Michelangelo Antonioni's 'Red Desert' is an undeniable cinematic masterpiece which tells the story of Giuliana (Monica Vitti), a complicated and lonely woman, who is on the brink of having an affair. The film's harsh landscapes, remarkable colouring (this was Antonioni's first colour picture) and grating, industrial soundtrack are exemplary in their explication of the emotional isolation and mental illness from which Giuliana suffers. Aesthetically breathtaking, this is an absolute must-see. find out more...

Made eight years after Psycho, Perkins again plays a mentally disturbed young man. Just released from an institution for, as a teenager, burning down his aunt's house with her inside, he lives in a fantasy world, pretending he's a CIA agent. This seems to work brilliantly as a chat up line for he picks up a beautiful, but very gullible, all American small town girl. This is a pure mix of Hitchcock and 60s rebellion. Watch it. find out more...

The first of Visconti's series of films exploring the mechanisms of class and family in the context of historical change. Set during the 1860s Austrian occupation of Italy, Alida Valli plays Countess Lidia, a married Venetian aristocrat who falls in love with a young Austrian officer, Franz. Lidia sacrifices everything for love, but the narcissistic materialism of Franz becomes apparent, sadistically exploiting his own looks and her masochism, submitting her to one humiliation after another and, find out more...

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...