Amy conjured up the storm herself, conspire to keep the lovers apart. A windswept epic. find out more...

Michael Anderson had the bright idea of collecting hundreds of stars together way before Robert Altman thought of it and here they all are, in glorious technicolour. Niven is suberb, as always, as the impeccable Fogg who, for a wager, tries to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days! Hop on a sailing railroad across The West! Be attacked by fierce prairie Indians! Rescue a Princess in India! Sail a burning Atlantic paddle-wheeler! Fight bulls in Spain! Romp through Paris! Won Best Picture at 1956 Ac find out more...

Shot in five sections "How The West Was Won" is a sprawling multi-star epic following the fortunes of one family from 1839 and New York to 1889 and Arizona. 'The Rivers' (dir Henry Hathaway); the Prescotts head west down the Ohio river. 'The Plains' (dir Henry Hathaway); Lily moves to St Louis and on to Caifornia. 'The Civil War' (dir John Ford); Linus and Zeb enlist on the Union side. 'The Railroad' (dir George Marshall); the settlers multiply and cavalry officer Zeb finds himself in a war with find out more...

In the winter of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex was assaulted by something no one could believe: a whale of mammoth size and will, and an almost human sense of vengeance. The real-life maritime disaster would inspire Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. But that told only half the story. "In the Heart of the Sea" reveals the encounter's harrowing aftermath, as the ship's surviving crew is pushed to their limits and forced to do the unthinkable to stay alive. Braving storms, starvation, pani find out more...

Brooks's adaptation of Conrad's novel, the story of an idealistic young naval officer who is discharged for cowardice and tries to redeem himself by taking some explosives into the unmapped jungles of Sumatra, where he is captured and tortured by a feudal war lord. O'Toole's Jim and Mason's Gentleman Brown discussing the age of the world and the price of evil while sat on a raft in the middle of a fog-bound river is a classic scene, and Freddie Young's photography does for the Asian jungles what find out more...

Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey is a naval commander whose ship comes under heavy fire from a vastly superior enemy vessel while on patrol off the Brazilian coast during the Napoleonic wars. Only the luck of the gods and Jack's renowned cunning save him and the crew from certain doom, enabling their ship to slip away from battle before all is lost in the icy depths of the ocean. With his pride and his ship in a poor way Jack vows to turn the tables on his foe and so begins a tense game of cat and mo find out more...

Melville's wild and brilliant gothic tale is electrically adapted by John Huston. Peck's performance, as Ahab with his gradual descent into madness, make a powerful centrepiece, whilst the deliberate sepia feel, the narration, and the fine supporting cast (including Orson Welles) all add depth. find out more...

Another re-working of Herman Neville's novel sees the mad bad and dangerous to know Captain Ahab taking his increasingly reluctant crew on an all consuming quest for vengeance against the infamous white whale, Moby Dick. A class cast and some decent production values make this a tempting alternative to actually reading the classic. find out more...

The first half of an exhaustive and lush dramatisation of Napoleon Bonaparte, from ambitious Corsican soldier at the end of the 18th Century, to his imprisonment on the Island of St Helena by the British, less than twenty years later. If anything "Napoleon" is almost overly dramatic, but it's still an enthralling look at the great man, both publicly and privately, his military achievements, and the turning of a divided France into the most powerful nation in the Western world. find out more...