Paolo Sorrentino is one of the finest filmmakers working in cinema today. Wherever he points his camera, beauty flows; whether that be Rome, Naples, or even the Swiss Alps, Sorrentino infuses gorgeous visuals with fascinating characters—both real and fictional.

His films never run at breakneck speed, yet they always seem to be thrilling, and his latest release, La Grazia, captures his very best in a nutshell. Working once more with long-time collaborator Tony Servillo, Sorrentino returns to Rome for his latest work for the first time since 2013’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty. It’s proved one of the most fruitful partnerships in modern cinema, with the pair working together on seven films.

Sorrentino himself describes some of his films as experiments and concedes that they possibly might not be much more than that, looking back in the cold light of day. And of course, there are personal projects; 2021’s The Hand of God was a sentimental and partially autobiographical tale set in Naples, while his last film, 2024’s Parthenope, took an even more extravagant and exotic look at his home city. He has even dipped his toes successfully into television, with The Young Pope (2016) and The New Pope (2019).

In this list, we rank all eleven of his feature films, including his latest work.

11. This Must Be The Place (2011)

Sean Penn is almost unrecognizable as a retired rock star living in Dublin, still dressed in full goth makeup and black clothes decades after his fame faded. He wanders around shopping centers and talks to teenagers and hasn’t really done anything with himself in years. When his estranged father dies in New York, he travels to America and ends up taking on his father’s unfinished mission to track down a former Nazi war criminal who humiliated him in Auschwitz.

While it’s arguably Sorrentino’s least accomplished film, there’s still much to like about This Must Be The Place, not least Sean Penn’s extraordinary performance. Sorrentino builds the whole film around it, and the road trip across America that the film becomes is unlike anything we’ve seen from Sorrentino before or since.

The tonal shifts in the film are frequently absurd, and some of them work rather well, while some of them feel slightly askew. In the end, it’s an odd film even by Sorrentino’s standards, but there’s still more than enough in here to warrant your time.

10. One Man Up (2001)

Sorrentino’s debut feature holds the DNA of everything he’d go on to produce. It might come in fits and starts, and it’s far from a masterpiece, but it remains a hugely significant work. Starring Andrea Renzi and Tony Servillo as two men in Naples sharing the same name (Antonio Pisapia), One Man Up follows their two parallel stories. One is a fading pop star watching his career collapse (Renzi) while the other is a retired footballer (Servillo) haunted by a match-fixing scandal that ended his time in the game.

The two men are defined by what they used to be and are crushed by the gap between that and what they are now. Both performances are excellent, Servillo especially proving why he would go on to work several times with the director, and while the film doesn’t all hang together, this was very much a marker set down by Sorrentino.

9. Loro (2018)

Tony Servillo stars as Silvio Berlusconi in Sorrentino’s epic partial biopic of the Italian media tycoon and politician who served as the prime minister of Italy in three governments. It’s also a tale of young hustler Sergio Morra (Riccardo Scamarcio), who tries to work his way into Berlusconi’s inner circle by supplying him with girls and favors, hoping to trade this for real power.

It’s worth noting that Loro was originally released in Italy as two separate films, Loro 1 and Loro 2, before being edited into a single international cut of around two hours. Sadly, it shows, as Loro’s two-hour run time feels like it’s missing a lot—and perhaps more frustrating is the knowledge that a longer cut exists, somewhere.

But what we do get in Loro is a sensational performance from Servillo, who captures something far more than just an impression of the man. The first half of the film is the story of a young chancer, while the shift to Berlusconi in the second pulls the rug out from under the film completely—in both positive and negative ways.

Loro could have been a masterpiece, but ultimately, the decision to chop and change it makes it feel rushed and incomplete. In its full version, this might very well be much higher up this list.

8. The Family Friend (2006)

Geremia (Giacomo Rizzo) is a loan shark operating in a small southern Italian town. He’s old, physically repulsive, lives with his bedridden mother, and the entire community despises him while simultaneously depending on him for money. When a young bride-to-be named Rosalba (Laura Chiatti) comes to him for a loan to pay for her wedding, Geremia becomes obsessed with her.

With The Family Friend, Sorrentino manages to build an entire film around a man who is completely repellent yet successfully keeps you engaged for its duration. The power dynamics in place are something we’ve seen before from Sorrentino, but not this dark, and he never attempts to dismiss them as anything else. Spending time with such a character might well have been a tricky ask under another director, but not this one.

It’s not up there with his very best, but this is a very interesting piece of filmmaking from Sorrentino, and with it, you could see the potential of his finest work.

7. Parthenope (2024)

The tale of a young Neapolitan woman who traverses the trials and tribulations of womanhood amongst Naples’ most vibrant and bizarre characters, wowing everyone in her path with her own beauty—it certainly sounds like something from the Sorrentino stable.

Many accused Sorrentino of falling foul of self-parody and self-indulgence for this, his tenth full-length feature, and yet while Parthenope doesn’t reach the heights of his best, what it perhaps lacks in emotional pull, it makes up for in cinematic beauty.

In the end, backed up by a truly stunning final third, Sorrentino delivers his message that he has subtly been aiming for all along with Parthenope. Beauty is stunning and can propel your entire life if you so choose, but it can lead to a certain vacuousness. Intelligence and understanding, gained by the art of curiosity and learning, eventually drive Parthenope, both the character and Sorrentino’s truly beautiful film.

It’s a testament to his astonishing ability to fool you into thinking you’re simply in love with the visuals and that it’s all surface beauty—and before you know it, you’re completely invested in everything that’s going on.

The Cannes Film Festival is one of the most revered in cinema and undoubtedly one of the most notorious in terms of controversy and audience reaction. The history of the festival is littered with films that have produced twenty-minute standing ovations, as well as being held up in such a light that God himself could only wish for.

But of course, there’s the other end of that reaction spectrum, with titles being booed so aggressively that it genuinely becomes uncomfortable, or people either walking out or fainting due to the extreme nature of what’s unfurling in front of them. Gaspar Noé, I’m looking at you.

It’s a festival that even seems to bring out the very worst in film’s most respected critics. Just think of British critic Mark Kermode, for example, who was so disgusted by Lars von Trier’s The Idiots (1998) that he stood up and shouted, “Il est merde!” before being removed from the screening.

This is a festival that seems to be different from any other, for a whole range of reasons. In this list, we take a look at ten of the most controversial films ever to screen at Cannes.

1. La Dolce Vita (1960)

Federico Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece, following gossip journalist Marcello Rubini over seven days and nights in Rome drifting through the city’s decadent society, caused an uproar before it even got to Cannes. When it premiered in Italy, audiences spat on Fellini in the street, while the Vatican condemned it. Italians saw it as a direct attack on their capital as well as the Catholic Church, and the director was accused of dragging the countries reputation through the gutter for wider audiences.

At Cannes, it won the Palme d’Or, but back in Italy this only made things far worse. The jury at Cannes was divided with some feeling that the film was far too long and episodic whilst others were bowled over by Fellini’s masterful eye behind the camera. So, while it caused some unhappiness at Cannes, no film has arguably come into the festival being so hated by the very country it came from.

Now of course, it’s seen as one of Fellini’s greatest works, but at the time it caused all sorts of bother.

2. Wild at Heart (1990)

Despite the studio mess of Dune (1984), Lynch had already proved his worth with Eraserhead (1977) and The Elephant Man (1980) before taking on Frank Herbert’s novel. After the mess of Dune, Lynch went back to doing what he did best, giving us the 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet before venturing into the world of Twin Peaks. As the second season descended into chaos with more studio tampering, Lynch spent less time on set and more time working on Wild at Heart, which was in competition at Cannes.

Despite the film’s self-aware nature (and the fact that it’s a terrific film), when it was announced as the Palme d’Or winner, there was uproar. The decision was met with a mix of cheers and loud, sustained booing, with a significant number of critics feeling it was one of Lynch’s lesser works, gratuitously violent and sexually extreme without the depth of his previous work.

It remains one of the most divisive winners of all time, and even though it’s admittedly violent, looking back, it does seem odd that the fourth film by Lynch was the one that caused this much controversy. It’s far from the most gratuitous film to play at Cannes and is a far better Lynch film than it’s perhaps given credit for.

3. Crash (1996)

David Cronenberg’s Crash is a film whose reception at Cannes is a far more understandable one than that of Wild at Heart. Adapted from J.G. Ballard’s astonishing novel, the film tells the tale of a film producer who becomes drawn into an underground subculture of people who are sexually aroused by car crashes.

Francis Ford Coppola presided over the jury at Cannes and awarded Crash a Special Jury Prize, but reportedly only after a heated battle, with some jurors pushing hard for the Palme d’Or and others wanting it nowhere near the prizes. It’s hardly surprising that the film was met with a chorus of boos at the climax of the screening, with critics being divided straight down the middle. Some thought it was genuinely an interesting and original cinematic work, while others accused it of simply being pornography dressed up as art.

The storm didn’t finish at Cannes, with Westminster Council in the UK banning it outright, meaning it could not be shown in any cinema in the West End—even though they had earlier given special permission for the film’s premiere. The press had a field day with all of it, cementing its reputation as a film you simply had to see. It remains one of Cronenberg’s best films, heightened by the reputation it was given at Cannes.

4. Funny Games (1997)

Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a nasty piece of work. Whether it’s any good or not is up for debate, although there’s no doubting whatsoever that it’s successful in what it sets out to do. Almost the entire film is set in a holiday home in which an Austrian family arrive for a relaxing break. Two polite young men in white gloves turn up at the door asking to borrow some eggs, and what follows is psychological and physical torture of a hideous nature for the film’s duration.

Haneke repeatedly makes the characters break the fourth wall, essentially asking the audience why they’re still watching, and the whole thing is impressively provocative and deeply disturbing. At Cannes, the result was mass walkouts with people visibly shaken and very angry. The film is designed to gain such a reaction, a finger pointed at audiences who consume screen violence as entertainment.

What made people so upset was the total lack of empathy or reason behind what they were watching, a problem that was echoed by some critics. But there were plenty that championed it as a masterpiece in confrontational cinema, and it continues to split opinion today. Just don’t bother with the remake.

5. Irréversible (2002)

Arguably the most controversial on this entire list, Gaspar Noé’s shocking yet brilliant 2002 film opens with one of the most violent scenes ever put to film, as a man has his head caved in with a fire extinguisher; even more incredible, as it’s shot in a way that makes it look like there are no cuts. The film is shot in reverse, and we learn that this horrifying beginning comes full circle from the appalling attack that we eventually see towards the film’s ending. That nine-minute extended assault in an underpass is even more horrendous.

But the gimmick of the film’s structure is what makes it work because it changes how the film makes you feel about what’s unfurling. But at Cannes, legend claims that over 200 people walked out during the premiere and several audience members needed medical attention. Critics were split between those who thought it was a masterpiece and those who thought it was simply beyond the pale. In the UK, it’s a film that is one of the very few to ever receive an ‘Extremely Strong’ rating for its violence from the British Board of Film Classification.

Over twenty years on the film has lost none of its infamy, with the film continuing to divide audiences and critics. Noé is a filmmaker who knows how to provoke, but there’s no doubting he can also create cinema of the highest quality. Whether you think Irréversible is good or not is very much down to personal opinion.

Every year, the Cannes Film Festival gathers nine filmworkers – respected directors, writers, actors, and artisans – to judge the main competition. As the format suggests, results vary. It’s no surprise that gossip of jury squabbling and disagreement seeps out. Some Cannes juries are more harmonious than others. Some years are notorious for the sniping that broke out into the public.

Time, as well, changes perspective. A film well-liked or even loved can fade while the Grand Prix winner ascends to classic status. Some Palme d’Or winners are unanimous favorites that are the talk of the town until the ceremony makes it official. Others are out-of-nowhere picks that show how much the discourse differs from the jury’s tastes. Others, many films on this list, are unexpected choices — respectable and well-liked enough but somewhat tepid – that reflect a hung jury negotiating conflicting sensibilities.

All of which is to say that the best film doesn’t always win, and this century is chockful of films that were denied the top Palme but have grown in stature as the film that bested them becomes a footnote in cinema history. Some snubs were obvious then, others only later. But here are 10 films that should’ve won the Palme d’Or this century.

1. Mulholland Drive (2001)

The 2001 Palme d’Or went to The Son’s Room, Nanni Moretti’s drama about a family dealing with grief after a tragic accident. It’s not hard to see why Moretti won. He’s a Cannes mainstay and a renowned figure in European cinema who offered the exact kind of sweet, tender drama that counted as high cinema at the time. But the competition was strong, and it included a film often cited as the best film of the century.

That film was Mulholland Drive. In retrospect, it’s hard to argue that The Son’s Room is a better winner over David Lynch’s failed TV pilot turned fever dream fantasmagoria of Hollywood past and future. Moretti’s film was slight and soft with a foot firmly in the 1990s. Lynch’s film was a journey across space and time that continues to spur debate and invite countless rewatches. It’s alternatingly intriguing, terrifying, and haunting, and if the presence of YouTube theory videos is any indication, it will remain a mystery to which audiences return for a long time.

2. Irreversible (2002)

The Cannes jury isn’t immune to ties, so some entries on this list are less about giving one film’s Palme d’Or to another and more about sharing the love, or at least suggesting an equally valid pick. The Pianist is a hard film to argue against, even given the Roman Polanski of it all, but the 2002 selection had a number of stylistically daring films that could’ve at least shared the prize or justified The Pianist going home with a Grand Prix. Three of arguably the most exciting, innovative entries walked home empty handed: one-shot wonder Russian Ark, meta musical masterpiece 24 Hour Party People, and Gaspar Noe’s infamous Irreversible.

While 24 Hour Party People’s anarchic madness would be an inspired pick, this slot goes to Irreversible. Given the walkouts and the vitriol the film received, the idea of it receiving the Palme d’Or would’ve been unthinkable at the time, and its nihilism and graphic violence continue to repel and scar viewers. But it’s also the work of technically inventive filmmaker who tells a cohesive, shattering narrative in a way that transcends gimmickry. Its central conceit might be that time destroys everything, but its graphic violence also served as a powerful antidote to Hollywood’s glorification of violence. It may not be an enjoyable watch, but it is a formidable one from one of the era’s most exciting and skilled filmmakers.

3. Oldboy (2004)

Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy is now a classic. Its hallway scene has been imitated and replicated but rarely if ever surpassed, and its central mystery continues to confound new viewers. It lost the Palme d’Or to Fahrenheit 9/11, a pick so widely believed to be political that jury head Quentin Tarentino had to publicly insist it was a unanimous choice by the jury based on the film’s cinematic merit. To be fair, awarding Fahrenheit 9/11, for politics or not, was a bold choice that emphasized the illegality and brutality of the US government’s post-9/11 invasion of Iraq.

But it wasn’t the best film of the competition, and if Moore’s film was released today it’d be more likely to premier on YouTube than on the Croisette. While 2004 had other worthy contenders in the likes of Wong Kar-wai, Lucretia Martel, and Shrek 2, there’s no denying that Oldboy occupies a place in modern cinematic canons that bridges the arthouse and the box office. It’s a propulsive, dark, shocking film that grips the audience and never lets go until its twisted finale. There was a lot of great, important work that year, but Oldboy was probably the most enduring of them all.

4. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Not all Cannes winners are necessarily supposed to be the biggest, wildest, most memorable pick from their year. After all, part of the festival’s power is in elevating films that might have otherwise gone unnoticed – particularly by European and American audiences – if not for that golden boost. But Pan’s Labyrinth was such a standout filmic achievement, a beautiful work of imagination that refashioned some of the darkest imagery and themes of the post-war into something both fantastical and horrifying, that its snub (it won nothing) is quite the injustice.

The top prize that year went to Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a worthy winner that finally bestowed a long-awaited Palme d’Or on Ken Loach. Without detracting from that work, it wouldn’t be too much to ask for the prize to have been shared between two films that cover similar ground albeit in very different ways. In fact, giving the award to two films focused on past wars that oozed relevance for their contemporary audiences would’ve honored two excellent movies while making the kind of statement that other juries have been desperate to do.

5. Melancholia (2011)

It’s widely speculated that Lars von Trier talked his way out of a second Palme d’Or and into persona non grata status during the press conference for Melancholia, sending the top prize to Terrence Marlick’s Tree of Life. The idea that the Palme d’Or was between a film about the birth of life and a film about the end of it is amusing, but even in a competition slate that included Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, future Oscar winner The Artist, The Skin I Live In, Sean Penn as a goth idol hunting Nazis in This Must Be the Place, and We Need to Talk About Kevin, the rightful winner looms over them all like a planet falling out of orbit.

Melancholia is a huge story writ small, a tale of sisters Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) confronting the end of the world. Justine’s wedding is already a disaster before news that a rogue planet is on a collision course for Earth. The sisters’ reactions form the bones of von Trier’s story: chronically depressed Justine displays eerie calm while the normally level-headed Claire can’t help but bargain and despair. Melancholia is routinely feted as one of the most accurate filmic displays of depression, and this would be enough to guarantee its continued relevance were it not for the film’s sheer beauty. Like a hellish Bosch tableaux animated in slow motion as a camera slowly moves across it, Melancholia is a hauntingly, hopelessly wonderous film – brutal, beautiful, honest – and one of the century’s best.

Obsession, the debut horror feature by Curry Barker, mines familiar territory to turn up a tale that still feels fresh and delightfully wicked. The premise will be familiar to anyone with a casual knowledge of horror tropes or irony. This self-assured debut is the most built-out modern entry in the Monkey’s Paw wish-fulfillment school of storytelling, and even this familiarity turns out to be an asset.

Barker is a comedian/actor and YouTuber whose transition to mainstream, big screen cinema is considerably graceful. Like fellow sketch/improv comedians turned filmmakers Jordan Peele and Zach Cregger, Barker’s comedic timing translates into strong pacing and narrative economy, with humor offsetting and intensifying the horror beats.

Obsession is also the latest in the the streamer-to-Hollywood pipeline, a trend that’s shaping much of the 2026 cinemascape. Earlier this year, YouTuber Markiplier self-funded horror hit Iron Lung. Influencer Jordan Firstman, recently sparked a Cannes bidding war with debut Club Kid, and Backrooms, based on the liminal horror YouTube series, hits cinemas later this month. Like earlier streamer stalwarts Raka Raka whose debut Talk to Her was deft and disturbing, Obsession reflects the storytelling prowess cultivated by navigating virality and subverting expectations. Audiences likely know how this story will end, but how it gets there and the specific horrors that ensue are so well executed that genre fans will find themselves on a journey as enthralling as it is familiar.

Obsession revolves around Bear (Michael Johnston, oscillating between hapless bumbler and problematic manchild) who is hopelessly in love with long-time friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette), who’s also his coworker at a local music store where the rest of his friend group/trivia team Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless) work. Bear and Nikki share a past as high school outcasts, but Bear’s cloyingly earnest crush blinds him to how uninterested Nikki is in the type of love Bear has to offer.

His attempt to butter her up with a gift leads him to a new age store where he spots the mysterious object that puts the plot into motion. From there, Obsession becomes an exercise in, and proof that, there might not be new stories so much as interesting ways of telling them. Much of Obsession’s appeal comes from what it does with a familiar premise and how ably it twists the irony of the love potion gone wrong to explore the discourse around relationships, codependency, and mental illness without turning its themes into a boogeyman outright a la the excesses of the elevated horror era.

As Bear, Johnston is an able lead. His tepidness and exasperation periodically giving way to a more cunning, selfish operator when the realities of his choices confront him. But the film belongs to Navarrette. As Nikki, she does the film’s heavy lifting, ably selling the transition from cynical and bitchy to doting, effusive girlfriend and then gleeful, relentless girlboss of a different kind. Barker mines tropes and motifs around domestic violence and mental health, putting Bear in increasingly chaotic situations where any action can trigger an outsized, irrational, frightening response. Navarrette particularly shines during a party scene that communicates the extent to which she’s not herself, as her attempts to play a drinking game lead to an awkward story that baffles the other guests as her face curls at the deliciousness she finds in her own tale.

Navarette does a lot with her smile. Pre-wish Nikki is notably not-impressed, not with her life and certainly not with Bear’s thinly veiled nice guy schtick. Post-wish Nikki tries on different smiles, wearing them until Bear’s slight provocations – pulling away from a cuddle, trying to go to a party alone – send her into a rage. And then there are the smiles that Barker intentionally casts in shadows and glares that give the film an added sheen of horror. It’s in these moments that Barker’s film horrifies by letting the camera linger in well-constructed contrasts of light that warp Naverette’s face to give the audience glimpses into the reality behind Nikki’s façade.

And this is essentially Obsession’s strength. It takes a well-known set-up and infuses every beat with craft, skill, and scares. It’s a welcome showcase for Barker’s storytelling abilities. By adopting a story that’s less about sympathizing with the characters as it is about watching them get their comeuppances, Obsession serves as a vehicle for one horrifying set piece after another. Even moments where the outcome seems obvious have their own tension. Much of the charm is in the inevitability of the horror and the dread that gradually and surely consumes every ounce of kindness around it.

Still, if Obsession were just a series of ghoulish set-ups for gory kills, it wouldn’t work half as well as it does. There’s a natural, lived-in element to Obsession’s characters, and Barker writes with a sense of honesty that speaks to the interiority of his characters even as that honesty rots into cynicism. For a film about a hopeless romantic, this is a delightfully unsympathetic film that escapes predictability and the feeling of being telegraphed by delivering with tension, tone, and proper madness.

Author Bio: BJ Thoray is a writer/editor of fiction, media criticism, and more. BJ’s fiction has appeared in Rundelania!, Black Cat Weekly, Mobile Data Mag, Quasar Review, and Kosmos Obscura. Film writing can be found in Taste of Cinema, High on Films, and Film25. Originally from California, BJ is currently based in Belgium (less for the waffles, more for the surrealism). The work: https://linktr.ee/bjthoray.

In a decade where Hollywood grew larger and mainstream cinema became louder, less nuanced, and certainly more brash, blockbuster films took their place at the forefront of the film world. But underneath that top layer of bombastic spectacle, there was a whole range of films that perhaps would have gotten a whole lot more attention if they’d been released in a pre-blockbuster era.

Some were slow-burning character pieces, some were interesting yet violent genre pieces, and some would arguably have remained on the sidelines either way. All of them prove, however, that the eighties were a decade of far more than just Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger hitting people whilst holding enormous guns. That’s perhaps a sweeping generalisation, but you get my point.

In this list, we take a look at ten thrillers that certainly weren’t in the firing line in terms of major releases and today still aren’t the easiest to track down or turn up on TV every couple of weeks.

1. The Stunt Man (1980)

Steve Railsback plays a man on the run who stumbles onto a film set where a stuntman has just been killed. The film’s possibly unhinged director (a terrific Peter O’Toole) spots an opportunity and offers him the dead man’s job and a hiding place from the authorities, provided he keeps his mouth shut and performs increasingly dangerous stunts on demand.

Peter O’Toole gives arguably one of the great late-career performances and bags an Oscar nomination for it; his director is a brilliant yet terrifying and possibly insane individual, and the film hangs on the question of whether he’s a genius or a madman. It’s quite an apt character for a film that feels off the hook from the start, but in the best way possible. Railsback is also in fine form, and the pair of them are joined by Barbara Hershey’s leading lady, who gets caught in the middle of them.

Director Richard Rush spent nine years trying to get the film made, but it was worth it; this is a thriller about filmmaking and romance, yet it fits a whole lot of effective black humor into its run time. Despite its three Oscar nominations, it disappeared from people’s views soon after and more than warrants a reappraisal.

2. The Fourth Man (1983)

Paul Verhoeven might well be better known globally for his English-speaking films, most notably his forays into erotic thrillers (Basic Instinct, Showgirls) or satirical sci-fi thrillers (Total Recall, Starship Troopers), but his early work is every bit as important.

The Fourth Man is one of his finest first features, with Jeroen Krabbe starring as bisexual Dutch writer Gerard on his way to a lecture when he meets Christine (Renée Soutendijk), a beautiful blonde widow who runs a beauty salon. He accepts her invitation to stay the night, and then several more- drawn in by the sex and a photograph of her handsome young boyfriend, who quickly becomes obsessed with. As he starts digging into her past, Gerard begins to suspect that she’s already buried three husbands, and he might well be on the way to being the fourth.

It all sounds very Verhoeven, and everything that he does well is on display here. Sex, Catholic guilt, psychological warfare—it’s all present and correct as Verhoeven began to successfully steamroll his way towards Hollywood. The Fourth Man is a superb example of the early Verhoeven blueprint, and although it might be tricky to track down, it’s well worth doing so.

3. Yokohama BJ Blues (1981)

Starring Yusaku Matsuda as a jazz singer who moonlights as a private detective, Eiichi Kudo’s neo-noir thriller is a moody and atmospheric piece that riffs on The Long Goodbye (1973) and is every bit as engrossing. When one of his friends is killed, Matsuda’s BJ gets the blame and must start his own investigation to clear his name, uncovering a tangled web of corruption and gangsters as well as delving into some underground scenes in search of answers.

Kudo hammers down the aesthetics of the P.I. subgenre, taking you through a murky world of dingy bars, apartments, and back alleys, supplying you with everything you might possibly want from this type of thriller.

Yokohama BJ Blues is one of those features that gets under your skin; you can almost smell the atmosphere that it manages to create, pulling you down into its dank underbelly and spitting you out only at the film’s conclusion.

It’s a film that’s long been championed in Japan, but it’s taken a long time to get the recognition it deserves elsewhere, and one hopes that a recent Blu-ray release will introduce it to a whole new audience.

4. Cutter’s Way (1981)

This is one of those films that you feel like you should have seen—everything about it suggests that it was a far bigger hit than it actually was. Jeff Bridges plays Richard Bone, a drifter working as a small-time boat salesman in Santa Barbara and coasting through life without wanting or needing to commit to anything serious. One night, he sees a man dumping something into an alley, which turns out to be the body of a teenage girl. His best friend Alex Cutter (John Heard), a one-eyed, one-legged (and permanently drunk) Vietnam veteran, becomes convinced he knows who did it and sets about dragging Bone into an obsessive private investigation to bring him down.

Ivan Passer’s film is one of the great post-Vietnam films and sits alongside Dead Presidents (1995) and Rambo: First Blood (1982) in terms of underappreciated examples of films capturing the devastating effects the war had on veterans attempting to return to everyday life.

Bridges is excellent, but it’s Heard who somehow manages to be the heart and soul of the film, managing to be furious, funny, self-destructive, and heartbreaking all at once. Lis Eichhorn is tremendous alongside them as Cutter’s long-suffering wife, held together by alcohol and blind loyalty even when she can see the issues in front of her. Buried on release by a distributor who seemingly didn’t know what to do with it, Cutter’s Way is a masterpiece that’s only just being understood as such.

5. The Border (1982)

Jack Nicholson and Harvey Keitel are electric in Tony Richardson’s El Paso-set low-key thriller. Nicholson is Charlie Smith, a US border patrol agent transferred from Los Angeles because his materialistic wife, Marcy (a superb Valerie Perrine), wants a bigger house and a better life. But what Charlie finds when he arrives is a corrupt operation where his colleagues—led by Keitel’s Cat—are running a lucrative sideline trafficking the very migrants they’re supposed to be turning back. When a young Mexican woman has her baby stolen by the traffickers, Charlie starts to question everything he’s becoming, and Nicholson depicts it brilliantly.

It’s one of his most understated performances, and coming off the back of The Shining (1980), it perhaps didn’t get the attention it warranted. Tony Richardson was possibly better known for his sixties British kitchen sink dramas, yet The Border proves there were many more strings to his bow; he shoots El Paso as a dusty border town in which morals have long since left, and everyone is simply trying to pass the time before they die.

The performances across the board are excellent, and the relationship between Nicholson and Perrine is especially noteworthy; Perrine depicts a woman slowly realising that there’s no reason behind her material efforts to give life meaning, while Nicholson struggles to find her any respite whatsoever. It’s brilliant.

Over the last few years, 4K Blu-ray releases have transformed the way we enjoy films at home, delivering recent favorites in stunning resolution and resurrecting old classics that were previously unavailable on home viewing platforms. Now, audiences can experience these films at their best, short of a theatrical screening. The 4K surge continues with no signs of slowing; for collectors, recent years have been a golden age for upgrading film libraries.

What follows is a pick of ten films released in 4K in the last two years that are essential viewing and worthy of a place on any film fan’s shelves. Some are masterpieces that have finally been given their due on Blu-ray, some are cult favorites, and there might even be one or two you haven’t seen. But all are worth your time, and you can now see them in glorious transfers.

1. High Noon (1952)

As one of the great American films, Fred Zinnemann’s masterpiece has lost none of its power over nearly three-quarters of a century. Gary Cooper won an Oscar for his portrayal of Marshal Will Kane, the man who has just married his Quaker wife (Grace Kelly) and is about to start a new life as a shopkeeper. But, as luck would have it, a vicious outlaw he sent to prison years ago has been pardoned and is arriving on the next train.

It’s a classic Western setup, but High Noon’s real-time structure delivers something remarkable. Though much has been said about the film, the recent Eureka Masters of Cinema 4K release is a gorgeous addition, with Floyd Scrosby’s restored black and white photography looking sharper than ever.

It remains one of the essential American films of the 20th century, and it’s a release every cinephile should own.

2. The Killing (1956)

This is the film that announced Stanley Kubrick to the world, and he’ll pop up later in this list as well. He was only 27 when he made The Killing, the tale of Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden), a hardened ex-con just out of prison who puts together a meticulous plan to rob a racetrack of its takings during a race.

In 1956, the telling of the story in a non-linear style was genuinely radical, and you could argue that every heist film made since The Killing owes Kubrick a debt.

Having this gem now available in 4K, courtesy of Kino Lorber, is a real treat, especially since it doesn’t appear on many of the old Kubrick box sets previously available. It feels like you’re discovering it for the first time all over again. The release also features a superb audio commentary by author and film historian Alan K. Rode, along with a host of special features that Kubrick fans will love.

3. Le Samouraï (1967)

One of the best films ever put to screen, full stop, Jean-Pierre Melville’s meticulous and beautiful-looking hitman film has received a transfer that somehow makes it look even more gorgeous. Alain Delon remains the coolest and most suave hit man to grace our screens, living alone in a small apartment with only a caged bird for company. He carries out a contract killing in a nightclub but is seen leaving by the resident piano player (Cathy Rosier); however, when she’s brought in to identify him at a police lineup, she inexplicably says nothing.

The entire film is an enthralling low-key game of cat and mouse, and it’s stripped down to the absolute essentials, working like a dream. Le Samourai is one of those films you could watch again and again, and the recent Criterion 4K release is essential, with a stunning restoration that brings out every piece of the film in a new light yet keeps the minimalist color palette. As ever with their releases, it’s presented in a beautiful slipcase package that mirrors the grainy look of the film, and while the film has been championed by pretty much everyone who loves cinema, this Criterion release is the ultimate edition of one of the all-time greats.

4. Point Blank (1967)

John Boorman’s crime thriller remains something of a classic oddity of the genre, and Criterion once more have outdone themselves with their 4K release of this Lee Marvin-fronted gem. Supervised and approved by Boorman himself, this release features a full extra disc of bonus features, which include reflections by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, as well as a terrific program on mid-century Los Angeles architecture that features in Point Blank, a setting that is so key to the film’s visual flair.

The way Boorman shoots L.A. brings another layer to the film, and it often feels ahead of its time—more akin to the European exploitation revenge thrillers that permeated the seventies, which is why this extra feature is such an important one. It’s still one of the most important thrillers put to screen and looks every bit as good now as it did on release, and the package it’s now received from Criterion is gold dust.

5. Sorcerer (1977)

Still one of the biggest flops of all time, William Friedkin’s Sorcerer has finally begun to receive the praise it has always deserved. Coming in way over budget with a notoriously horrific shoot, the film tells the tale of four men from very different parts of the world who are brought together for a job in a nameless South American village and are all hiding from their pasts.

A loose remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (1953), Friedkin’s film is a masterpiece from start to finish, soaked in tension, and will have you biting your fingernails until the very end. With Criterion’s recent 4K restoration, you can feel every drop of mud, sweat, and fear that feels like it holds the film together, and this release makes the decades of waiting for any sort of version of this absolutely worth it.

This release features both a 4K version and a Blu-ray version with a further disc packed with features that will have Friedkin fans licking their lips. The sound design offered in this format gives you Tangerine Dream’s astonishing score in glory that’s never been experienced before outside of a theatre, while the features disc gives fans a feature-length documentary entitled ‘Friedkin Uncut’ by Francesco Zippel that contains interviews with Friedkin, Wes Anderson, and Francis Ford Coppola, amongst others.

There is no event in the film world as storied and important as the Cannes Film Festival. Even among its fellow Big 3 European film festivals – Venice and Berlin – Cannes remains the most prestigious and coveted festival slot, and its top prize, the Palme d’Or, is arguably the most coveted cinematic achievement.

The Palme d’Or (or Golden Palm) is decided by a jury of nine filmworkers, chosen anew each year. Each jury has their own prerogative. Some opt for a film that speaks to the moment. Some are bowled over by a unique vision or naturalist truths. Still, the award isn’t without politics, with jury drama gossip occasionally slipping out. No one but the jury ever officially knows why a particular film won, but we’re often left to speculate on the strange ones. Maybe the director was overdue. Maybe the jury couldn’t agree and found a compromise.

In this century, Cannes has kept a roster of regular competitors who gradually climb the awards ranks until they get gold, at least once. In its history, nine directors have won the top prize twice, four of them in this century. With celebrated auteurs like Michael Haneke and Ken Loach retired, a newer generation of filmmakers have shorn up the ranks of regular competitors.

As this year’s festival gets underway — with three directors are going for a second win while a slew of others seek their first – we rank the winners of this century.

26. The Image Book (2018)

Prior to the 2026 festival, this century technically only boasted 25 Palme d’Or winners since there was no festival in 2020. As if by some impossible foresight, Cate Blanchett’s 2018 jury awarded a Special Palme d’Or, one they insisted was not another jury prize or lifetime achievement, to Jean-Luc Godard’s The Image Book. It would turn out to be his final film, and while it’s a fitting goodbye, in true Godard fashion it’s a curious, opaque experience.

How accessible or comprehensible does a film need to be? As with his late career work, The Image Book is an avante-garde essay that reflects on history, particularly the West’s Orientalism and moral hypocrisy on atrocities facing the Middle East. However, those who haven’t read an analysis or aren’t familiar with MENA cinema and cinema history in general likely will see a series of interesting images and clips with obtuse, inconsistently translated commentary that’s striking but confounding. The Image Book often feels like being talked at by someone with no interest in what the audience thinks. It’s an artful experience that’s perhaps more interested in being felt or deciphered than it is in making any point.

The bottom spot on this list ultimately came down to two films with opposite issues: one is too obtuse, the other too obvious. One is too artful. The other not enough. Ultimately, The Image Book claimed the spot, but as far as talking at audiences go, Coppola would do well to take note. This is what Megalopolis should’ve been.

25. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

More than any other winner this century (maybe ever), Fahrenheit 9/11 embodies the Palme d’Or that wins for speaking to the political moment. Michael Moore’s follow-up to surprise box office success Bowling for Columbine became the first documentary to win since 1956’s The Silent World (Le Monde du Silence), and the only one to do so this century (unless you count the above entry). So rife were the rumors that the win was politically motivated – and that jury head Tarentino only begrudgingly awarded it over Oldboy – that Tarentino held a press conference to deny all the gossip.

Regardless of the jury’s decision, it’s hard to see Fahrenheit 9/11 as the strongest entry of the year. Moore has always been stronger as an activist than as a filmmaker, and part of his past cinematic success was due to the fact that there wasn’t yet a marketplace for his particular brand of content. Moore was ahead of his time as a political personality, but Fahrenheit 9/11 plays more like political essay than a cohesive film. Barring a montage of US foreign atrocities set to Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”, Fahrenheit 9/11 lacks much of the storytelling prowess and collage ethos that made Bowling for Columbine a unique theatrical experience. While documentaries continue to compete in the main competition at Cannes (albeit rarely) and other major festivals, it’s hard to imagine Fahrenheit 9/11 showing up at today’s festival as opposed to on YouTube or cable news.

24. The Son’s Room (2001)

The Son’s Room is a fine film. It’s by no means bad – this being a list of Palme d’Or winners, the films here go from good to masterpiece – and is quite the tender, gentle film. Nanni Moretti, a Cannes mainstay whose premiered every film he’s made since 1993 at the festival, wrote, directed, co-produced, and stars. As Giovanni, Moretti gives himself a plum role as an analyst who, along with his wife and child, struggles to move forward after a tragedy.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with The Son’s Room though it can’t help but feel quaint in today’s cinescape. The film feels more like it’s from the 1990s than the 2000s. It’s a subdued look at grief, but it sometimes feels slight and is perhaps too self-aware in its emotional beats and machinations. The quarter century would see rawer, more intense depictions of grief (including In the Bedroom, released in the same year), and it’s hard not to see The Son’s Room today as a fond, gentle dip into sadness and misery that Moretti’s contemporaries would take to more visceral heights.

23. The Square (2017)

The 2010s had contentious wins that seemed to reflect jury discord and an impulse to reward long-competing Cannes favorites. Such was the case with the Pedro Almodovar-led jury’s pick The Square. Rumor has it Almodovar was keen on Robin Campillo’s BPM while Will Smith stumped for Jupiter’s Moon, and they split the difference with Ruben Östlund’s first film to make it into the main competition.

The Square revolves around an art installation and its curator Christian, whose life is oddly shifted after his phone is stolen. But Östlund’s film is more a collection of vignettes satirizing the art world, and it plays more like episodes stitched together than a cohesive narrative. It’s overlong, and its satire sometimes misses the mark, mocking the same indulgence that it’s guilty of. While his previous film Force Majeure skewered family dynamics and his follow-up took a satirical lens to the wealthy, the art world indulgences that The Square pulls at aren’t so removed from those of the film world. What’s left is a movie that’s alternately fascinating and tedious, punctuated by what is probably one of the best movie scenes of this century.

22. I, Daniel Blake (2016)

Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake was a populist hit that diligently and boldly laid out the flaws of austerity England and the indignations it puts on its most vulnerable. But its biggest strength is also its weakness. This is a thoroughly unsubtle affair, important for how it meticulously details governmental negligence and clumsy in how that translates storytelling-wise. Sometimes a lack of subtlety is a potent storytelling tool – one film later on the list mines it for comedy – but with this social realist drama, it’s equal parts stirring and cloying.

But I, Daniel Blake captured its moment in ways that few other winners have, and unlike some other winners, there’s no arguing this was an overdue career award: Loach had already won in 2006 (more on that later). I, Daniel Blake is an important film that stoked controversy – the Tory government felt particularly attacked – and continues to stir conversation, but here Loach’s storytelling pales in comparison to other films (including his own).

21. Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)

Perhaps no modern Cannes winner has undergone as much of a reevaluation (and in such short time) as Blue Is the Warmest Colour. Abdellatif Kechiche’s adaptation of Jul Maroh’s graphic novel was originally feted by Steven Spielberg’s jury with the odd caveat that the Palme d’Or be awarded to not just Kechiche but also the two leads Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos. The decision was reportedly unanimous and Blue Is the Warmest Colour was heralded as one of the best movies of the year and a landmark of Queer cinema, but reports of Kechiche’s poor behaviour on set and the exploitative gaze of the film emerged shortly after. Today, the film’s standing remains wobbly.

Despite these criticisms, Blue Is the Warmest Colour is a moving, deeply felt work. The story of a woman’s sexual awakening and heartbreaking first love, it harkens back to a time in recent cinema when auteurs, many of them French, seemed deadest on recreating the realities of love and, especially, sex onscreen in ways that were more realistic than pornographic (other examples: Love by Gaspar Noe and Michael Winterbottom’s Nine Songs), with usually uneven and at times tedious results. Blue Is the Warmest Colour might be the best attempt in that it gives the relationship the time – three hours – we need to see it, feel it, and watch it turn. Beyond the controversy, there is an earnest attempt to convey the interiority of one person’s longing and the scope of emotions they experience. Kechiche’s later work might prove the criticisms about his gaze correct, but there’s still a beating heart within the film that rings true for anyone who’s ever been in love, been loved, and suffered heartbreak.

20. Dheepan (2015)

Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan is another Cannes winner that’s simply fine – an elevated work by a respected festival-anointed auteur that injects social realism with genre trappings (or vice versa). It was a surprise win and notably contentious, with animosity spilling out during the press conference. The win was allegedly strong-armed by jury member Xavier Dolan while also shutting out Todd Haynes Carol, which was the favorite with critics and much of the jury.

On its own, Dheepan can’t help but feel like Audiard’s prize after nearly nabbing it for Un Prophete in 2009. In the opening scene, the titular character is matched with a woman and child, all of whom pretend to be a family to get asylum in Europe. Once in France, they’re put to work in a housing estate where poverty and the drug trade bring back reminders of the shattering civil war they thought they’d left behind. It’s a film infused with grace and craft, and it touches on social issues, looking into a diaspora and issues often ignored in European cinema. The film’s final act was criticized for how it veers into dad-fantasy actioner and then just sort of ends. In the end, Dheepan is Audiard cum Charles Bronson, an immigrant tale told by a French auteur, making it perhaps perfect Cannes fare.

19. The Tree of Life (2011)

The 2011 festival was a strange one indeed, and the decision by Robert De Niro’s jury to award Terrence Marlick made a lot of sense. There was likely great enthusiasm to award the esteemed, reclusive auteur with what appeared to be his return to mainstream cinema, a choice that turned out to be prescient given how Marlick since showed little interest in conventional storytelling since.

The Tree of Life is storytelling at its most epic, as Marlick essentially wraps the creation of the universe into a coming-of-age story to make what’s essentially Childhood: The Movie. It’s a beautiful, sprawling movie cut with surreal image and Marlick-trademark voiceover narration, buoyed by performances from Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and especially Jessica Chastain. Ultimately, the decision came down to a film about the birth of the universe and the end of the planet, and while it’s strange to think that Lars von Trier lost out on his second Palme d’Or for comments that could now get him elected president of the USA, The Tree of Life remains a worthy winner.

For many of us, it might seem shocking that twenty years have passed since Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and the world of fashion exploded onto our cinema screens in The Devil Wears Prada. The exact same feeling might have erupted when the sequel itself was announced. Where, how, and more importantly, why, could such an idea be dreamed up beyond fiscal gain?

Beyond nostalgia and a two-decade-long love of the characters on show, David Frankel’s film offers very little. The real question to be asked here, perhaps, is, does that matter? For the two hours that this sequel is in front of you, the answer is frequently, not really.

Anne Hathaway returns as Andrea “Andy” Sachs, the once would-be serious writer who landed a job at New York fashion magazine Runway, edited by Streep’s Miranda Priestly, before landing a journalism job elsewhere (with many lessons seemingly learned) at the film’s conclusion. Twenty years on, as we rejoin her, she’s landing an award for her articles at a broadsheet job while simultaneously being fired along with the rest of her colleagues. I wonder where she might end up.

You surely won’t believe it, but Runway needs a features editor to spruce up some positive press, the company having embarrassed itself by accidentally becoming associated with the sweatshop economy. And after Andy is reacquainted with her former boss (a scene in which Miranda seemingly has no recollection of her whatsoever), Stanley Tucci’s Nigel explains the current way of the world to her. Physical media is obsolete; the magazine doesn’t exist anymore, and online clickbait for the fickle teen brain is driving statistics and production. In the first twenty minutes of the film, we are literally battered round the head with the fact that the world has moved on.

You can’t hang a feature film on such a notion, but the film tries. Thankfully, these are characters we’re happy to welcome back with open arms; Miranda’s despair at having to check that what’s coming out of her mouth is politically correct in a desperate-to-be-offended society is especially amusing, and a moment that many will sympathise with. She’s been kept in place in this respect by her new assistant, Amari, a welcome addition to the proceedings, expertly provided by Simone Ashley. And there’s a full new set of characters that includes a rather pointless yet not unwelcome role for Kenneth Branagh as Miranda’s new boyfriend, Stuart. Justin Theroux, Lucy Liu, and Lady Gaga also turn up, while Emily Blunt also returns as Miranda’s former top assistant, Emily, who is now the head of Dior.

Trying to explain the plot of the film is a fruitless task, and the contrivances used to set everything up for the unfolding events are bordering on the ridiculous. You don’t buy anything that’s going on for a second. But if you’re going to see this, one could argue you’re not looking for depth; you simply want to spend some time with old friends, talk about the good old days, and discuss how much life has changed.

The cast swagger through the material with ease, and somehow both Streep and Tucci barely look a day older. The first film was Hathaway’s big breakout role after The Princess Diaries (2001), and try as she might here, her world-weary Andy isn’t anywhere near as effective an individual as the clueless and somewhat endearing assistant we were introduced to twenty years ago. The way in which Miranda swatted her away was all part of the charm, and while the pair might be on more even footing this time round, the relationship doesn’t quite have the trenchant bite it used to.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 fails to escape the exact issues its characters face: relativity in a new age. Despite its many flaws, however, you’d be hard pressed to come out of this without a smile on your face, and for fans of the original, it probably offers exactly what you might want from it. Whether that’s good enough is another question and, in some ways, a rather pointless one. This is, at times, a hugely enjoyable affair, enhanced by some characters you love spending time with. It’s a film whose surface sparkles with nostalgia and invites you to spend time admiring its style while hoping you forget the lack of substance. And for a couple of hours, you do.

Author Bio: Christian Keane is a film critic who explores overlooked gems, cult classics, and cinema’s hidden corners. He believes it’s great to disagree — everyone’s perspective matters — and shares his thoughts on his website and across his socials at Keane on Film, which you can find here https://linktr.ee/christiankeane7. You can also find him on Tiktok @keane.on.film and Instagram @keaneonfilm.

With the recent release of Antoine Fuqua’s Michael very much splitting opinion, with the divide seemingly set between fans and critics, it’s also been a time to discuss what a musical biopic should be. Many have claimed one should always separate the art from the artist, but that’s arguably not what Michael does; it simply ignores the more disturbing elements of the tale altogether.

The musical biopic is a fascinating genre because there are so many ways you can approach the stories, be it a dissection of an entire life, a focus on a particular era, or something completely different and innovative.

In this list, we take a look back at ten of the greatest musical biopics of the 21st century. Spoiler: Michael doesn’t make the cut.

1. Ray (2004)

The film that won Jamie Foxx an Oscar for his wonderful portrayal of Ray Charles, in a display that was truly transformative. Taylor Hackford’s take on the story begins during Charles’s impoverished childhood in Georgia, where he lost his sight as a boy, and builds from there, charting the rise to becoming one of the most important musicians of the 20th century.

Ray isn’t just an engaging telling of the story; it tackles Charles’s battles with heroin addiction and his complicated relationships with the women in his life, as well as addressing his fight for creative and financial control in an industry that frequently exploited Black artists.

Foxx’s performance isn’t so much an impression as an inhibition; for audiences, it was like seeing Charles himself on screen, with the physical mannerisms and a voice so convincing that he cleaned up during awards season and deservedly so. Kerry Washington and Regina King both provide superb supporting roles with fully rounded characters, making Ray one of the best films of 2004.

2. Walk the Line (2005)

James Mangold took on the tale of Bob Dylan last year with A Complete Unknown, and while that film did plenty right, it’s not in the same league as Mangold’s Johnny Cash biopic. Released just a year after Ray, the film was also up for all the major awards, seeing Reese Witherspoon walk off with an Oscar for her performance as June Carter.

Joaquin Phoenix is mind-blowing as Cash himself, throwing himself into a role and providing his own singing (like Witherspoon) and capturing Cash’s deep baritone growl in a way that’s almost eerie in its likeness. He was denied an Oscar, losing to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote in a category that really could have gone to either of them.

Mangold is far more of a household name now, but back then, he was relatively up-and-coming, and Walk the Line cemented his place as a name to keep a firm eye on.

3. I’m Not There (2007)

Todd Haynes brought a wildly original take to the biopic with his screen adaptation of the life of Bob Dylan, having six actors play six different versions of Dylan across different periods of his life—though none of them is called Bob Dylan. We see a young Black boy (Marcus Carl Franklin), a folk protest singer turned born-again preacher (Christian Bale), a movie star (Heath Ledger), a poet (Ben Whishaw), an outlaw (Richard Gere), and a rock star (Cate Blanchett); all fragments of Dylan’s life and myth that seep into each other without ever telling you the real story.

For this sort of approach to work, each performance needs to be on point, and all six are astonishing, seemingly embedding a sense of truth in each story. Blanchett especially is astounding; her portrayal of the mid-sixties electric Dylan is genuinely uncanny and arguably should have bagged her an Oscar.

Haynes, as usual, treats his audience with respect and trusts them to keep up with the story, never holding their hand or telling them how to think. It’s a film that really tackles the impossibility of capturing someone who really wasn’t interested in such a thing, and it remains utterly superb.

4. La Vie en Rose (2007)

Olivier Dahan’s biopic of Edith Piaf has been accused by some of simply being about Marion Cotillard’s performance and not much else. And while it’s true that Cotillard’s physical transformation and performance are astonishing (it bagged her an Oscar), Dahan’s film has far more on offer than simply Cotillard.

The non-linear structure of La Vie en Rose is something that critics found fault with, but the whole point of it is that it mirrors Piaf’s life; it was far from a simple and straightforward rags-to-riches tale. The jumbled timeline ends up capturing the chaos of Piaf herself, and Cotillard’s extraordinary work in lip-syncing Piaf’s original recordings (something else that many found fault with) makes for electrifying viewing.

La Vie en Rose is a bruising and sometimes exhausting affair, but for all the right reasons, and Cotillard’s performance remains one of the finest by an actress in the 21st century.

5. Control (2007)

Anton Corbijn’s truly remarkable take on the life of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis is one of the best films of the 21st century, let alone simply one of the finest biopics. Based on Deborah Curtis’s fantastic book Touching from a Distance, Corbijn shoots in black and white and conjures up an image of 1970s Manchester that puts you right there at the time. Charting the rise of Joy Division until Curtis’s suicide in 1980, the film focuses on Curtis’s struggles with depression and epilepsy as the band goes from strength to strength, with his astonishing physicality as a frontman being one of the factors.

The film hinges on its central performance, and Sam Riley should have been up for an Oscar for his portrayal of Curtis. He embodies the character with full commitment, also providing his own singing—it’s a truly incredible display. Corbijn also doesn’t bow to the pressure to end the film with Joy Division’s most famous song, Love Will Tear Us Apart,’ instead opting for the much more appropriate ‘Atmosphere.’

It’s hard-hitting and superb whether or not you know anything about the band, but if you do, it runs deeper, knowing that Joy Division’s second album, ‘Closer,’ was released a mere two months after his death and remains one of the greatest albums ever released. Corbijn also photographed the band during the seventies, and his pictures are some of the most iconic of the era, and his knowledge of the band hugely aids this quite excellent film.

From 1963 to 1972, Steve McQueen was ‘the king of cool’; he carried a laidback attitude with an unconventional sheen, where he said very little but stole every scene he was in.

He grew up rough and tumble, with his father abandoning him as a baby, and living through the wrath of an alcoholic mother, before stints in petty crime, military school, and eventually the army itself. This journey gave him a contempt for authority, where he wanted to play by his rules and no one else’s.

After a successful stint on TV’s “Wanted: Dead or Alive”, he broke into the film business fairly quickly, making every opportunity on screen count, with him soon becoming a reliable supporting player that captivated audiences via his smooth charisma.

McQueen’s major splash was with “The Great Escape” (1963), and from then on, he essentially held a grip on Hollywood as one of its biggest stars. He was easy on the eyes for the ladies, but was also a believable tough guy for the men. He had a flawless run of macho movies during this period, with titles like “Bullitt”, “The Thomas Crown Affair”, “The Sand Pebbles”, “The Getaway”, and “The Cincinnati Kid”. Yet those films are such milestones that they tend to overshadow some of the smaller or more experimental work he did, which hide a strong and versatile actor who could fit well into a variety of genres…

1. Never So Few (1959)

In the late 50s, McQueen had begun building some heat on TV, and also had landed his first lead role in a movie that was a success… however, that film was “The Blob” (1958), and in those days, the horror genre was scoffed at by execs and critics, so it didn’t help him much. He had a lot to prove when he landed a supporting role in this bygone war movie, and he sure made it count.

The plot centres around the US ’involvement in Burma during WW2, as a small but tough squad of military, led by Frank Sinatra’s Captain, take on relentless Japanese forces in the jungle, with McQueen playing a transport officer who shows he’s more than capable with an assault rifle.

This forgotten movie manages to be a pretty fun watch, with it being a late 50s effort, they managed to fit in a romance subplot (with Gina Lollobrigida) and some comedy breaks in too, but the movie really appears to come alive when it is about a no-nonsense gang doing missions (with Charles Bronson amongst the crew as well). It is a formula that director John Sturges would excel later with “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape”, and this feels like the forgotten testing pad for those masterpieces, even though it doesn’t come close to their epic status, it does enough to make for a gratifying watch.

Sinatra is fine in the lead, he’s got his charm and can pull a dramatic scene when he needs to. McQueen was initially cast in a few scenes, but Sinatra took a liking to him, and his role was expanded to third lead, with him being an immediate physical presence in the action scenes, and consistently captivating, even in the background of scenes (a trait he would become well known for).

2. Hell Is for Heroes (1962)

By the early 60s, McQueen had starred in a string of war movies, displaying strong acting, although the quality of the films didn’t quite match his presence, until he was cast in this tough, white-knuckle tale that strangely seems to get underrated in his bigger filmography.

McQueen’s weathered soldier returns to the battlefield with a brand new squad, as they face off on the frontline, and become embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game against an impenetrable German bunker.

Shot in stark black and white, McQueen plays the hollowed-out private, his boyish good looks covered up with a dirty and unshaven profile, only with his piercing eyes cutting through the grime. Even at a young age, he convincingly plays a man who has gone to hell and back, with a near-silent role, but every glance speaks volumes. He’s ably supported by an ensemble of gruff character actors, including an early James Coburn making a short but memorable turn as the squad’s spectacled flamethrower expert.

The action is vicious and effective; the film is essentially one large standoff between two desperate squadrons, with the first two acts essentially played as strategic set-pieces that all build up to a bombastic finale of all-out war, where McQueen is unleashed in action star mode.

This one was expertly directed by alpha filmmaker Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, The Shootist), and it’s a grand shame that he and McQueen supposedly didn’t get along on set, as they brought the best out of each other at this point in their careers, and could’ve easily knocked out a string of effective action movies together.

3. Soldier in the Rain (1963)

McQueen’s impressive work in “Hell Is for Heroes” got overlooked due to its lukewarm box office performance. The performer continued to work in military movies, but with this gig, he fully shed the macho persona for something completely on the other side of the spectrum, but nonetheless effective.

Set on a military base during peacetime, the movie is a ‘buddy comedy’, with quick-witted hustler Jackie Gleason as the master sergeant, coupled with McQueen’s milder lower-ranking soldier as his partner-in-crime, and straight man, in what starts as a zany comedy, before evolving into something much more involving.

From the jump, it’s almost shocking to see McQueen, playing an ‘aw shucks ’type of innocent, but he manages to pull it off, essentially, letting Gleason be the vibrant wild card role. While not a masterpiece, the film is really elevated by the two leads, who hold a fantastic rapport with each other, as their shared scenes are dynamite and make it an enjoyable experience from end to end, with an unanticipated dramatic third act. It’s one of McQueen’s rare forays into comedy; he fully disappears into the character, and the result was proof he was more than capable of holding his own in the genre, even next to a vet like Gleason.

4. Love with the Proper Stranger (1963)

McQueen was growing hot at this point in Hollywood, with 1963 his true breakthrough year with “The Great Escape”; however, pre-superstardom, he explored different avenues he could fit into as a leading man, and it landed him two collaborations with the Oscar-winning team of director Robert Mulligan and producer Alan J Pakula (To Kill a Mockingbird). One of those collaborations, “Baby the Rain Must Fall” (1965), was a decent if fairly melodramatic Horton Foote adaptation. However, the trio’s first collaboration is a standout that deserves rediscovery in the modern age.

The captivating Natalie Wood plays a put-upon lady in a tight-knit New York Italian household, who finds out she’s pregnant, after a fling with McQueen’s care-free playboy. After he’s confronted with the truth, the two decide to support each other through the abortion process; however, as the day goes by, real feelings of genuine affection begin to emerge on both sides.

Both leads are perfectly cast, Wood is tightly wound with the pressure of her family and unfair odds constantly against her, and McQueen is terrifically cast as the ladies’ man out of his depth, who ultimately steps up to the plate. It’s an engrossing romance that sees the two characters convincingly grow by the movie’s end, and it certainly helps the two have a sparkling dynamic from the word go.

Mulligan expertly directs the piece; it’s not a one-dimensional rom-com but a dynamic character drama with a solid love story in the middle of it, and it’s coupled with fetching period New York photography and a handful of impressive support cast. It’s a display that if McQueen hadn’t blown up into the ‘King of Cool ’that year, he might’ve found himself excelling in roles more akin to Ryan O’Neal or Robert Redford.

5. Nevada Smith (1966)

By the mid-60s, McQueen had become a full-blown star. Studios were falling over themselves to cast him in anything they could get their hands on, which likely explains how he landed the role of a 16-year-old half-Native American here, even though he was blonde, blue-eyed, and 35 years old. Luckily, it’s a pretty effective revenge tale, lost in the flood of his bigger movies in his golden period.

McQueen is the titular character, a young man who has his two parents murdered in the film’s opening by a trio of sinister thugs (played with delicious scenery chewing by Martin Landau, Arthur Kennedy, and Karl Malden). This shocking opening starts him off on his journey, as he grows from a novice to a quick-draw gunman, and from a naive boy to a weathered man.

As said, the initial casting is a bit of a pill to swallow, but luckily McQueen is great in the role, evolving as the film moves forward, from a hotheaded whelp to the capable hunter he becomes. It also helps having some of the era’s best character actors in the villain roles, and none of them disappoint, with Landau’s demise a particularly memorable one.

Renowned genre director Henry Hathaway (True Grit, Kiss of Death) handles proceedings with a polished slant; the film plays out like a classic 50s western, yet coupled with a 60s grit, showcasing some startling violence at certain points. It takes us on an impressive journey with our main character, one where we’re rooting for him to win the day, even though, when faced with it, the results aren’t always quite as black-and-white.