US teen heart-throb Johnny Depp plays Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker, the coolest dude in school and the baddest boy in Baltimore. Rich, prim, new girl Alison thinks he's a dream, her grandmother thinks he's a nightmare. An even weirder cast than 'Hairspray' in this quirky, offbeat musical extravaganza that's got a touch of traditional John Waters shock stuff, but is predominately a parody of both 50s teen rebellion and 50s teen musical flicks. Its reputation has grown hugely with time. find out more...

A superb portrait of Liverpudlian working class life in the 1940s and 50s. The family gather to recall their domineering father through a brilliantly realised almost episodic series of reminiscences cleverly undercut with period music. Ambitious, elegant and profoundly moving, highly rated by critics and won FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics Prize, Cannes 1988. find out more...

A lovingly created homage to the melodramas of the 1950s sees Frank and Cathy Whitaker's picture perfect marriage masking a relationship based on lies. A blossoming friendship with the black gardener and a husband whose fallen in love with another man leave Cathy shunned by her friends and neighbours, her outwardly idylic world finally revealed for the sham that it is. Far from Heaven looks stunning, the recreation of the period nothing short of immaculate, but I have never been a fan of 1950s m find out more...

A high school musical which ripped off everything it could from the 1950s. At the time it was slated, but, in retrospect, it started a trend and is nowhere near as bad as some of the movies which followed it. In fact, one could go as far as to say it's now a bit of a classic... find out more...

The story of a French actress and a Japanese man's brief affair in Hiroshima, stirring up painful memories for them both, for her wartime 'collaboration' and, for him, the bomb which quite literally destroyed everything he had known. Resnais's film is now seen as revolutionary for its time an a must for film study courses. Sadly haunting. find out more...

'Julie and Julia' tells the story of 2 women; Julia Childs, who wrote 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and 'My Life in France', the latter of which is adapted for one half of this film, and Julie Powell, a present day New Yorker who, to escape the tedium of her own life, decided to cook her way through Julia's 524 recipes and writes a blog about doing so. The parallels and the differences between their two lives are highlighted. In the more interesting of the 2 stories Meryl Streep contin find out more...

Based on the novel 'Post Mortem: The Story of Katyn' by Andrzej Mularczyk this film tells the horrific story of the 1940 Soviet NKVD's massacre, and subsequent cover-up, of an estimated 22,000, mainly Polish, military officers, police and intellectuals. Rarely does a film about the horrors of organised genocide achieve in its representation such an honest and harrowing account of crimes against humanity. find out more...

This thoughtful, feelgood fantasy-comedy-drama is Hollywood at its best. Nineties teenager Tobey Maguire and his wild child sister Reese Witherspoon get the culture shock of their lives when they're sucked through the TV into '50's sitcom Pleasantville. Given that in Pleasantville there's never been passion, hatred, war, tears, rain, or even colour, the residents get quite a surprise too when real life starts creeping into their perfect, monochrome world. Thought-provoking and thoroughly enterta find out more...

The true story of champion boxer Jake La Motta brought to the screen by De Niro and Scorcese - probably the greatest partnership of the 1980s. De Niro watched innumerable boxing videos and gained 2 stone to put in a performance that won him an Oscar. Voted Best Film of the '80s by the critics. find out more...

Based on a true story, the film charts the troubled life of Barbara Daly, who married into the American Baekeland dynasty (the inventors of bakelite). Despite the melodramatic nature of the plot, the performances of the three leads are subtle and engaging. These are not characters to like, but they are fascinating nonetheless. Exquisitely shot, 'Savage Grace' is a harrowing, moving and disturbing dramatisation of faded love and familial obsession - events that ended with a brutal murder. find out more...