Giuseppe Tornatore directed this grand-scale portrait of life and love over several decades in the small town in Sicily where he was born. We see a number of important historical events through the eyes of young Peppino, watching the fortunes of his town and his family rise and fall. While open to accusations of nostalgia, superficiality and indulgence the film is something of a feast for the senses.
A rambunctious family saga the kind they don't, and probably shouldn't, make any more. find out more...

Robert Downey Jnr demonstrates his prowess by giving a riveting performance as the little master. The cast delivers despite a disjointed narrative, and Chaplin's fall from grace, brought down by McCarthyism is very moving. Kevin Kline is excellent as the flamboyant Fairbanks Jnr. find out more...

Kline and Judd combine well in this delightful homage to the life and times of Cole and Linda Porter, man and wife, composer and muse, a couple who led a life of glamour and indulged eccentricity. There's no shortage of the man's music, which is unfortunately sometimes murdered by using a series of unsuitable singers; "It's De-Lovely" by Robbie Williams, "Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)" by Alanis Morissette, "Begin The Beguine" by Sheryl Crow, "Let's Misbehave" by Elvis Costello, "Be a Clown" find out more...

Based on the comic-book adventure detailing the events in the life of legendary Korean martial artist Choi Bae-dal. find out more...

Forget that this is a Scorsese movie, 'cos there's not a gangster or a grifter in sight. Stunningly shot, this is the visually breathtaking account of the early life of the 14th Dalai Lama, starting with his discovery by Buddhist monks in the northern Tibet of 1935. Meticulously detailed but well-paced, it's a rich, riveting movie with a powerfully haunting soundtrack from Philip Glass. find out more...

Adapted from Bruce Chatwin's book and very much 'Thomas Hardy does Wales'. We follow four generations, in particular the intense relationship of two identical twin brothers, Ben and Lewis, of a Welsh hill-farming family. Visionary direction and ravishing scenery, our countryside at its very best. find out more...

The tale of two men banged up for years in the notorious French penal colony Devil's Island. Two escape bids by one of them results in years of solitary confinement but make him simply more determined to flee, even as old age approachs. The ultimate prison escape movie loosely based on a true story. find out more...

The tale of Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's last official executioner, a man who personally dispatched 608 men and women, including various Nazi war criminals, Timothy Evans and Ruth Ellis. Timothy Spall superbly pulls off how this rather ordinary, but distinctly odd, bloke coped emotionally and professionally with his job. An awesome period piece and a superb look into a very strange occupation. A must for anyone who liked Vera Drake. find out more...

The film version of Kurt Vonnegut Jr's famous anti-war sci-fi novel. Slipping back and forth along his own life line a suburban optometrist experiences the fire bombing of Dresden and captivity on the planet Trafalmardore. A powerful and seemingly unfilmable book that turned out to be a great movie. find out more...

An epic family drama spanning three generations of a Jewish family, who moved from a rural village to the city, became wealthy, respected, bourgeois and/or radicalised and Hungarianised, set against a backdrop of the final days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, World War 1, the rise of fascism, the Holocaust and the Communist era. A tour-de-force performance by Ralph Fiennes in various reincarnations, especially as the character who won a fencing gold medal for Hungary in the 1936 Olympics, in th find out more...