A landmark in the history of the cinema; it was ranked Number 1 in the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time in two polls (1998 and 2007) of more than 1,500 film industry movers and shakers and again by UK directors in a BFI poll. "Citizen Kane" narrates the rise and fall of a newspaper tycoon driven by a childhood obssession and is loosely based round the life of William Randolph Hurst, who tried to have it banned, but incorporates elements from the lives of other fat cats il find out more...

Bobby Sands was the IRA member who led the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike as part of a campaign to achieve the status of political prisoners and not that of criminals. The first section of film deals with daily prison life, the 'dirty' protest and the violence, the second is a long discussion on the meaning of life with a sympathetic priest and the third depicts the last weeks and death of a man voluntarily dying of starvation. 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...

This is a very good deconstruction of the political polemicist Michael Moore, a man who's made a lot of money out of feeding liberals entertainment and whose cupboard rattles with skeletons. The film goes into a number of details of gross inaccuracies, and betrayals of the people he pertains to support, in order to further his career. In particular we learn about lies told in 'Roger and Me', eg about the supposed apathy of the locals and about being unable to talk to Roger. We hear about the len find out more...

An intelligent, thoughtful, highly engaging biopic of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco based idealist, who became the first openly gay activist to run for political office in the US. Before his assassination Milk was a leading cog in the battle for civil rights for the gay community, as in the 1978 fight against Proposition 6, which could have banned gay and lesbian individuals from teaching in schools. The story may have been a terriby tragedy, but the tone of the movie is upbeat and vibrant, Gus find out more...

A gripping, Oscar nominated, reconstruction of the rise of the Baader-Meinhof Group, a bunch of radical terrorists who rose in the mid-70s using military means, arson, bank raids, assassinations and kidnappings, to attempt the overthrow of the German state, many of whose personnel had their roots in the country's Nazi state. find out more...

It's the early 50s in Argentina and two middle class medical students decide to make a journey across their largely unknown continent. While on this eight month travel one of the men begins his own journey from privileged ignorance to iconic revolutionary, the birth of Che Guevara has begun. The Motorcycle Diaries is a breathtakingly beautiful film, beginning as a whimsical, idiosyncratic and often humorous adventure and gradually expanding into a powerful and deeply moving drama. find out more...

'W.' or "Dub-ya" is the biopic of George W. Bush, and along with some of the rather amusing befuddlements he made whilst in office, it shows his journey from Bush family black sheep to Leader of the Free World, including; his days at Yale University, his drunken exploit, his religious conversion, and the barbeque at which he met the woman who would one day become First Lady. Stone's portrayal of the 43rd President of the United States of America is challenging insofar as the man in question come find out more...