The story of a director, devoid of inspiration and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, trying to satisfy the anticipation surrounding his next project. Surreal, serio-comic mildly autobiographical and widely acclaimed as one of the great films about movie-making. Fellini's masterpiece. find out more...

Cocteau's avant garde first feature is essentially a two-part study of the tribulations of being an artist; the pain, pleasure and suffering for one's art. Highly imaginative and particularly interesting as a source of his later work, Cocteau creates some stunning, surrealist imagery. Weird and wonderful. find out more...

The collection opens with Len Lye's modernist abstraction ‘Tusalava’, which, heavily influenced by Maori and Aboriginal art, shares an interest in ‘primitive’ cultures that was typical of the Modernist movement of the time. It was almost refused a certificate by the puzzled British Board of Censors who suspected that the dancing abstract shapes might be about sex. Lye's own explanation was that it showed the beginnings of organic life. ‘Crossing the Great Sagrada’, is a lowbrow spoof on travel find out more...

Award wining documentary ‘Song of Ceylon’, is a lyrical beauty, but owes its enduring charm to its anachronistic notions of Empire and Englishness. ‘Bread’ is a slice of realism that looks at hunger in Britain. ‘Beyond This Open Road’ shows the urban populace journeying into the countryside during their weekends away from work; the imagery and utopian aesthetic are reminiscent of the work of Leni Riefenstahl. ‘Coal Face’ is an experiment in realism that focuses on the importance of coal mini find out more...

The wonderful people over at Second Run DVD have released another hidden gem: 'Daisies' (Sedmikrasky), originally made in 1966 by Vera Chytilova, who has since been called 'the first lady of Czech cinema' and whose efforts also earnt her a screening at the First International Festival of Women's Films in New York in 1972. find out more...

The film opens as a young woman sits compliantly while Buñuel takes a razor and slices her eye open. What follows is a surrealist exposition. The film focuses on a man's attempt to make love to a woman, who always seems out of reach. He is grabbed by two men and led around the streets, staring into images which become animated. The film has its unpleasant moments; a man executes his young son for a minor offence, a blind man is assaulted crossing a road, but Bunuel's savage humour is always evid find out more...

Resnais's controversial attempt at collaboration with avant garde author Alain Robbe-Grillet. The film sets up a puzzle that is never resolved, a man meets a woman in a rambling hotel and believes he may have had an affair with her the previous year at Marienbad - or did he? Or was it somewhere else? Deliberately scrambling chronology to the point where past, present and future become meaningless, Resnais creates a vaguely unsettling mood by means of stylish composition, long, smooth tracking sh find out more...

'La Jetee' is a milestone in cinematic history, and the inspiration behind Hollywood hit '12 Monkeys'. This classic sci-fi short takes one man on a terrifying journey from the post-apocalyptic world he inhabits, back to his childhood and his one distant memory; the face of a woman at the end of a pier. Stunning. find out more...

Cocteau's last film is a personal and intimate trawl through his work, reprising the major themes and characters. He plays himself at the centre of the 'Orpheus' myth that he based his work upon, and self-consciously re-examines his own work and ideas. Strange fantasy, only for Cocteau afficionados. find out more...

Cocteau re-works the Greek myth in contempory terms as Death, a beautiful woman, helps the poet Orpheus rescue his lover from hell. Imaginative, memorable, baffling and beautiful. One of the most poetic movies in the history of cinema. find out more...