Steven Spielberg returns to our screens in a familiar way, informing us that aliens do indeed exist and, in the case of Disclosure Day, that humans have secretly been abusing these extraterrestrial beings for nearly 79 years and keeping it a secret from the world. You’d be hard-pressed to claim that the idea is original; it’s not even a new idea from the man’s own filmography. It feels like a personal project in many respects; Spielberg dipping a toe back into his own sci-fi flicks of the seventies. The 79 years also feel very poignant; it just happens to be Spielberg’s age.

This global cover-up has mainly been achieved by a corporation called Wardex, headed by Colin Firth’s Noah, and in the film’s opening sequence, he and his team have just tracked down Josh O’Connor’s Dr. Daniel Kellner, a Wardex whistleblower who has stolen all the files necessary to unleash the companies’ secrets on the world, giving the population the “full disclosure” that the title suggests. He’s constantly receiving instructions on burner phones from his former boss, Colman Domingo’s fellow whistleblower Hugo, all the while on the run with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson).

We then meet Emily Blunt’s Margaret Fairchild, a weather reporter with plans of becoming an anchor who, after the appearance in her kitchen of a little red bird, realizes she can suddenly read minds and speak any language she chooses. Following this, while live on air, she begins to make strange and unnerving clicking noises, seemingly a language only she—and as it turns out, Kellner—can understand. The two must surely meet and presumably offer the world the truth.

The most interesting aspect of Disclosure Day is the central conflict between Wardex and the whistleblowers themselves. As soon as Kellner reveals his plan to Jane, the first thought I had was that this is surely a terrible idea. With the world on the brink of World War III, as background news bulletins inform us, would the release of such documents make things far worse and send the world into a blind panic? Spielberg thinks not and, true to form, offers us a well-known path.

This would all be very well, but as Disclosure Day trudges on, you’re reminded more and more of films that have already ventured down this well-trodden path, and not just from Spielberg’s own back catalog. Jeff Nichols’s underseen Midnight Special (2016) jumped out at me, as perhaps inevitably did Neill Blomkamp’s excellent District 9 (2009), a film that has far more to say than Disclosure Day. While Blomkamp’s film felt like a timely and fascinating allegory about immigration, Spielberg’s world-weary message about countries working together and listening to each other (as well as arguably touching on immigration) feels tired.

The film that perhaps looms largest over Disclosure Day is Denis Villeneuve’s superb Arrival (2016), a film that took the concept of connection and supernatural diplomacy and weaved it into something truly original. The characters and audience were made to work to untangle the film’s mysteries, whereas here, Margaret and Daniel are simply handed their powers through the prism of childhood trauma, a theme that Spielberg has delivered perfectly in the past, but here it feels very forced.

Although Blunt has a blast with Fairchild, when she puts her mind-reading skills into practice towards the end to ensure an escape for her and Daniel, it’s laughable. It’s one scene of many when the jeopardy disappears completely, in the same way a superhero film’s climactic battle between two indestructible people hitting each other often does. Firth, O’Connor, and Domingo are always good value, and they do their best to sink their teeth into material here that’s perfectly solid in principle but is badly lacking in execution.

As for Eve Hewson, her performance is one of the film’s best, yet the early revelation about her character being a former nun has you rolling your eyes at the inevitability of another science versus religion debate, which is always in the background but is never explored beyond the usual surface-level questions. “You never lost your faith in God,” a fellow sister tells her late on. “You lost faith in people.” How many times have we heard a version of that before?

It does feel like a while now since Spielberg has reinvented himself or offered us something truly interesting. You’d arguably have to go all the way back to Munich (2005) for something that sparked serious debate. And although it seems churlish to suggest that one of the cinematic greats needs to prove anything at all, Disclosure Day feels like it takes themes from his own past classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), while touching on more recent and far more ambitious science fiction films, yet somehow offers us nothing new at all.

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.

For those unfamiliar with the origins of Backrooms, going in blind offers quite the experience. Kane Parsons’ debut feature has its origins on the imageboard website 4chan, with the ‘backrooms’ portrayed as an impossibly large extradimensional complex of empty rooms. The idea began with a single image of a large empty room taken at the former site of a furniture store in Wisconsin over two decades ago and has since become its own online entity.

Fans have expanded the initial ideas into indie video games and short films, and in 2022, YouTuber Parsons began publishing his Backrooms series on the platform. And now, we have a cinematic full-length release.

Apparently, for fans of the series, there are plenty of easter eggs here, and it seems the audience’s response has been favourable. But going in knowing next to nothing about it, Backrooms offers an eerie and sometimes disturbing tale of memory, reality, and fear that successfully leaves you with more questions than answers by its finale.

Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Clark is a lonely middle-aged man whose rapidly failing furniture emporium isn’t just down to lack of customers. He’s currently living in the store after being kicked out by his girlfriend, and every night has electricity issues, with lights flickering and the power somehow staying on and costing him money, something that a visiting electrician can’t explain. Clark is also seeing a therapist, Renate Reinsve’s Mary, who appears to have her own demons while trying to help Clark get his life back on track.

One night, Clark discovers a porous section of a wall in the store’s ample basement, seemingly a portal into what appears to be an infinite expansion of the store itself, but one that has been designed by someone, as Chris Morris might say, with a mind as bent as a bad hedge. What he finds inside these backrooms, one could almost argue, is for the viewer to decide. This is a horror film in which the architecture and furniture are far more unsettling than any monster or ghost lurking in a dark corner.

You’re reminded of the blackness of rooms in the work of David Lynch; most notably, Parsons invokes Inland Empire (2006), not something that you’d advise to anyone, and yet here it makes total sense. Both Ejiofor and Reinsve are terrific, each expressing plausible bafflement and terror at what they find in this increasingly unnerving hellscape of a maze with its alarming characters and startling furnishings. The first time we enter through the wall, a pile of furniture instantly reminds you of Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982), but while Backrooms toys with the supernatural, the scariest thing is the idea that the twisted problems are perhaps of our own making, our memories as porous as the wall Clark initially falls through.

One could make the case that the Backrooms is about misremembering trauma, humans desperately trying to refresh their memories, yet we as the audience know there’s only pain and suffering in trying to revive such things that the mind has desperately sought to forget. This is amplified by Danny Vermette’s haunting production design that offers one brain twister after the next, and there’s little doubt that the expansion of Clark’s store is a character in itself.

Backrooms is a hugely impressive feature debut, and although I found myself less immersed in the story when it’s taking place outside of the titular architectural ordeal, this is a frequently intoxicating work, and it will be fascinating to see how Parsons evolves for his next directorial work.

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.

Great sports films are not easy to pull off, and when it comes to the most popular sport on our planet, cinematic portrayals have not always been kind. Soccer, as it’s known to some, or football to others, is a sport that captures the imagination, brings the globe together, and can offer joy and pain in equal measure. But could you say the same thing about on-screen depictions of the sport?

With the 2026 World Cup in the USA, Mexico, and Canada upon us, it’s a great time to look back at some of cinema’s best films about the beautiful game, whether they be breathtaking documentaries, hilarious parodies, or superb dramas. These ten films capture the sport in very different ways, and all of them are worth your time.

1. Gregory’s Girl (1980)

Bill Forsyth is one of Britain’s finest directors, having helmed such classics as Local Hero (1983) and alternative Christmas beauty Comfort & Joy (1984). Before both of those, he gave us Gregory’s Girl, a wonderful coming-of-age film surrounding the budding relationship between a shy Scottish schoolboy, Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) and Dorothy (Dee Hepburn).

Dorothy is the new star striker of the soccer team, leading to a series of awkward, charming, and comedic encounters as Gregory tries to win her attention. Soccer isn’t the driving narrative of the film, but it works perfectly as a backdrop to Forsyth’s tale of teenage romance, and its charm has endured for decades.

The deadpan comedic tone that Forsyth has made his own is evident here and would only grow with the films that followed, and while this might not be the most conventional film on a list about cinematic soccer outings, it fits in just the same way as Forsyth’s films themselves.

2. Escape to Victory (1981)

No list of films about soccer would be complete without John Huston’s 1981 classic, despite the fact that it’s clearly a flawed film. Starring Sly Stallone, Michael Caine, Pelé, Bobby Moore, and Ossie Ardiles, the film tells the tale of a group of Allied prisoners of war during World War II who are coerced into playing an exhibition soccer match against a German team as Nazi propaganda.

We all know how it plays out as the prisoners plan a daring escape under the guise of the match but Escape to Victory is more than the sum of its parts and remains a rousing (if hugely overblown) piece of wartime escapism. The soccer action itself is often ludicrous as you might expect, and the quality of everything unfurling is sometimes questionable, but it would be a hard heart indeed to dismiss John Huston’s film as anything other than a terrific romp.

3. Mike Bassett: England Manager (2000)

“England will be playing four-four-fucking-two!” Mike Bassett’s iconic cry is not one that we’ll be hearing from Thomas Tuchel or, indeed, arguably any manager during this summer’s World Cup. It’s a style of soccer that has died an absolute death with the introduction of Pep Guardiola’s possession-based, playing-out-from-the-back approach to the sport.

But in the 90s, it was synonymous with the Premier League and the English game. Steve Barron’s hilarious parody of “the impossible job,” that is, the England head coach, is utterly ridiculous, hilarious, and a surprisingly accurate satire of England’s fan culture and media campaigns. Ricky Tomlinson is brilliant as Mike Bassett, the man appointed as England manager after a series of contrivances and tasked with leading the national team to the World Cup.

It’s an exaggerated, chaotic, and deliberately silly show, yet it captures what’s very real and often accurate about the pressures and mythology surrounding the England job, and it’s worth a watch every single time a major tournament approaches. No other country in the world has the media scrutiny that England does when it comes to soccer, and Barron’s film is a surprisingly effective portrayal of exactly that.

4. Shaolin Soccer (2001)

A former Shaolin monk reunites his estranged martial arts brothers to form a soccer team that combines ancient kung fu techniques with modern soccer, entering a high-stakes tournament where they face increasingly outrageous opponents and often supernatural-style soccer abilities in Stephen Chow’s hugely entertaining film.

This is one of the most wildly inventive sports comedies ever made, blending slapstick humour with martial arts fantasy and soccer spectacle, resulting in something truly unique. It often feels like playing a Super Mario sports game, with matches escalating into near-mythical battles while soccer as a sport remains, somewhere, in the background.

Shaolin Soccer was rightly lauded on its release, with a unique selling point that you didn’t need to be remotely interested in soccer to enjoy the film. It also attracted martial arts fans, with its visual excess appealing to people worldwide.

5. Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

Bend It Like Beckham remains one of the best British comedies of the 21st century. Gurinder Chadha’s superb film tells the story of a young British-Indian girl, Jess Bhamra, who secretly joins a local women’s soccer team despite her traditional family’s expectations. Starring Parminder Nagra as Jess and Kiera Knightley as her friend Jules, both in breakout roles, Bend it Like Beckham is one of the most influential modern soccer films, balancing sports comedy-drama with an exploration of cultural identity, something that had rarely been put on screen up until Chadha’s film.

It was almost another decade until the formation of the Women’s Super League in England, and while you couldn’t possibly claim that Bend It Like Beckham had a direct influence on it, the film brought the idea of structured female leagues to an audience that had never before had it promoted in the public sphere.

Kiera Knightley went on to have quite the decade, starring in several huge blockbusters, yet Bend It Like Beckham might well be her most important (and arguably best) role to date, while Nagra went on to star in several seasons of ER.

One of the biggest stars of Hollywood’s Golden Era, and likely the quintessential Film Noir leading man (next to Edward G. Robinson of course), Humphrey Bogart grew up in a chaotic period of American history in an upper-middle-class family that had high expectations. He roamed from different career paths, most famously serving as a military seaman, where he reportedly got his trademark facial scar (although the exact story is debated).

Finally he found a hold in the New York theatre scene, where he made a splash and eventually got film and radio gigs, although, he wasn’t seen as leading man material. He was relegated to gangsters and psychos for the majority of the 30s during his contract with Warner Bros. But, a strange thing happened, while studio execs weren’t fond of him, critics and audiences wrote his praises, and an upcoming star suffering from hubris, George Raft (Scarface), accidentally paved Bogart’s trajectory; Raft turned down roles in “High Sierra” (1941) and “The Maltese Falcon” (1941). Bogart took on both roles, which made him one of the most exciting leading men on the Warner’s payroll.

Famed novelist Raymond Chandler said of Humphrey Bogart, “All he had to do to dominate a scene was to enter it.” And therein lies the pull, he was an odd-looking man, but the camera loved him, and he truly knew how to command it, as he rose from scene-stealing bit parts from the 1930s, to major marquee roles through the 40s, to a strong but brief stint in the 50s, before his untimely death from cancer in 1957.

Bogart was a true presence that could own any kind of role, although, his trademark rough-edged alpha persona is what he is best remembered for, in seismic films like “Casablanca”, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, “Key Largo”, “The Big Sleep”, “The African Queen” and “To Have and Have Not”. But, the man was able to play anything from comedy to romance, the milestones are so big that one forgets the rest, let’s explore some of those other hidden gems he turned in within his brief but legendary stint at the top…

1. Dead End (1937)

After finally making a sizeable impression on critics and audiences in “The Petrified Forest” (1936), Bogart had begun building some heat. This project was meant to be a launching pad for the Dead End Kids, and romantic leads Joel McCrea and Sylvia Sidney, unfortunately for them (but not for us), Bogart basically takes over the entire movie in a villain role.

Set over the course of a day in New York’s riverside slums that are becoming gentrified by the wealthy. We follow intersecting plot-lines, that of a group of dead-end kids (played by… well, the Dead End Kids), a failed architect (McCrea), and a romance with a neighbourhood girl (Sidney). Most fascinating, though, is the story featuring an infamous hood (Bogart), returning to the neighbourhood.

Whilst Bogart is the B-plot, similar to events in “The Petrified Forest”, his villain story manages to hijack proceedings, as his gangster goes through an arc of arrogant pride to bitter disappointment, expecting the red carpet to be rolled out on his return, instead he finds a mother who hates what he’s become, and attempts at rekindling a childhood love only lead to her squeezing him for cash. He spirals down a self-destructive path with it all paying off in a stunningly filmed finale.

The appeal of the film is certainly helped by the fact it was directed by William Wyler (Ben-Hur, The Desperate Hours) and shot by Greg Toland (Citizen Kane), visually it’s absolutely stunning, especially when the sun sets on the tenements, and the two of them paint the setting with light. The foot chase/shootout between Bogart and McCrea at the end, is inventive and enrapturing due to the creativity on display between the collaborators.

Whilst back in the day this was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, it’s forgotten in retrospect, likely due to Bogart not being the main star. Still, from his late 30s period, where he was building a rep as an enigmatic onscreen player, this is likely one of the best, next to better-known titles like “The Roaring Twenties” and the aforementioned “The Petrified Forest”.

2. Black Legion (1937)

Coming out the same year as “Dead End” is this impressive lead role for Bogart, a movie that dealt with an extremely hot potato subject for the time, based on real events. It’s an essential watch for his pre-stardom period.

Bogart plays an honest factory worker and family man in small-town America, who turns bitter due to being passed over for promotion by a Polish immigrant. He falls into the hands of the Black Legion, an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan, and he goes down a doom-laden path as they manipulate him in the worst way possible.

After years of playing wildcard supporting roles, this really was the first proper leading man role Bogart landed, and, not surprisingly, he’s captivating. We follow this earnest man, as he grows cynical and violent, turning his back on his family and friends, yet are able to sympathise and understand every dark step forward. Bogart’s power as a performer is on full display, while most of his popular peers leaned on theatrics and showmanship, he was able to deliver a performance that feels real and relatable, not shying away from the ugliness, while hammering home a tragic coda in the movie’s final scene. It’s baffling he didn’t get offers left and right after this movie, but he was also an actor ahead of his time, and that time needed to catch up.

Archie Mayo (The Petrified Forest) directs, and from all of Bogart’s repeat collaborators, he was the least interesting visually; however, he did know to simply point the camera at the actor and not let other things get in the way, essentially resulting in a showcase for his early acting.

Interestingly enough, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, We’re No Angels) would do some secondary work on the film, making it the unofficial first, of eight, collaborations with the actor.

3. All Through the Night (1942)

By 1941, Bogart had enjoyed success with critics and the box office; however, Warners were still trying to figure out what to do with him. This led to him being cast in this absolutely baffling, bizarre, and incredibly fun comedy/thriller that saw the actor in a whole different gear than we’re used to (interesting note; this was yet another role George Raft had turned down).

Bogart plays a likeable racketeer and gang-boss, whose comfortable existence gets upended when his favourite baker ends up dead, and he isn’t willing to leave justice in the police’s hands. Over the course of one insane night, he gets dragged into a spiralling plot involving spies, femme fatales, foreign aristocrats, and even the Nazis themselves.

Directed by Vincent Sherman, after Bogart had an unpleasant experience of making “Return of Doctor X” (1939) with him (the only film Bogart played a horror movie monster), this collaboration, however, was an enjoyable experience for both, and the feeling is contagious from the jump. Despite the comedy trappings, Sherman shoots the film like an A-level mystery, with sharp lighting and strongly executed action scenes. The humour comes from off the page, the machine-gun dialogue delivery, the silly plot, and the ensemble cast who are fully in on the joke.

This casting of Bogart surprisingly isn’t a 180 shake-up, he’s essentially playing his trademark likeable rogue, yet in an altogether different type of film, and when he’s meant to be funny, he absolutely kills it (with a highlight scene having him winging German dialect when in an underground Nazi meeting). The ensemble is incredible too, with Maltese Falcon veteran Peter Lorre, and an early Jackie Gleason, amongst several others.

The film baffled audiences on release but got lost in the shuffle, not surprisingly, with it swinging from mystery thriller to comedy to spy action, yet it sticks the landing, and really holds up in modern eyes, with this likely the strongest recommendation on this list.

4. Sahara (1943)

At this point in time, WW2 was at full tilt, and Hollywood was doing their best to make morale-boosting pictures with their big stars like Gary Cooper and John Wayne. Bogart didn’t really fit that mould, but wanting a change of pace, took on that type of job, and surprisingly, fits the assignment like hand in glove.

Set in the North African desert, Bogart is a commander of a tank squad, as they retreat from a fierce defeat, and collect ragtag survivors on the way. Things suddenly turn into a determined mission to get to safety as they are pursued by a relentless battalion of Germans, not to mention the scorching heat, dwindling supplies, and lack of water.

Beautifully shot by Zoltan Korda (The Four Feathers), this is a stripped-down, stark, and sweaty war movie that has a strong ensemble cast bounce off each other as all the elements act against them. It’s tense, gripping, and at times, effectively emotional (Angelo D’Angelo’s final moments come to mind as powerfully heartbreaking).

The entire piece is anchored by Bogart, playing the tough but weary captain, a man who holds the responsibility of his entire squad on his shoulders, and the actor slips into the role-type with ease; his gruff persona and no-nonsense attitude seal the deal as a man of authority who hides internal conflict. While he did a few more frontline movies (Across the Pacific, Passage to Marseille), this was likely the best and well worth digging up, with strong action, beautiful black and white photography, and some effective emotional pathos.

5. Conflict (1945)

By the early 40s, Bogart was an in-demand leading man finally. With Warners he was contracted to do this stylish Noir, filmed in 1943 around when Casablanca released. Bogart personally hated the experience of filming, likely due to closely linked personal issues at the time, and the studio almost buried it. Luckily that didn’t happen, because it makes for a cracking and deliciously dark morality tale.

Bogart plays a weary husband in a toxic marriage; his wife (played by Rose Hobart) won’t let him divorce her, so he takes matters into his hands and shuffles her off this mortal coil, covering it up as a perfect crime. However, as time passes, he begins to be haunted by the possibility she lived, not to mention the relentless prying of Sydney Greenstreet’s canny investigator.

Bogart was going through an infamously messy divorce during filming, and frankly, this movie hit too close to home for him. Yet, this is what makes it fascinating, as it is likely one of his most personal, the bitter conflict between the married couple in the first act allows us to peer into his own experience. His hollowed-out husband is a husk of a man, bitter and morose, yet, as always, Bogart makes him fascinating to watch, as his world falls apart, and his cat-and-mouse scenes with regular collaborator Greenstreet are fiery and tense.

Curtis Bernhardt (Possessed) directs, and unlike several of his filmmaking countrymen, like Fritz Lang and Robert Siodmak, who fled Germany for Hollywood pre-WW2, he didn’t hit the same level of success stateside. It’s a grand shame because he’s absolutely stunning behind the camera, the movie oozes tension and dread from the word go, with stunning camera moves and stylish lighting sparking off the screen, making for an involving underseen Noir thriller that needs more appreciation – even if the appreciation wasn’t shared by the star himself.

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.