The Magnificent Ambersons
Orson Welles
USA · 1942 Orson Welles' follow-up to Citizen Kane is this Best Picture nominee, an epic tale of the gradual decline of an old-monied Indianapolis family in the face of turn-of-the-century industrialisation. Welles, who directed, produced and adapted the screenplay, also provides the narration. |
Double Indemnity
Billy Wilder
USA · 1944 Fred MacMurray is the sap who falls for femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck, plotting to bump off her husband in a necessarily complicated insurance fraud. A ground-breaking film noir, with hardboiled narration and pitiless cynicism that became staples of the genre. |
Twentieth Century
Howard Hawks
USA · 1934 A seminal screwball comedy from genre master Howard Hawks. An egotistical theatre director attempts to wo back a former protege. John Barrymore's calculated excesses are an exercise in self-parody; he's matched every step of the way by the peerless Carole Lombard. |
The Last Picture Show
Peter Bogdanovich
USA · 1971 50th Anniversary Screening Starkly shot in black-and-white, this powerful coming-of-age drama set in a 1950s Texas small town evokes the cinema of Hollywood's golden age but cuts deeper, improving on Larry McMurtry's source novel. In an excellent ensemble cast, Cloris Leachman stands out. |
Nosferatu
FW Murnau
Germany · 1922 The archetypal horror movie is Bram Stoker's Dracula in all but name. "A visual and emotional treat. Schreck’s vampire is truly nightmarish, scuttling from shadows like something you’d really like to see back under its rock.” - Kim Newman, empireonline.com |
Juliet Gerrard: Science in Dark Times
Shirley Horrocks
New Zealand · 2021 Science in Dark Times follows the work of a remarkable woman, Dame Juliet Gerrard, Jacinda Ardern's Chief Science Advisor, through three years of dramatic crises, including the Whakaari White Island eruption and the unfolding of the Covid-19 pandemic. |