The classic anti-war film of the classic anti-war book. The story follows a group of naive young patriots from school in Germany through the horrors of WW1 and their gradual annihilation in the trenches. As the angry, bewildered boys witness death and mutilation all around them, all ideas about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life whi find out more...

The greatest movie ever made? A soldier is sent into the Heart of Darkness to retrieve a commander gone AWOL in an insane reality of tin-pot power, paranoia and inglorious killing. The horror of war is stripped naked in a surreal twilight world. The crew nearly went mad making it, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack and Coppola flew so far beyond budget that the word 'bankrupt' was nearly redefined. See "Heart of Darkness"... find out more...

The definitive 'Apocalypse Now' (as if the original wasn't pretty definitive) this has nearly an hour of extra footage fleshing out the surreal journey of our central protagonists and, though it brings the film to a whisker short of three and a half hours, much of it explains what happens to the eclectic characters we meet. The cut version of 'Apocalypse Now' stands as one of the most awesome films of modern cinema, anyone who has seen it will inevitably see it again, it's just that now you have find out more...

In a not far off dystopian future women have become infertile and governments have forgotten that Orwell's ‘1984' was supposed to be a searing indictment of what NOT to do. Into this less than hopeful world arrives a young woman who has achieved the miracle of pregnancy, everyone wants the child as a cynical totem for the people, and those planning rebellion are as ruthless as those in power. Finding a reluctant but increasingly determined guardian in the form of Theo, mother and child go in sea find out more...

The original television series version following the crew of a German WW2 U-Boat as they live together, hunt Allied shipping and are preyed on themselves. The tension, claustrophobia and their fear leap out of the screen and totally avoids any sense of nationalism in what would have been fatal for this superb production.
Awesome.

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Germany 1945; in a bunker complex buried deep within the bowels of Berlin find out more...

A psychotic American commander worried about the subversive effects of water fluoridisation on his "vital bodily fluids" starts off an attack on the Soviet Union. No-one can stop the fighters and no-one, as yet, knows about the failsafe Doomsday Machine. Brilliant black comedy. find out more...

In 1994 in the East African state of Rwanda long simmering resentment between the 2 largest ethnic groups erupted into one of history's worst ever bloodbaths. In the midst of this emerged a hero, the manager of Rwanda's only four-star hotel, who, armed with little more than his wit and tremendous courage, succeeds in keeping the fascist killing hordes from slaughtering him, his family, and the over 1,000 refugees sheltering in his hotel. An awesome indictment of racism, mass murder and the poli find out more...

Guillermo Del Toro's blockbusting tale of a young girl struggling to make sense of the violent world around her was a big 2006 arthouse hit. Continuing his exploration of the impact of the Spanish Civil War on his generation (it was also the backdrop for his excellent ghost story, The Devil's Backbone) Del Toro's fantasy mixes strong horror with fairytale-style aesthetics to great effect, making Ofelia's escape into an imaginary realm a poignant response to the cruel realities of her existence. find out more...

One of Stanley Kubrick's earliest films, Paths of Glory is a seminal anti-war movie. Set during the First World War, the French general staff give the order for Colonel Dax (Douglas) and his men to attack a particularly well fortified German position. The order is little more than authorised suicide and when the remanants of Dax's men return, the high command, looking for something to distact from their murderous incompetence, decide to court-martial three of the surviving soldiers. The outra find out more...