An Agatha Christie tale told four times on film, this is still the best. Ten guests on an isolated island are murdered one by one. The only clue is a children's nursery rhyme. A black comedy-mystery with terrific performances, 'And Then There Were None' is adapted beautifully by acclaimed French director Rene Clair. find out more...

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A classic noir adaptation of a Chandler novel with Dick Powell as the hardboiled, wise-cracking, incorruptible Marlowe in a seedy, decadent LA of shifting loyalties, unseen evil, phoneys, criminals, old money and family skeletons. Superb dialogue and definitive noir camerawork. find out more...

Philip Marlowe has two cases on his books and they may not be as unconnected as they seem. Giant-sized Moose Malloy is straight out of jail and looking for Velma, his chorus-line girlfriend. Marlowe takes sympathy on him and agrees to track her down but all he finds is a dead-end. Meanwhile, smooth gigolo Lindsay Marriott is eager to buy back a rare jade necklace from thieves and hires Marlowe as protection during the transaction. The neon-drenched, smoke-filled LA of 1941 forms the background f find out more...

A fiendishly clever serial killer is stalking the streets of London, his predilection, young women from the highest echelons of British aristocracy. It's another case for Sherlock Holmes in this lush feature length BBC adaptation of Conan Doyle's detective novels, the tile role convincingly performed by Rupert Everett. find out more...

Holmes, Watson and a plethora of potty passengers are all aboard the London to Edinburgh express. As the train rattles on its way, so does the mayhem, with a corpse turning up in a carriage and a false-bottomed coffin in the guard's van. Will the stealthy sleuths solve the mystery? Elementary... As fast-paced, tightly-woven a Sherlock Holmes mystery as you will find. find out more...

The first of the classic series of adaptations following the investigations of Sherlock Holmes. A malevolent curse is blamed for the death of an aristocrat and Holmes is called in to investigate, using his scientific method and dry Victorian wit. Superb nuanced performances from Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as the pudgy Watson. Cracking stuff. find out more...

Jenny Seagrove plays Mary, the recipient of pearls from a mysterious benefactor in this Sherlock Holmes tale. The pearls have appeared each year since her father disappeared ten years previously. With the help of Holmes and his trusty companion Watson, they take on the challenge of unravelling the mystery of the Sign of Four following a brutal murder. find out more...

Burt Lancaster makes his debut, in this adaptation of a short story by Ernest Hemingway, as Swede, a washed-up boxer who finds himself manipulated and double crossed thanks to the charms of femme fatale Ava Gardner. A definitively noir gangster film about an unusual contract killing that stands out thanks to Lancaster's performance as the lovesick palooka taken for a ride.

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This is, along with Hawks' The Big Sleep, easily the most intelligent of all screen adaptations of Chandler's work. Altman in fact stays pretty close to the novel's basic narrative (though there are a couple of crucial changes), but where he comes up with something totally original is in his ironic updating of the story and characters: Gould's Marlowe is a laid-back, shambling slob who, despite his incessant claim that everything is 'OK with me,' actually harbours the same honourable ideals as C find out more...