Polanski has a go at the film noir detective thriller, very bleak, very twisted and very menacing it is to. Nicholson plays a private-eye in pre-war LA who is hired to pursue an adultery case, but finds himself embroiled in a complicated murder investigation. find out more...

Brilliantly directed story about a psychotic Hollywood scriptwriter, who is suspected of murder but given a false alibi by his gorgeous neighbour. Bogart's character never lets up and you're never sure if he's guilty or not, and nor is his lovestruck neighbour. As the police close in, it develops into a beautifully tense psychological thriller, did he do it and will the girl stand by her man? Awesome, awesome, awesome!!! find out more...

Set in medieval Kyoto, this is an engrossing tale of rape and murder in which contradictory accounts of events are later related from the perspectives of four of those involved. A film which awakened the West to the richness of Japanese cinema. find out more...

Hitchcock's masterpiece. A news photographer is confined to his apartment by an injury and spends his days watching the neighbours. He comes to believe that he is witnessing the preparations for a murder. Based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich. Suspense, ambiguity and voyuerism; total brilliance! find out more...

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...