'High Noon' works on many levels; the second-to-none screenplay, the subtle direction, the clock, Gary Cooper's Oscar-winning performance... It's about a small town sheriff who must basically stand alone to defend the people from a wild gang of outlaws, who have just been let out of jail and will arrive on the noon train. Although he does not have to, and the town does not deserve saving, Cooper decides that he will do the job that he was hired to do. A classic amongst Westerns, it strips the ge find out more...

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Suberb performances both from the leads and the assembled extras on yet another Altman masterpiece. Here he subverts the excepted modes of the Western genre with Beatty as the non-heroic McCabe and Christie as third-rate Madam. Life in the West probably was like this, but never is in the films. find out more...

Frontiersman Vern Haskell (Arthur Kennedy) wanders the West obsessed with finding the culprits responsible for murdering his fiancee. His quest leads him to Chuck-a-Luck - the film's original title - a combination horse ranch and criminal hideout overseen by saloon chanteuse Altar Keane (Marlene Dietrich). Posing as an escaped criminal Haskell falls in with murderous gunslinger Frenchy Fairmont (Mel Ferrer) and gradually becomes indistinguishable from the men he is hunting. find out more...

After the 11th September 2001 the War Against Terror is preparing to move on to Iraq. The UN have sent in the weapons inspectors to find if Saddam has indeed Weapons of Mass Destruction and the political machines in both the UK and US are working to present the strongest possible case for war in the face of (in the UK) very vocal opposition from the public. With the dossiers released and the threat established the "need for war" is set and, on the 19th March 2003, th find out more...

One of the finest of the genre, this classic western follows two men whose initial contempt for each other's methods, one a hard man rancher, the other a naively honest lawyer, develops into respect when faced with the the town's local hoodlum. Tense, absorbing and not without wit. Superb. find out more...

Two drifters are passing through a Western town when news comes in that a local farmer has been murdered and his cattle stolen. The townspeople, joined by the drifters, form a posse to catch the perpetrators. They find three men in possession of the cattle, and are determined to see justice done on the spot. Superlative western with a timeless message, echoed in another Henry Fonda classic: 12 Angry Men. find out more...

After a sensitive widow (Kirsten Dunst) and her enigmatic, fiercely loving son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) move in with her gentle new husband (Jesse Plemons), a tense battle of wills plays out between them and his brutish brother (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose frightening volatility conceals a secret torment, and whose capacity for tenderness, once reawakened, may offer him redemption or spell his destruction.

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Crusading frontier policeman Captain Stanley captures the fugitive Burns brothers, Charley and Mikey, at the scene of a bloody rape and murder. Informing Charley that he must kill his older brother, Arthur, in order to avoid the execution of Mikey, Stanley retreats to an old jailhouse and awaits the bloody outcome. Director John Hillcoat's second collaboration with Nick Cave (here contributing the film's screenplay and soundtrack), is a taut and often brutal character study of desperation ami find out more...