The all-time great director William Friedkin sadly left us a few years ago, having built up an astonishing body of work over more than five decades. This is a man who traversed many different genres; giving us one of the best horror films of all time, one of the biggest flops in box-office history (despite being a masterpiece), as well as dipping his toes into the erotic thriller with his frankly underrated Jade (1995).

Towards the end of his career his output slowed down somewhat, yet his work remained extremely solid with his final feature, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial being released shortly before his death in 2023.

Friedkin’s films frequently proved controversial; indeed his 1980 masterpiece Cruising sparked outrage on its release and its star, Al Pacino, refused to be drawn into conversation about it for many years. Never one to shy away from difficult subject matter, Killer Joe (2011), one of his final feature films was also shunned by some critics for its contentious scenes.

Here we rank all 20 of Friedkin’s feature films since his debut in 1967.

20. Deal of the Century (1983)

Panned by nearly everyone, Friedkin’s Deal of the Century is far from a good film. Despite its cast list including Sigourney Weaver and Chevy Chase, this comedy about arms dealers competing to sell weapons to a dictator in South America falls flat on its face, frequently failing in its depiction of tradition and cultural customs.

Friedkin’s attempts at satire falls apart, with many seeing the subject matter as impossible to laugh at (Chris Morris proved you could do it successfully with his terrorist comedy Four Lions decades later for example), and the whole film just feels constantly awkward.

Although the cast do their very best, Deal of the Century is easily one of Friedkin’s worst films, and sits bottom of this list.

19. Good Times (1967)

Once again it’s another comedy that helps to prop up this list, and Good Time was Friedkin’s debut feature. It’s a light musical comedy built around Sonny & Cher’s pop-star personas, with both of them playing themselves in what ends up being a spoof of various dramas- Westerns, Spy thrillers, you name it.

There’s barely any narrative momentum; it mostly feels like an excuse for jokes, celebrity cameos and showcasing the duo’s songs, so when you think about it- it’s actually a far better film than many of the mind-numbingly dull parodies we get these days (Scary Movie, Date Movie, Meet the Spartans, etc).

Although it couldn’t really be classed as a good film, Good Times still provides audiences with an early snippet of what Friedkin could do well and remains an interesting document in his back catalogue.

18. The Guardian (1990)

We all know what Friedkin could do with horror- by 1990 we’d experienced it, knowing that we were unlikely to get many better horror features than one he directed in 1973. Unfortunately, seventeen years later, Friedkin himself gave us an example of how not to do it.

The Guardian is a supernatural horror film about a young couple living in Los Angeles who hire a beautiful, seemingly perfect nanny to look after their newborn child. Unbeknownst to them, the nanny (Jenny Seagrove) is part of an ancient druidic cult that sacrifices babies to a demonic tree to maintain natural balance and her own mortality. You know, the usual.

The central idea is striking, and the film came at a time when the sub-genre of property-chillers was in its ascendency, but The Guardian ends up being a bit of a dud. Despite the best efforts from the cast (especially Seagrove), you’d be far better off checking out Curtis Hansen’s The Hand that Rocks the Cradle which was released two years later- and achieves what Friedkin set out to do with The Guardian, only much more satisfyingly and far less hysterical.

17. The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968)

One year after directing Good Times, Friedkin returned to the musical genre with The Night They Raided Minsky’s, a comedy set in 1925 New York City about an Amish girl from rural Pennsylvania who flees her strict upbringing to become a dancer.

Instead of finding legitimate work, she winds up at a burlesque theatre- and the whole thing in some ways feels like what was to come decades later from Paul Verhoeven in his controversial (and underrated) film Showgirls (1995). Despite the period nostalgia and unique setting, The Night They Raided Misty’s is tonally uneven and a bit all over the place. Friedkin himself said later on that he struggled with the material and didn’t know how to convey the right tone, and this comes across on screen.

Still, there’s some very good performances on show, especially from Britt Ekland, Jason Robards and Norman Wisdom- and there’s certainly ambition on display, if not fully successful execution.

16. The Birthday Party (1968)

This is one of those Friedkin films that really splits opinion. Based on Harold Pinter’s iconic play, The Birthday Party takes place mainly in a dingy seaside boarding house in England, with the main lodger Stanley (Robert Shaw) living an uneventful life until two mysterious strangers show up uninvited- and insist on throwing him an unwanted birthday party, and slowly begin to psychologically torment him with strange logic and menacing behaviour.

Michael Haneke’s Funny Games this is not however, and despite solid performances across the board, there remains a theatre sensibility about The Birthday Party. Adapting stage plays for the cinema can be tricky, and although there’s still plenty to like about Friedkin’s film, it often feels very stagey.

But the claustrophobic atmosphere is something that he gets very right, and of course something he would bring into many of his films in more successful fashion later in his career. It’s far from a bad film, but nowhere near top tier Friedkin.

15. The Brink’s Job (1978)

Friedkin takes one of the most notorious heists in U.S history and adapts it for the big screen, with mixed results. Set in 1950’s Boston, the story follows a small-time criminal who discovers that the famous Brink’s armoured company- long thought impregnable- actually has bizarrely lax security- and seeing an opportunity, joins forces with a gang of cronies to plan a massive robbery of Brink’s headquarters.

The light and comedic tone that Friedkin brings to the film works both in its favour and against it- The Brink’s Job is a thoroughly enjoyable piece of film making without the tension and jeopardy that a different approach could have produced. And, although the ensemble cast is impressive, many of the roles feel a little underwritten- Friedkin himself said that the final cut was pretty far from his original vision.

Still, The Brink’s Job proved once more that Friedkin could create comedy and remains a whole heap of fun at intervals.

14. Blue Chips (1994)

Once again proving his ability to traverse genres, Friedkin gave us a sports film surrounding a respected college basketball coach struggling after a poor season. Under pressure from everyone to turn things around, Pete Bell (Nick Nolte) is reluctantly pushed into breaking NCAA rules by bribing the best high school players- the ‘blue chips’ prospects- and subsequently has to wrestle with the ethics of everything going on.

Nolte is on brilliant form as Bell, bringing a real humanity to a tricky role and giving the film a real emotional heft. But the rest of the film split people down the middle- despite the authenticity of the sport being portrayed rather well on screen.

Blue Chips ultimately is an ambitious but flawed drama that says plenty about integrity and corruption but is sometimes undone by an uneven script and, other than Nolte, some rather mixed acting. But considering some of the recent deplorable depictions of sport on screen, Blue Chips can hold its head up high in that respect.

13. The Hunted (2003)

A little scene film despite boasting leads of Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro starring, The Hunted is a far better film than it was given credit for on release. del Toro’s highly trained former Special Forces soldier Aaron Hallam becomes the subject of a manhunt when he snaps and begins killing hunters and civilians in the Oregon wilderness, and the FBI enlists L.T Bonham (Jones)- a retired survival and combat instructor- to hunt him down.

The Hunted’s simplicity is the key to why the film works so well; we as the audience are thrust into the manhunt in its unforgiving setting, while the fight sequences feel raw and real. Both del Toro and Jones are excellent as you might expect, and in the end, in spite on the minimalist feel of the plot, The Hunted ends up being an expansive and interesting chase thriller, offering us something different from the usual cat and mouse survival piece.

It might not be the best thing that anyone involved has produced, but The Hunted is a tight little thriller that’s often forgotten about.

12. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023)

Friedkin’s final film before his death might be the most solid piece of work he ever produced. And by that I don’t mean it’s his best; simply that it’s a nuts-and-bolts courtroom drama that does everything it’s supposed to, offers nothing particularly new or interesting, but is still the work of a fine director ensuring that we’re entertained for the duration.

Based on Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel and the stage play he adapted from it, the film is set almost entirely in the courtroom, focusing on the court-martial of LT. Stephen Maryk (Jake Lacy) after he relieves his commanding officer aboard the USS Caine during a violent storm. Maryk believed his captain, Lt. Cmdr. Queeg (an excellent Kiefer Sutherland) was mentally unstable and was endangering the ship and his crew, was compelled to take command for their safety.

As Maryk now faces charges of mutiny, he enlists the help of Defence attorney Lt. Barney Greenwald (Jason Clarke) to help build a case against Queeg. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is a slight and simple affair, but everyone involved is at the top of their game, meaning that what could have been a plain, average, courtroom drama is elevated to something far more engrossing, aided by Friedkin’s meticulous direction and the performances from the impressive cast.

11. Jade (1995)

There’s no doubting that having Jade this high will anger many. Indeed Jade is widely considered dreadful amongst most critics. So why is it that it’s midway up this list?

Not only was Jade a critical flop, its box office figures were disastrous, leading to it being considered one of the worst films of 1995 and easily one of, if not the worst, film of Friedkin’s career. David Caruso is Assistant District Attorney David Corelli who is called to the murder scene of a prominent businessman called Medford, leading to the uncovering of a web of filth, blackmail and snuff, as you’d expect from an Esterhas script. What’s interesting about Jade is that I’m convinced it wouldn’t have got such a kicking had it been directed by Paul Verhoeven.

Jade is a long way from being terrible though; Friedkin provides us with a truly brilliant car chase sequence as is his wont, that adds some needed thrills to proceedings, and despite him admitting that the film was a failure, his claim that Jade contains some of his best work isn’t completely unfounded. Jade was nominated for two Golden Raspberries and lost in both categories to another Eszterhas penned film, Showgirls, which also just happened to be one of 1995’s best films, completely misunderstood by pretty much everyone who watched it. Jade isn’t even close to being in the same ball park as Showgirls, but neither is it the absolute turkey that plenty claim.

Like most other art forms, cinema is most often understood in retrospect. “Classics” are seen as such because they have withstood the test of time and, like spoken traditions of old, have been passed from generation to generation through formal and informal rituals like award ceremonies, box office numbers, or just word of mouth. There is even a term, the all-encompassing “cult-classics”, for movies that didn’t quite establish themselves in the zeitgeist when they first came out, but have since been revisited and are now seen as cultural touchstones on par with the original classics.

There is, however, a third category under which some films can be considered. Sleeper hit, or sleeper masterpieces, can be seen as movies that may or may not have been important during their time, but have since dwindled in popularity and are now only remembered by film school teachers and cinema snobs. Some of these movies are understandably reserved for film classes, since their appeal is as niche as the themes they tackle. But others have a more universal charm, they’re more similar to the “classics” or “cult-classics” in the way they address their subjects with an artistic perspective without falling into the pompousness of the niche.

This list comprises some movies which can be described by this third group. Their imaginative vision doesn’t make them obtuse pieces of art that only a few can understand; they are strange and original, but also straightforward and sincere. Their artistry is not at odds with their appeal. The following are ten films that have regrettably fallen out of fashion with the passage of time, but that maintain an innovative voice that should transcend beyond their past heights of popularity.

1. The Passion of Berenice (1976)

Directed by Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, one of the most influential figures of modern Mexican cinema, “The Passion of Berenice” seems at first glance to be a typical melodrama, however, its melodramatic surface hides a complex psychological thriller that portrays the turbulent relationships between the titular Berenice and the people that surround her.

Cited by Guillermo del Toro as one of his most important teachers, Hermosillo’s cinema has unfortunately been somewhat forgotten. Beginning in the late 60s, but reaching its stride in the next decade, Hermosillo’s career was crammed between the “Golden Era” of Mexican cinema that ended in the 1950s, and the resurgence of the last thirty or so years that saw the aforementioned Del Toro, amongst others, become household names. To mention Del Toro once more he was quoted as saying that seeing “The Passion of Berenice” made him believe in himself as a filmmaker working from outside the country’s capital, where most of the productions were made at that time.

Berenice, played by Martha Navarro, is a woman in her thirties who lives in Aguascalientes, a small city in the Bajio region of northern Mexico, and who, after her last marriage ended in mysterious and dramatic fashion, has resigned herself to work as a part-time teacher in an all-boys school and as the caretaker of her godmother, Doña Josefina, a demanding and almost senile woman. Despite living what appears to be a comfortable life, she lives with her godmother in a huge mansion, Berenice is not happy with the way things have turned out for her, however she seems to lack the will to do anything about it.

This changes when Rodrigo, her godmother’s nephew, played by the emblematic Pedro Armendáriz Jr., arrives in Aguascalientes. Rodrigo, a successful doctor and charismatic womanizer, and Berenice begin a passionate affair. At first her relationship with Rodrigo seems to ignite the flames inside her that had been dormant for so long, however it slowly becomes clear that said flames are stoked not thanks to Rodrigo, but in spite of him.

The movie is a masterclass in character study. Hermosillo’s direction, both of the actors and the camera, is sublime and, if not for anything else, the movie is worth watching for Martha Navarro’s breathtaking portrayal of Berenice.

2. Antonio Das Mortes (1969)

Few directors have shaped their country’s cinema like Glauber Rocha has done with Brazil. There is not one single filmmaker working today, whether it’s the acclaimed or the up-and-coming, whose career and themes cannot be traced back to Rocha. The Pelé of the Cinema Novo, or more the Garrincha in the sense that neither would not reach their 50th birthday, any one of Rocha’s films involving the sertao, the desert hinterlands of Brazil, could make this list.

We’ve gone with Rocha’s take, and twist, on the classic western genre in “Antonio Das Mortes”, or as it’s originally named in Portuguese “O Dragao da Maldade Contra o Santo Guerreiro” which translates to “The Dragon of Malevolence Against the Holy Warrior”, one of the most heavy-metal movie titles in the history in cinema.

The movie follows Antonio das Mortes, a janguço, or gun-for-hire, who is tasked by the police chief of a small town in the sertao to fight against the threat of the cangaçeiros, nomad bandits that attack government bases and wealthy landowners in order to give to those in need (Robin Hoods of the Brazilian desert). Antonio, a taciturn and solemn figure, carries out his duty and kills Coirana, the cangaçeiros leader, in a duel. However, ridden with both a social and personal guilt, Antonio turns on the wealthy men who hired him and joins the resistance against the unjust conditions in the town. In turn, another janguço is hired, now to kill Antonio das Mortes, who has become the new impromptu leader of the resistance.

Although commended at the time, Rocha won Best Director at Cannes, the film is not remembered as one of the classic Brazilian films as others have. Even other of Rocha’s films seem to be better remembered, like “Black God, White Devil”. However, it is in “Antonio das Mortes” where the insanity and psychedelic direction of Rocha is best represented, and its final showdown is one of the best shootouts in the genre.

3. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

British New Wave cinema of the late 50s and 60s was full of thought-provoking masterpieces that usually centered around the youth of the time and their discontent towards the various systems that coerced them. Among the writers to come from this generation, aptly termed the “angry young men” generation, was Alan Sillitoe, whose two most famous works were adapted into films, and for both of which he would write the screenplay. The first one “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” would cement its director, Karel Reisz, and its lead, Albert Finney, as mainstays of British cinema for decades to come. The second one, however, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”, would prove to be the least remembered film out of Tony Richardson’s iconic 1959 to 1970 run during which he would direct one film per year (except in 1969 when he directed two).

“The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” was released a year after “Taste of Honey”, considered to be one of the best British films ever, and a year before “Tom Jones”, Richardson’s “magnum opus” which gave him the Oscar for Best Director and Best Film. In that sense “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”, has been somewhat obscured by both its predecessors and successors in Richardson’s filmography, however it could be considered one of his best, if not his best work.

Tom Courtenay stars as Colin Smith, a troubled teen who’s sentenced to a youth detention center. Once detained, Colin becomes entwined in the world of competitive long distance running, a sport which is kept in high regard by the reformatory’s governor, played by Michael Redgrave. Colin’s exceptional running skills soon place him as the governor’s “favorite” among the other young inmates, something that troubles him as he was once proud of his rebellious nature, especially towards figures of authority like the governor.

In many ways “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” might be the defining movie of the “angry young men” cinema of the 60s. A lot of later films, including Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”, borrow heavily from it. Its non-linear narrative, its expressive and at times almost contemplative style, may have contributed to its lukewarm reception at the time, particularly at the box office where the movie flopped, however it stands to this day as one of Richardson’s best films and a staple of British 1960s cinema.

4. Oh, Sun (1970)

At the same time satirical, experimental, critical and entertaining, Med Hondo’s “Oh, Sun”, or “Soleil O” as it’s originally titled, is one of Africa’s seminal films regarding the difficulties African immigrants faced, not only in the process of arriving in Europe, but the hardships they encountered once they got there. Inspired by Hondo’s experience working various odd jobs in France after he emigrated from his natal Mauritania in 1959, Hondo was gripped by how even well-educated immigrants were forced to work menial jobs, often with humiliating conditions, in order to live in France.

The film’s nature is that of a collage. At times it treats its subjects with the sterile seriousness of a documentary and at other it breaks out into musical numbers that satirize the racist perception many Europeans had of African immigrants at the time. In that sense the movie defies a traditional synopsis since it’s more an eclectic collection of experiences and styles, all of which, however, capture flawlessly the adversities of its nameless protagonist played by Robert Liensol.

Liensol’s character’s initial optimism after arriving in Paris is soon brought to a screeching realistic halt after he is faced with harsh indifference and rejection. The movie illustrates how deep the colonial entitlement had become by showing that, despite his education, the protagonist is constantly the victim of racism and negligence by the locals.

Unfortunately more relevant now than ever, “Soleil O” is a masterful example of political and disruptive cinema that portrays, at times with crudeness, at times with comedy, the cruel ways with which the West often deals with its immigrants.

5. The House is Black (1963)

Better known for her work as a poet, Forugh Farrokhzad’s efforts transcended both the written page and the film camera. Her only film, “The House is Black” is a 22-minute documentary piece about a leper colony in pre-Islamic Revolution Iran. Shot four years before her untimely death in a car crash, Farrokhzad was only 28 when she wrote and directed it.

The film straddles the line between the brutal and the humane, showing the lepers in their full splendor, never pulling any punches or mincing its imagery. Farrokhzad’s narration of various texts, including some of her own poems, contribute to the film’s mood, which is also beautifully condensed in its title. The film is obscure and feels obscure, as if Farrokhzad wanted to portray the abandon and secrecy with which the lepers were kept. It was probably this desperation that lead her to adopt a small child from the colony shortly after finishing the documentary.

Farrokhzad died four years after the release of the film, in 1967, and one must wonder if, had she lived longer, would she have continued her cinematographic career, as the care and mastery behind “The House is Black” is that of someone who not only cared deeply about its subject matter but also the form in which said subject was portrayed. The movie is not a “filmed poem” but a complete cinematic endeavor. This combination of poetic sensibility and cinematic acuteness is one that many strive to achieve after decades of work, for Forugh Farrokhzad it took only one film, and that was more than enough to cement it as one of the most powerfully devastating films of the Iranian New Wave.

The nineties was a decade which provided us with some of the finest and most important films in cinema history. It started with Anthony Hopkins managing to bag himself an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Hannibal Lector in Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs (1991) despite only being on screen for barely sixteen minutes. We also saw Michael Mann provide us with perhaps the crime epic with 1995’s Heat; and two years later James Cameron gave audiences Titanic, the film that broke box office and Oscar records alike.

Let’s also not forget (how could we) that Cameron had already produced one of the all-time great sequels with Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) at the beginning of the decade; and he certainly wasn’t the only director giving us blockbuster cinema at the time. Steven Spielberg thrilled crowds with Jurassic Park (1993) and in the same year, unleashed Schindler’s List, his astonishing adaptation of Thomas Keneally’s novel.

The nineties also saw the introduction of Quentin Tarantino to the big screen, as he provided arguably three of the best films of the decade in Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Jackie Brown (1997). The decade closed with Sam Mendes releasing the masterpiece that is American Beauty (1999), and all these films mentioned are but a drop in the ocean of brilliant cinema that the decade gave us.

But there were plenty of excellent films to be found elsewhere; that perhaps didn’t get the time or credit they deserved with the deluge of releases. In this list we take a look back at ten hugely underappreciated gems of the nineties; all of them in need of reappraisal, or indeed a first-time viewing.

1. Baraka (1992)

Not strictly a film with a synopsis in the traditional sense, Ron Fricke’s mind-blowing piece of work is a non-narrative documentary shot across 24 countries on 70mm film. It’s a visual meditation on humanity, nature, and spirituality with astonishing visuals from start to finish.

There’s ancient ruins, religious ceremonies, industrial cityscapes, natural landscapes and more, all spliced together with music, there’s not a spoken word in its runtime. Fricke’s film makes you feel the scale of human civilization, and the fragility of it at the same time. Indeed, Baraka feels even more prescient looking back in a post internet age; its visuals of global culture, much of which may be completely new to you, are startling and spectacular in equal measure.

Ranging between ancient and modern, Baraka gives you a true scope of humanity, and how it’s impossible to have a full appreciation of everything that unfurls on our planet. There’s no argument or narrative, just pure human life, and it’s unlike anything you’ll have seen before.

2. The Pelican Brief (1993)

Alan J. Pakula, perhaps the Godfather of the paranoia thriller, offers up another, this time based on the John Grisham novel of the same name. Julia Roberts is Darby Shaw, a law student who writes a speculative legal brief suggesting a motive for the assassination of two supreme court justices; but when the brief gets into the wrong hands, people start dying and suddenly she’s on the run. Denzel Washington’s investigative journalist Gray Grantham gets drawn into the story and helps her out, and what unfurls is a taut and tight thriller, one that’s frequently overlooked and dismissed as middle of the road.

Washington and Roberts elevate it above that, and in the hands of Pakula, The Pelican Brief becomes much more than your average on-the-run thriller. This is a proper grown-up thriller with a genuinely interesting and complex conspiracy, never fully tipping into action movie territory. We’re used to seeing Washington in these sorts of thrillers, but Julia Roberts puts in one of her best performances here, pulling you into her panicked world as things spiral out of control.

The Pelican Brief doesn’t insult the audience’s intelligence, and keeps you gripped from minute one. While it might reach the heights of Pakula’s Klute (1971) or All the President Men (1976), this is a thoroughly underrated thriller which deserves more attention.

3. Unlawful Entry (1992)

Although Unlawful Entry doesn’t quite hit the heights of the superb Breakdown (1997), it edges Executive Decision (1996) in terms of Kurt Russell led nineties thrillers. Michael (Russell) and his wife Karen (Madeline Stowe) have their house broken into, and the intruder threatens Karen with a knife before escaping. The break-in is investigated by Ray Liotta’s Officer Pete Davies and his partner, and initially Pete seems very helpful in helping the couple set up a security system, and slowly becoming a good friend to the couple, even taking Michael out on a patrol and appearing as a guest at Karen’s primary school.

Unsurprisingly, Pete slowly becomes obsessive with Karen and takes it upon himself to attempt to remove Michael from the equation. It’s an excellent performance from Liotta, one of the late man’s finest, and the film runs with it; it takes a pulpy premise and uses it to say something real about power and vulnerability. Jonathan Kaplan provides something here that despite knowing exactly what it is, gives you a lot more bang for your buck than you might think.

4. Dream Lover (1994)

James Spader might well be a man known for delving into the erotic thriller, but Nicholas Kazan’s Dream Lover is certainly one of his lesser known. Starring Twin Peaks alumni Madchen Amick, Spader’s Ray, a recently divorced architect, meets Amick’s Lena, a beautiful and mysterious woman who he falls hard for, and the pair end up marrying very quickly. It’s only after this that he begins to notice things about her that don’t add up, and everything quickly begins to fall apart.

Sure, this sort of thing has been done many times before, and with it coming only two years after Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, one could be forgiven for dismissing Dream Lover as a Verhoeven cash in. But Dream Lover has some surprises up its sleeve, not least the genuine intrigue that it causes in its unfurling storyline. It’s also an excellent femme fatale tale, one that could easiy qualify as a Brian De Palma vehicle, although that suggestion perhaps does Kazan a disserivce.

Dream Lover is surprisingly thrilling piece of work; both Spader and Amick are absolutely terrific, completely selling you on their characters and ultimately give you an ending that’s every bit as satisfying as it is surprising.

5. The Funeral (1996)

Abel Ferrara has many strings to his impressive bow, although his mid nineties gangster flick is one that often falls by the way side. Christopher Walken, Chris Penn and Vincent Gallo play the Tempio brothers, violent gangsters in 1930’s New York. Johnny (Gallo) turns up dead, and at the funeral, Ray (Walken) and Chez (Penn)start looking for who killed him, convinced it was a rival.

Ferrara unfurls proceedings in flashbacks, unpacking the brother’s history as we learn about the choices made that led to this very point, and the truth that is eventually learned of what happened doesn’t help anyone. Ferrara’s film is more interested in what violence does to his characters rather than the violence itself, making The Funeral a far more interesting piece of work than it might have been.

Ferrara’s relatively brief gangster pic is well worth tracking down, all the performances are effective which is vital in such an intimate film; and although it doesn’t hit the heights of the films it’s attempting to veer away from, this is a film that remains sorely underrated, and deserves to be championed.

There are numerous different sorts of conspiracy thrillers, going all the way through the history of cinema. From the early work of Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock to David Mackenzie’s Relay this year, the role of the conspiracy thriller has been a hugely important in cinema, with Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) especially causing a ruckus on its release, and actually spurred the creation of the JFK Records Act.

There are those that are fast paced and thrilling, and those that are more nuanced and minimalist, yet no less gripping. And of course, there have been releases that have proved more successful than others, including many that are considered up there with the very best films of all time. Wherever you sit on conspiracy theories themselves, and there’s plenty to go around, cinema is an optimum medium in which to absorb and immerse yourself in the mayhem, and potentially the truth, of conspiracies.

Here, we take a look at the ten greatest conspiracy thrillers of all time.

1. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Based on the superb novel by Richard Condon, John Frankenheimer’s terrific adaptation still holds up today, despite being over sixty years old, and is no less hard hitting. Laurence Harvey is excellent as Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw, a Korean War veteran, who is brainwashed by a communist conspiracy to become an assassin.

Frankenheimer’s film arguably predicts the era of the Trumpesque popularist politician and remains eerily preeminent of the current day. It helps that it’s a first-rate thriller, with Harvey fully convincing you of Shaw’s struggles, and also contains top performances by Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury. The Manchurian Candidate still resonates with its uncomfortable nature and haunting narrative, playing on the idea of McCarthyism prevalent at the time and of course the crippling fear of communism.

All in all, The Manchurian Candidate remains one of the best conspiracy films of all time, and the 2004 remake starring Denzel Washington isn’t at all bad either.

2. Chinatown (1974)

There’s admittedly little left to say on Roman Polanski’s towering Private Investigator conspiracy thriller starring Jack Nicholson in one of his finest ever roles; not to mention Faye Dunaway’s brilliant performance. Nicholson is Detective Jake, who specialises in matrimonial cases, and is hired by Dunaway’s Evelyn Mulwray to spy on her husband and see what he’s up to. Taking the job, Jake finds himself in no end of trouble, unveiling a conspiracy involving a drought to buy farmland cheaply, and divert water there for future profit.

But we know all of that, of course. Polanski’s 1974 film might very well be his best, with its masterfully crafted screenplay and compelling performances; not to mention the intriguing and intricate plot built around the conspiracy at its center. Chinatown revitalized the film noire genre with its atmospheric cinematography, and its tragic elements ensure the film lingers long in the mind after you’ve seen it, even after several rewatches.

Chinatown left a lasting impact, and spawned a sequel some sixteen years later, The Two Jakes, with Nicholson reprising his character. While definitely worth a watch, it’s not a patch on Polanski’s stunning original.

3. Blow Out (1971)

From potentially Polanski’s finest film to, arguably, Brian De Palma’s. Blow Out is a successful homage and reinvention of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966) by way of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974).

John Travolta plays a sound technician who accidentally records evidence that a car accident was actually a murder- and as a result becomes entangled in a dangerous conspiracy. Coppola’s film works so well for a number of reasons, chiefly Travolta’s performance alongside a great turn from Nancy Allen; but the visual style and aesthetics that De Palma brings to the film elevate it above your average thriller.

The film also cleverly explores ways in which stories are constructed through the media, and it’s bleak ending works brilliantly, meaning it’s a film that still endures today, and remains, for many, De Palma’s best work.

4. The Conversation (1974)

Some would argue this is the king of all surveillance thrillers, and it’s true; Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation is a monumental piece of film making. Gene Hackman is brilliant as surveillance expert Harry Caul, a man hired to record a conversation between a young couple. While initially believing it to be a simple case of an affair, he becomes increasingly fearful, and obsessed, that the piece of recording might be evidence of a murder plot against the couple.

The Conversation is actually a far more somber affair than you might think; Caul is haunted by a previous job that ended in tragedy, and as a result he’s determined to prevent the potential murder even as he himself is being watched. Coppola’s film is a masterclass in tension and complex storytelling, which is brilliantly woven into the narrative. Hackman, as you’d expect, is superb, showing every emotion on his face and in his movements; everything he does you fully believe in, and he pulls you through the film all on his own.

Of course it’s not just Hackman that makes the film, but you can’t imagine anyone else in the role. And, in any other year, The Conversation would probably have been a shoe in for Best Film at the Oscars, but Coppola lost out….to himself, for The Godfather Part II.

5. The Parallax View (1974)

Aan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View used the murder of both Kennedy brothers to form a tale of a mysterious organisation (the Parallax Corporation) which deals in political assassination, and the initiating ‘lone assassin’ patsies.

Reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) investigates the assassination of a U.S senator and uncovers a vast corporate conspiracy, and as he digs deeper, more and more is revealed. The Parallax View is a masterclass of suspenseful filmmaking, building atmosphere and tension whilst holding a chillingly plausible conspiracy to create a feeling of genuine dread.

The fact that it came just over a decade after the assassination of JFK, and with the ensuing decade being packed with various theories about the actual events that led to it, meant that Pakula’s film was an easy sell to punters on its release. But it’s a film that somehow feels even more relevant today, when worldwide media and governments seemingly lie to us and cover up whatever they like. Of course, at the end of the day, it helps that The Parallax View, with its stunning opening sequence atop the space needle, is also a damn fine thriller.

Japan is one of the great cinematic nations, offering one of the oldest and richest film industries in history. From the pre-war silents to the golden age of the 50s, to the anime boom of the 80s, to the J-horror wave of the late 90s, Japanese cinema is widely varied and always interesting. There are countless classics throughout the history of Japanese cinema, but this list will highlight ten deep cuts, spanning from the 30s to the 2010s.

Note: streaming availability applies only at the time of this article’s publication.

1. Dragnet Girl (1933, dir. Yasujirō Ozu)

Yasujirō Ozu is Japan’s foremost cinematic observer of the Japanese family. His masterpieces, Tokyo Story (1953) and Late Spring (1949), are essential classics of Japanese cinema. His well-known films almost entirely revolve around the Japanese family —its shifting dynamics, shaped by history, time, and circumstance —typically middle-class. His style is immediately recognizable: an unmoving camera placed low to the ground (aka the tatami shot), actors looking directly at camera while giving dialogue, and the lack of diegetic music.

Dragnet Girl, an early silent, strays from nearly all of the characteristics Ozu is known for. The camera moves more in this film than in all of his color films combined. It’s a heightened genre film, following a small-time gangster (Joji Oka) and his crook girlfriend (Kinuyo Tanaka, legendary actress and director, Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff, Love Under the Crucifix). When a young kid tries to join the gang, the kid’s sister asks the gangster to keep him away from a life of crime.

There’s an overt embracing of Western culture in Dragnet Girl, at odds with a recurring theme of Ozu’s later work: the encroachment of Westernization in Japan and how it changes the Japanese culture. The film is dripping with that 30s Hollywood gangster style. Men wear suits with tipped fedoras, and the women match with white silk dresses. The characters frequent smoky jazz clubs and boxing gyms. Film posters of King Vidor’s The Champ and Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front are visible throughout.

For all its style, the movie’s essential dramatic problem lies in giving up the criminal life. As the gangster falls for the kid’s sister, he and his girlfriend start to see the value in going straight. The allure of the smoky rooms and velvet dresses starts to lose its luster. While Ozu’s love for Hollywood cinema is on display in Dragnet Girl, his fear of encroaching Westernization sits right beside it. The kid’s sister, the film’s symbol of innocence, is the only character to wear a kimono.

Dragnet Girl is available to stream on the Criterion Channel and for free on YouTube.

2. Genius Party (2007, dir. Atsuko Fukushima, Shoji Kawamori, Shinji Kimura, Yoji Fukuyama, Hideki Futamura, Masaaki Yuasa, Shinichiro Watanabe)

Genius Party is an anime anthology film comprised of seven shorts by seven directors, most notable of whom is Masaaki Yuasa, filmmaker behind Mind Game (2004) and The Night is Short, Walk on Girl (2017). It’s a great introduction for those new to anime and a hidden gem for seasoned vets. The films are wildly diverse, varying in animation style and narrative.

The film begins abstractly. The intro short by Atsuko Fukushima depicts a bird-like humanoid feeding on the hearts of small rock-creatures in a barren land. One of the rock-creatures produces a giant green plasma-flower in the sky, sparking lightning between all of the many rock-creatures, building into a giant, breathing hive. This leads directly into the next film, setting the stage perfectly. Though the story is vague, the highlight of the short (and the films to come) is the spellbinding animation.

The next short, “Shanghai Dragon”, is as straightforward as any of these films get. A snot-nosed kid, bullied by his classmates, finds a crystal pen that gives him the power to bring to life anything he can think of. Then, giant robots attack the city, and it’s up to the kid, his friend, and two cyber-agents from the future to save the world. It’s a classic premise, accomplished with exciting action scenes and a heartwarming ending. From there, the shorts change wildly in tone and subject matter, varying from an abstract meditation on identity to experimental tone poems.

The animation varies just as wildly. “Deathtic 4”, the second short, builds a completely different kind of world, using CG and blending 2D environments with 3D characters. “Doorbell” uses a grounded, hand-drawn style, and “Limit Cycle”, the aforementioned experimental tone poem, is an explosion of different styles and ideas. Masaaki Yuasa’s short isn’t as rowdy as Mind Game. It forgoes his focus on modern society, instead using a fantastical setting to meditate on birth, life, and death: his typical big questions.

Genius Party is available to stream for free on YouTube.

3. A Snake of June (2002, dir. Shinya Tsukamoto)

A Snake of June is an erotic thriller by one of the great Japanese mavericks: Shinya Tsukamoto. Known for insane masterpieces like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Tsukamoto’s graphic, transgressive, and highly stylized approach to filmmaking has solidified him as one of Japan’s great contemporary auteurs. Like many of his films, A Snake of June features several horror elements, while never fully grounding itself in the genre. In this case, Tsukamoto explores the psychosexual thriller.

Released in 2002, A Snake of June carves out an interesting place for itself in the emerging J-horror wave of the time. Cinematographically, the film’s blue monochrome tint dates it firmly in the 2000s while also pulling it out of time. The tint evokes the color processes of early silent film, but the elliptical editing pushes it into modern cinematic style, as do the jump cuts, handheld camera movements, and themes of paranoia and domestic rot.

The film follows Rinko, an operator for a mental health hotline who lives with her husband. One day, she is mailed photos of her masturbating at home by an unknown sender. Soon, the sender calls her, revealing himself as a past caller to the hotline, having been saved from suicide by Rinko. Blackmailing her with the photos, the caller forces Rinko to wear sexually provocative clothing and masturbate in public. The premise is pretty standard fare for thrillers like this, though Tsukamoto’s execution is explicit, stylish, and perverted, as his great movies can be.

The blue monochrome paired with the constant rain creates a dour, exhausting world in A Snake of June. Water collecting around clogged shower drains and rainwater violently crashing through street gutters are common thematic images that take on a sexually charged meaning as the plot unfolds and the perversity escalates. It’s a surprising and wholly original erotic thriller that could only come from Tsukamoto.

A Snake of June is available to stream for free on YouTube.

4. Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974, dir. Kazuo Hara)

While not primarily known for documentaries, the Japanese cinema has many doc gems to offer. Tokyo Olympiad, Antonio Gaudí, and The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness are all terrific movies. Alongside these classics stands the work of Kazuo Hara, Japan’s foremost documentary filmmaker. His essential film, The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On, grapples with Japanese identity after World War II. Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974, this list’s pick, shrinks its focus down to Hara himself.

One of the most intimate documentaries ever made, Extreme Private Eros is a film ostensibly about Hara’s ex-wife, Miyuki Takeda. Hara himself states near the beginning that the film is an excuse to be with her. Hara leaves his Tokyo apartment to film Miyuki, who has taken their child to Okinawa, where she bounces from relationship to relationship. Miyuki argues with a girlfriend, bemoans her failed relationship with Hara, pontificates about the differences between men and women, and eventually becomes pregnant by a Black American, Paul. Their relationship lasts three weeks.

The last thirty minutes consist of two graphic birth scenes. The first is of Miyuki’s birthing of the mixed-race child, the second is of Sachiko Kobayashi, Hara’s lover and collaborator on the film. Throughout the film, Sachiko interviews Miyuki. They discuss their respective relationships with Hara, and with each other, all with unflinching candidness.

In Extreme Private Eros, Kazuo Hara is simultaneously the observer and the subject. Miyuki’s life as depicted in the film is inextricably linked from Hara. It brings to mind the self-reflexive documentaries of Ross McElwee and John Wilson, with almost none of the self-awareness. It’s as raw and personal as a film can get.

Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 is available to stream on Criterion Channel.

5. Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald (1997, dir. Koki Mitani)

Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald is this list’s only truly popular choice, though only in Japan. It was a critical and commercial hit, winning three Japanese Academy Awards. Internationally, however, it has been lost in the shuffle. The film and its director, Koki Mitani, rarely appear on lists and in conversations on the great Japanese cinema of the 90s. The international reach of filmmakers like Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and Takeshi Kitano lie primarily in arthouse and cult audiences. Mitani’s films are not transgressive or challenging in the same way some of these filmmakers’ movies can be, but they are no less excellent, Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald in particular.

The film follows the cast and crew of a radio drama preparing for a live broadcast of a new play. The lead actress demands a name change for her character, setting off a chain reaction of script changes, threatening to collapse the project as a whole. It’s a sweet, funny movie with an outstanding ensemble cast. The film begins with an assured oner (reminiscent of The Player) that deftly introduces each character, the setting, and the stakes. It’s the kind of bold cinematic swing used by auteurs in epic, serious movies: Children of Men, Touch of Evil, Goodfellas, and recently, Bi Gan’s colossal Resurrection. In Mr. McDonald, the shot is pulled off with ease and cool; it sets a patiently joyful tone for the film.

A student of theater, Mitani frequently uses long takes throughout the film. His frames are large, the many actors coming in and out of frame. The performances are measured and precise, supporting the film’s droll humor with a grounded ease. Its a special kind of relaxed entertainment that simultaneously sports a superb craftsmanship; it brings to mind the great American mid-budget studio dramas of the 90s. Don’t miss it.

Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald is available to stream for free on YouTube.

The 1980’s was a decade rife with change within the film industry. We’d enjoyed the paranoia of the seventies, an atmosphere inserted into many of the great films of the era due to the influence of global events; in the eighties we witnessed the birth of the bombastic action blockbuster, thrilling romps that stormed the box office and carried huge weight with their star names.

But even those big names didn’t necessarily warrant huge box office returns. Many of the actors involved with the decade’s biggest earners also offered their services to much smaller scale productions, or films that simply didn’t get the exposure or critical acclaim that they perhaps deserved.

And of course there were plenty of films that arrived, disappeared, and have remained largely forgotten about in the ensuing decades. In this list we look back at ten of the most underrated and overlooked films of a cracking decade in cinema.

1. Moonlighting (1982)

This is a terrific little film, small in both scope and incident, yet utterly compelling from start to finish. Set in London mere weeks after the banning of the Solidarity movement in Poland, it begins briefly in an airport, as some Polish builders attempt to smuggle tools through security. It is not immediately apparent who they are, what they’re doing, or indeed why, but it transpires that they plan to work (more or less around the clock) on a small house that belongs to a Polish official, with the aim of turning it into a showpiece.

The secrecy around their arrival is hinted at; by bringing Polish workers over on tourist visas, the never seen official can remodel this small house for a fraction of the price of using British workmen. If this all sounds terribly dull, Jerzy Skolimowski injects staggering tension into the most mundane things; Jeremy Irons, (who also offers terrific narration) the only of the Poles that can speak English, realises that by reusing old receipts at the local supermarket, he can steal food and save money, but every time he’s in the store you’re terrified he’s going to be rumbled.

Moonlighting feels like a comment upon communism, but at the same time Skolimowski leaves it open to numerous interpretations, leaving you hanging onto every scene despite the minimalism of the endeavor. It’s an absolutely terrific piece of work and is frequently overlooked.

2. The Star Chamber (1983)

Certainly one of Michael Douglas’s lesser-known films, The Star Chamber is directed by Peter Hyams and sees Douglas’s young judge Hardin becoming sick of the fact that he repeatedly has to free violent criminals on technicalities. Hal Halbrook’s Judge Caulfield introduces Hardin to a secret society of judges who retry cases behind closed doors and order executions when they find someone guilty.

The set up is interesting to say the least, and despite the film’s low-key nature, it never flinches away from grasping the uncomfortable dilemmas that its premise sets up. Vigilante justice is not something fresh and original in terms of plot, but Hyams’ film is lean and tense with some terrific performances that keep the whole thing grounded. Such a premise is prone to slipping into over-the-top action and unnecessary violence, but The Star Chamber never wavers from its central theme of true justice.

This is a is mid-budget studio thriller that you rarely see on the big screen anymore, which is a real shame.

3. Meantime (1983)

An early made for television film by Mike Leigh might suggest depressing kitchen sink drama, and that’s admittedly what some might think of this terrific early offering from one of the all-time great British film makers.

Meantime stars both Tim Roth and Phil Daniels as brothers Colin and Mark, part of the Pollack family who are going nowhere in Thatcher’s East End, their father Frank (Jeff Robert) and Mark are both unemployed, Colin is shy to the point of invisibility, and it’s their mother Mavis (Pam Ferris) who’s attempting to hold the family all together.

Gary Oldman also stars as volatile skinhead Coxy, bringing some suitable mayhem to proceedings, but ultimately Meantime is an extremely minimalist kitchen sink drama, offering audiences a stultifyingly authentic portrayal of unemployment under Thatcher’s rule in Britain, and it’s intoxicating in the best possible way, anchored by some truly superb performances.

4. Fear City (1984)

Fear City is an excellent example of Abel Ferrara’s directorial progress post Driller Killer and it’s easy to see influence on his own future work in Bad Lieutenant (1992); but also more mainstream work by other directors, most notably Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Strippers in Manhattan are being stalked and killed by an individual who documents his murders in the form of a novel entitled ‘Fear City’, and Tom Berenger’s ex-boxer turned talent manager and his business partner decide to take matters into their own hands as their business starts to crumble, with girls too scared to turn up to work.
The police are also on the case, in the form of Billy Dee Williams who frequently clashes with Berenger’s Matt but eventually must rely on him to help find the murdering lunatic.

Fear City is arguably a much more important and impressive piece of work than it’s given credit for. Its depiction of Manhattan’s seedy, dank, and neon underbelly, whilst scratchy and unforgiving, adds to an authentic feel to Ferrera’s world building and is a hugely underappreciated piece of film making.

5. The Mean Season (1985)

Undoubtedly one of Kurt Russell’s lesser-known films, The Mean Season is a tight journalistic serial-killer thriller that uses nuance to its advantage and focuses more on Russell’s crime reporter Malcolm as the anchor rather than the killings themselves.

Malcolm is a burnt-out journalist, ready to quit his Miami posting and leave it all behind, until a serial killer begins calling him directly, demanding Malcolm act as his personal spokesperson to the world in exchange for exclusive over the phone interviews. Philip Borsos’s film approaches the serial killer subgenre from a different angle, with the crux of the narrative being Malcolm himself and his own addiction to what’s unfolding. He knows the wise decision is to stop and hand the case over completely to the authorities, but he simply can’t help himself, what’s driving him could also be his very definite downfall.

Mariel Hemmingway is excellent as Malcolm’s girlfriend Christine, desperately trying to get him to walk away, while Andy Garcia, Richard Jordan and Joe Pantoliano all provide superb supporting roles to make The Mean Season a sadly forgotten gem.

The nineties was a decade in which we were treated to an abundance of science fiction, and many would argue it was something of a golden decade for the genre. James Cameron continued to wow us with his expertise in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), Steven Spielberg gave us Jurassic Park (1993), and of course, the Wachowski’s rounded off the decade in style, providing one of the most influential sci-fi spectacles of all time with 1999’s The Matrix.

At a time when there was a huge amount of both technological optimism and fear, laptops and the internet were rapidly becoming everyday realities, and cinema adjusted to cultural changes with ambition and spectacle. The genre was in rude health to say the least, and yet perhaps because of the impressive amount of quality there were plenty of offerings that either didn’t get the credit they deserved or were dismissed by critics who unfairly compared them to some of the successful blockbuster giants.

Many of the decade’s films took the ideas laid down by Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner back in 1982 and expanded on them, reflecting on what it meant or didn’t mean to be human, and thematically these questions felt a lot more real as we approached the new millennium, especially with the world’s media pumping out propaganda about the supposed millennium bug.

In this list, we consider ten films that perhaps don’t make the cut when discussing the finest sci-fi films of the decade, yet more than deserve their place in the sun.

1. Moon 44 (1990)

Six years before he wowed audiences with Independence Day (and a full sixteen before he bored everyone senseless with its sequel) Roland Emmerich bestowed upon us Moon 44, a dystopian thriller in which giant corporations wage wars over mining rights in outer space. The story follows Felix Stone, an undercover agent who is sent to Moon 44 to investigate the disappearance of two mining shuttles and uncovers a conspiracy involving corporate espionage and sabotage.

While it’s scratchy, scrappy and contains dialogue that leaves a lot to be desired, Moon 44 displays its ambition throughout, and cements an effective industrial aesthetic that complements the story. You can see the prints of Emmerich all over the place, and the seeds for his future work are very much sown here. Although some of the visual effects look somewhat understandably dated, the practical effects hold up rather well, and although many continue to dismiss Moon 44 as an early and shoddy sci-fi pic, it’s a far better film than Independence Day: Resurgence, and a really interesting early work from Emmerich.

2. Fortress (1992)

Stuart Gordon’s Fortress is the kind of film you would have seen in bargain baskets of petrol stations or Blockbusters back in the day. Set in a near future United States where a strict one-child policy is enforced, John Henry Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen (Loryn Locklin) attempt to have a second child after they lose their first. When the authorities discover this, the couple are sent to a privately run underground prison known as The Fortress.

Unsurprisingly, what we’re headed towards is a daring escape, as John navigates the prison’s violent inmate hierarchy and high-tech surveillance regime to try and figure out how to make their escape. It might sound like you’ve heard it all before, and you’d be right; yet Fortress moves at breakneck speed and provides some thoroughly engrossing and cohesive world building. Fortress is a far better feature than some of the isolated prison thrillers that came after it, No Escape (1994), Lockout (2012), and Escape Plan (2013) are all films that have attempted this kind of thing with far lesser results, and yet Fortress is the one that sticks out as getting the most heat.

It’s a far better film than it was ever given credit for, and holds up surprisingly well today, even if the viewing experience is enhanced by a couple of beers and a pizza on a Friday night.

3. Demolition Man (1993)

Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes have an absolute blast in Demolition Man, and thankfully as a result, so do we.

Demolition Man is ridiculous, of course it is, but that also makes it easier to overlook how good the background world building is in this film. As well as being very funny, (intentionally as well as unintentionally) the rules set down regarding the dystopian future hold up terrifically and are not set aside during the film to descend into a cascade of punching and over the top action as you might expect. The film, somewhat surprisingly, obeys its own rules, despite having a plot that revolves around a cryogenically frozen cop who is revived in a peaceful future to capture a violent criminal who has also been thawed.

Sandra Bullock also turns up to enjoy herself, and the film’s self-aware tone means that the whole thing absolutely romps along, with the visual style pulling you into the bizarre and often brilliant world it creates. You’re reminded of the future film making of Duncan Jones, and that’s a compliment.

4. Strange Days (1995)

Ralph Fiennes stars in Kathryn Bigelow’s excellent dystopian sci-fi thriller, set on the eve of the millennium. He’s Lenny Nero, an ex-cop who is now in the trade of selling of virtual reality recordings that allows the buyer to experience the past memories of others. After he receives a recording showing a murder, he enlists the help of a friend and a bodyguard to track down the killer.

Bigelow’s world building is exceptional, and the crux of the narrative expertly exploits the pre-millennium bug and technological paranoia that gripped the world at the time. Fiennes is joined by a superb cast that includes Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis and Tom Sizemore as they navigate the seedy underbelly of a futuristic Los Angeles, and Bigelow predates the virtual reality age with a plot that sells itself despite its concept, which at the time may have seemed far-fetched, but now just seems way ahead of its time.

Strange Days remains one of Bigelow’s most underrated works, although considering her body of work, that doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’s arguably one of the best sci-fi films of the nineties full stop, yet sadly there are many that disagree.

5. Virtuosity (1995)

A virtual reality simulation becoming sentient, breaking out of a computer system and wreaking havoc on society doesn’t seem anywhere near as far-fetched as it might have done over thirty years ago when Brett Leonard’s sci-fi was first released. Starring Denzel Washington as a former police officer Parker Barnes and Russell Crowe as SID 6.7, the virtual reality simulation mentioned above, Leonard’s film aims to sit alongside James Cameron’s first two Terminator films (1984-1991). And although it falls way short of that, Virtuosity deserves more praise than it gets.

The opening sequence of a virtual reality training simulation sets the film up rather well, with Barnes testing the system having fallen rather badly from grace and now incarcerated for accidentally killing two citizens whilst taking down a political terrorist. Barnes is helping the authorities in testing the system from jail, and as you may have already guessed, is offered a pardon for his sins in exchange for taking down SID 6.7 who escapes his technological prison and starts terrorizing the real world.

Virtuosity sometimes feels like a Philip K. Dick adaptation, and perhaps one of the reasons it was panned was that the Dick adaptations that have been put to screen are admittedly better films than Leaonard’s; yet this much maligned thriller is well worth another look.

Whenever a longer cut of a feature film, be it called a “director’s cut,” a “special edition” or something else, comes out on video, it is often assumed to be superior to the theatrical release version.

In many cases, this is true, particularly when the theatrical release was poorly edited due to studio interference or the lack of sufficient post-production time. But it is also common for the shorter cut, which is informed by the commercial restrictions of theatrical exhibition, to be of higher quality, even if the film’s director might claim otherwise. To illustrate this, the following list will examine ten films, whose theatrical cut is better than the extended cut.

1. The Exorcist (1973, dir. William Friedkin)

Nobody could’ve guessed what a sensation The Exorcist would become when it premiered in theaters in 1973. Despite its genre and subject matter, the picture grossed nearly 200 million at the box office, won two academy awards after being nominated for ten, and would go on to become included on multiple “greatest films of all time” lists. The only one seemingly unhappy with the released film was writer William Peter Blatty, who had adapted his own novel for the big screen.

During post-production, director William Friedkin had shown Blatty an early cut that the author was very happy with, only to delete about 10-12 minutes for the theatrical release. Some changes were ones Friedkin chose to make, while others came at the suggestion of Warner Bros. Blatty was dismayed by the cuts, considering the removed sequences, such as the original hopeful ending, crucial to the film’s narrative and thematic coherence.

Over the next quarter-century, he would repeatedly voice his issues with the missing scenes to Friedkin, who eventually came around and approached Warner Bros. with the author about potentially restoring the cut footage. Likely due to the original cut having done good business in the growing DVD market, Warner acquiesced, leading to a revised release of The Exorcist called “The Version You’ve Never Seen” in 2000. Its additions are not narratively insignificant yet neither are they necessary. Moreover, they serve to largely diminish the theatrical version’s subtlety and ambiguity. Quite simply, the 1973 version is scarier and more powerful as a whole, as it leaves many things open to interpretation and does not overexplain anything to the viewer.

Regan’s first, previously unseen trip to the doctor, for example, definitively establishes when she’s first possessed by Pazuzu, making her later urination scene at the party considerably less shocking. Similarly, a crucial dialogue between Merrin and Karras about why Regan was possessed resolves a narrative enigma the film originally left open, a choice that provides audiences with more clarity at the cost of lessening the demon’s unknowability. Some changes in the Blatty Cut, such as when the silhouette of Pazuzu’s statue appears in the dark of Regan’s bedroom, are also outright distracting as they foreground the intrusion of digital technology into old film footage, in a manner reminiscent of the Star Wars special editions.

No offense to Mr. Blatty, but as a whole, it’s probably for the best that the “Version You’ve Never Seen” remains one you’ve never seen.

2. Halloween (1978, dir. John Carpenter)

When a feature film premieres on broadcast television, it inevitably undergoes some degree of revision in exchange for access to a wider audience. For one thing, it is split up into pieces to make room for commercials. For another, it is re-edited and possibly redubbed in accordance with a station’s or network’s broadcast standards and practices. Sex, violence, swearing, and suggestive dialogue might be removed in the process, which typically translates to a shorter overall duration. But then, there are also many instances when a film also becomes expanded, with its broadcast version introducing audiences to new footage that did not appear in theaters.

John Carpenter’s slasher classic Halloween (1978) is a prime example of this. Any fan that first saw it on the small screen would likely be surprised to realize that, censored footage aside, the television cut is actually longer than the theatrical by about 10 minutes. When the R-rated picture was licensed to NBC in 1980, the network’s broadcast standards and practices department wanted to make a lot of cuts. Producer Debra Hill, believing NBC’s demands were excessive, negotiated with the standards people and by the time the cuts were firmly decided upon, the reduced length of the picture created a problem. Even with commercial breaks, the broadcast version of Halloween would now be too short to fit into a standard two-hour time slot.

Hill and Carpenter then agreed to make three new scenes for the broadcast version, which the director would shoot over a 3-day schedule in April-May 1981 during the production of Halloween II. The sequel would premiere in theaters around October 31, just as the original film premiered on NBC in its new version. Subsequently, the broadcast version would appear uncensored on various home video releases.

In any incarnation, sadly, the broadcast version is an inferior work. Though there isn’t anything particularly wrong with the new scenes, which are incorporated quite seamlessly, it is hard to ignore the fact that they’re literally meant to pad out the running time, making a taut and suspenseful 90-minute film longer than necessary.

Dr. Loomis’ confrontation in 1964 with the board of Smith’s Grove Sanitarium – by far the longest and most substantial new sequence – provides a great showcase for actor Donald Pleasance. But it adds little other than superfluous exposition to the story, not to mention contradicts a key scene with Loomis explaining his relationship with Michael Myers later in the film. Moreover, due to a lack of high-definition transfer, it and the other TV Cut scenes stand apart from the theatrical footage due to their lesser visual quality.

In the end, the TV scenes are best watched apart from Halloween as a bonus feature.

3. Alien (1979, dir. Ridley Scott)

Though numerous Hollywood directors revise their movies, it’s hard to think of another filmmaker more prominently associated with the concept of the post-theatrical ‘director’s cut’ than Ridley Scott. The story of Scott’s battle to restore his vision of Blade Runner for the video market years after an initially compromised theatrical release became Hollywood canon. Subsequently, alternate cuts turned into a semi-regular feature in Scott’s filmography.

In some cases, such as that of Legend (1985) or Kingdom of Heaven (2005), the auteur revisits a work that he similarly had little control over in post-production. In others, however, he makes a revisionist version of a picture whose theatrical version he was happy with or did not believe required any real fixing. The seminal sci-fi horror classic Alien (1979) is a prime example of the latter. Though Scott reportedly did not have final cut when making this movie, he considers the end result to be his film and takes ownership of its assemblage.

So, why then did an Alien director’s cut, with about 5 minutes of additional footage, come out in 2003? Because 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment planned to reissue what was at the time the entire Alien franchise in a brand new special edition DVD box set called Alien Quadrilogy. On top of an extra disc of special features, each installment was to receive a new digitally enhanced video transfer and an alternate cut, the sole exception being Aliens (1986), as it already had an extended special edition from 1991.

In a booklet accompanying the release, Scott openly admits that the theatrical cut of Alien is, in his mind, still the best version, while the new “directors’ cut” was only being called so for marketing purposes. Fox initially created the extended cut by itself, reinstating several deleted scenes to further incentivize audiences to view the re-issue in theaters. When Scott saw the proposed extended version, he didn’t like it, feeling that the “cut was simply too long and the pacing completely thrown off.” So, he went back in, removed some of the restored material entirely and then made numerous microscopic changes, often little trims in existing scenes, to balance out the 5.5 minutes of new footage kept in. As a result, the faux director’s cut ended up being nearly a minute shorter than the theatrical.

The new footage in any case should’ve stayed on the cutting room floor. Though the slightly faster editing helps Alien move at a more contemporary clip, the new scenes pad the film out and weaken its originally methodical pace. The most interesting and substantial reinstatement is that of the “Cocoon Sequence,” where Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) finds the xenomorph’s nest near the end of the movie and mercy-kills a barely alive Captain Dallas (Tom Skeritt). But this addition really takes away from the tension and suspense of the final act, while also weakening the mystery and unknowability of the creature by delving into its lifecycle.

Ultimately, less really is more in the case of Alien. The less you know, the scarier it is.

4. Rocky 4 (1985, dir. Sylvester Stallone)

The original Rocky (1976) was a grounded, independent sports drama about an underdog boxer seeking to prove his worth. By contrast, its third sequel Rocky 4 (1985) was a cartoonish, over-the-top propaganda film about American individualism triumphing over Soviet collectivism. The plot followed Stallone’s Rocky Balboa seeking revenge against a one-dimensional, robotic Nazi-esque Russian stereotype (that was based on a real-life German Nazi boxer) named Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) for mercilessly killing his best friend Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).

Every creative choice effectively positioned Rocky 4 as a product of Cold War paranoia and 80s decadence. It may not have been good, objectively speaking, but it was fun and consistent. Rocky’s training during harsh winter conditions in the Russian mountains stood in direct contrast to Drago honing his strength in a high-tech, futuristic laboratory environment. Where the hero drew on the forces of nature, the villain relied on technology and anabolic steroids!

The filmmaking, with its exaggerated sound effects, montages and soundtrack choices, served to support the campy excesses of the script, which went so far as to include a bizarre subplot about uncle Paulie (Burt Reynolds) getting a robotic servant for a birthday gift and later tailoring it to speak with a female voice. Stallone knew exactly what he was doing at the time, which makes it all the stranger that over 35 years later he will have released Rocky vs. Drago: The Ultimate Director’s Cut (2021). Though just barely 3 minutes longer than the theatrical cut, the new version extensively uses alternate shots and takes to reconceive the film as a serious drama by altering its tone and its portrayal of Creed and Drago.

In the theatrical version, Creed is almost immediately decimated by his opponent after extensive-ly provoking him, his death quick and ignominious. In the new cut, Apollo acts less egotistically, puts up more of a fight and dies less due to his hubris, than his commitment to being a warrior. Drago, virtually silent in the theatrical cut, now has visibly more dialogue and development, creating the impression of a man whose humanity and individuality is constantly suppressed by his superiors. But while Stallone’s effort to cut back on the silliness of Rocky IV is admirable, it doesn’t really work.

One issue is that the more serious tone is still at odds with the ludicrous elements of its script that can’t be edited out, like the over-the-top training montages that contrast Rocky and Drago, resulting in tonal whiplash. Another is that the editing of the new version can be pretty sloppy and disjointed. Many early scenes feel rushed and the transitions between them abrupt, likely because Stallone attempts to cut every single scene and shot with the robot, which he evidently deemed far too cartoonish and out-there for the director’s cut. Unfortunately, the robot was simply too integrated into the fabric of the movie for his removal to be seamless.

In the end then, Rocky vs. Drago is a bit of a mess, a film suffering from an identity crisis. By contrast, the original Rocky IV is a much more consistently ridiculous film that knows what it is.

5. Manhunter (1986, dir. Michael Mann)

Will Michael Mann ever stop tinkering with Manhunter, his adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon, which introduced the now-iconic serial killer Hannibal Lecter?

Despite having had full control over the cult film (with the exception of the title) during post-production, the director repeatedly revised and reissued it since its theatrical release in 1986, often using some variation of the label ‘director’s cut.’ Not counting the initial theatrical release, by 2016 the film had accumulated about six director’s cuts total.

The first premiered in January 1988 on premium cable thanks to a licensing agreement with Showtime’s The Movie Channel. In fact, it could very well have been historically the first instance of the now-famous term “director’s cut” being used to designate an authorial revision. Mann reportedly wanted to enhance the film retroactively by providing the film’s characters with more complexity and a deeper emotional life. Whether he succeeded or not is difficult to say, for he’d reissue the ‘director’s cut’ twice with more editorial changes in the next few years on Showtime proper. The third director’s cut is known to have been about 4.7 minutes longer and had a 4:3 aspect ratio. Subsequently, it was reissued in 2001 on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in a cropped 2.35:1 widescreen with a poor, VHS-quality transfer.

The negative reactions to this version seemingly prompted Mann to make a “restored director’s cut” that was properly framed for widescreen and had higher image quality in 2003. However, because the distributor hadn’t preserved the film’s original celluloid negative, Mann had to source most of the extra scenes from videotape masters, causing them to appear easily discernible from the theatrical material due to inferior video quality.

The gap grew wider in 2016, when the restored cut was reissued on Bluray, where it switched between high-definition theatrical footage and standard-definition director’s cut footage, constantly taking viewers out of the movie. Technical issues aside, the final cut is in essence the same movie as the theatrical, just with slight, often imperceptible additions and subtractions.

For sure, there are some new scenes, but nothing that materially alters the film or its characters’ complexity. The only exception might be the new sequence towards the end, where agent Graham (Will Petersen), having shot the Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan), pays a visit to the family the killer was going to target next. Where the theatrical cut suggests a happy resolution for the protagonist, the director’s cut is more ambiguous, implying that he has been irreparably damaged by his experience. But that’s not quite enough to sell the director’s cut as truly an improvement.

So, unless Mann finally manages to locate usable celluloid source material and creates a watchable, fully immersive revision, the theatrical cut shall remain the better iteration.

For as long as the Oscars have existed, discussion over their choices have inevitably raged. Such has been the controversy over decisions in the past, the 2026 Oscars will finally see the rule implemented that each Academy voter needs to have seen every film in a category from them to be legible to vote.

That such a rule wasn’t already implemented, and hasn’t been since the dawn of the awards, is baffling when you think about it, and one wonders what different results we might have had over the years had this been the case. Still, at least this is now to be the case moving forward.

In this list we focus on ten times the Academy might have got it wrong when it came to the Best Actress award. Of course, these things are subjective, and there’s no doubting that in plenty of years you could have given it to any of the nominees, and it would have been deserved. But here we look back at ten astonishing female performances that were all nominated, but for one reason or another looked over for the ultimate prize.

1. Katherine Hepburn – The Philadelphia Story (1940)

It would take some argument to suggest that George Cuker’s The Philadelphia Story isn’t one of the best romantic comedies ever made. There are many reasons it is; the script, the tone, the perfectly timed slapstick scenes, bust most of all it comes down to the three central performances, Carey Grant, James Stewart, and Katherine Hepburn.

The film tells the story of Hepburn’s Tracy, a socialite who’s about to get married, but her plans are scuppered by the arrival of her ex-husband (Grant) and newspaper journalist (Stewart). Stewart won an Oscar for his troubles, and it’s hard to argue with that, his portrayal of a drunk man in one scene in particular remains one of the most convincing ever put to screen, but this is Hepburn’s film; she is the centrepiece of the narrative and she’s simply astonishing.

Tracy must traverse every possible emotion during the few days that the narrative takes place, and Hepburn convinces on all fronts. Despite the fact the film is demonstrably a comedy, she manages to fool you into thinking the genre is extremely fluid, such is the brilliance of her performance.

It’s hard to feel too sorry for her in terms of her achievements, she holds the joint record for most wins (4), but many would argue this might just be her best, and that’s no slight on Ginger Rogers who beat her to it in 1940 for her role in Kitty Foyle.

2. Barbara Stanwyck – Double Indemnity (1944)

Billy Wilder’s stunning thriller remains one of the best noir pictures ever released and has recently seen another re-release for its eightieth anniversary. Fred MacMurray’s Walter, an insurance agent is seduced by Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson, a married woman- into killing her husband for the insurance payout.

The pair of MacMurray and Stanwyck are on fire, and Stanwyck sells the femme fatale character with aplomb, Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell could learn a thing or two from her, and this was fifty odd years previously.

Wilder had quite an astonishing run of films through this period so it’s fair to say he was a safe pair of hands with Double Indemnity, but Stanwyck in the role of Phyllis is what drives the film, having you tear your hair out at the decisions made by Walter, but also making you very glad you’re not the one who’s not in his shoes.

Stanwyck lost out to Ingrid Bergman for Best Actress, fine, you might think, but although she’s terrific in Gaslight (for which she won) Stanwyck arguably should have bagged this one.

3. Celia Johnson – Brief Encounter (1946)

No, this must be a typo, I hear you think. Sadly not. Olivia de Havilland, an unbelievable actress of that there is no doubt, took home Best Actress in 1946 for To Each His Own, and not, as you might think, Celia Johnson for David Lean’s romantic masterpiece.

Johnson plays Laura Jesson, a jaded wife who is disillusioned with her life until she meets Dr Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) by chance at a railway station. Laura isn’t the only one who’s married, Alec also has his own marital problems, and the pair of them strike up something that seemingly becomes more than just an acquaintance.

Long considered one of the all-time greats, Brief Encounter works because of the chemistry between the two leads, fully convincing you of every feeling they express both physically and through their words. Johnson is astonishing, creating an intense feeling of despair mixed with joy inside you as you watch, can this work out somehow?

There are those that would argue against it, but Johnson could have felt incredibly hard done by for not bagging this award, hers remains one of the all-time great performances in a romantic drama.

4. Gloria Swanson – Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Sunset Boulevard didn’t win Best Picture (it lost to All About Eve). That might be a contentious decision, but to add to that, what we consider one of the all-time great performances by Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in the film, didn’t win either.

Swanson lost out to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday. Make of that what you will. Swanson’s incredible portrayal of an ageing silent,screen actress whose star is fading fast but refuses to accept the fact, is an astonishing piece of cinema. It’s not only one of the most influential performances of all time, but it also makes Sunset Boulevard one of the most important films about Hollywood itself.

It helps that William Holden as Joe Gillis is electric alongside her as a screenwriter who becomes intertwined in Norma’s life and their relationship takes a dangerous turn. We all surely know how it ends so I won’t give anything away, but even if Sunset Boulevard was absolute rubbish, Swanson’s performance is so good it would be worth watching just for that.

5. Audrey Hepburn – Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

There was plenty of stiff competition for Best Actress at the 1961 Oscars, and looking back at the nominees, if you didn’t already know, you’d probably assume Hepburn won, simply because of the cultural impact Breakfast at Tiffany’s has had throughout history.

Directed by Blake Edwards, the film stars George Peppard as Paul, a man who moves into an apartment in New York, before meeting Hepburn’s Holly, who he naturally falls hopelessly in love with. Both Peppard and Hepburn anchor the film and make it truly about something; it might well be easy envisioning such a film but it’s another thing entirely bringing the script to life, and the central pairing ensure that you’re always involved in the story.

Hepburn is on another level though; charming, heartwarming, aloof and at times frustrating, she brings everything to the role and more. There can be times in which films prove such a cultural impact that everyone knows it and quotes it or buys the shirt without ever having seen the film, and the film itself isn’t always up to snuff. And this is probably true of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but the difference is the film is excellent, made more so by one of Hepburn’s greatest displays.

Every year there will be many people who are left disappointed by whichever decision the Academy make to crown their Best Actor. You can, usually, be sure that whoever does take the award has at the very least, put in a brilliant performance; even if that means your own personal choice misses out.

With so many brilliant performances down the years, there are inevitably ones that miss out, especially in years where the raft of outstanding displays are almost too many to comprehend. Indeed, there are years in which astonishing displays of acting miss out on a nomination altogether, either because of the strength of the competition, or, and this does happen, because the Academy has made a glaring error.

Here we look back at ten performances that were all nominated for Best Actor and perhaps should have won, but were cruelly denied. All of these are exceptional, some of them are surprising, and some of them are potentially downright wrong.

1. Humphrey Bogart – Casablanca (1942)

If you don’t know your Oscar history, you might even think this is factually wrong before we even begin. Bogart didn’t win for Casablanca? One of the best and most loved films of all time? Nope. In fact, Paul Lukas won for Watch on the Rhine (1943). Bogart’s portrayal of nightclub owner Rick is one of the all-time greats, but you probably already know that before you’ve even seen the film. It isn’t just one of those classics that everyone loves for no good reason though, Casablanca is undoubtedly a masterpiece.

A large reason for that though, is the two lead performances. Ingrid Bergman is glorious as Ilsa, and Bogart matches her, making for one of the most engrossing and lovable romance films of all time. And sure, when you think of romance it might not be a genre that historically takes the awards, but Bogart not winning for this was bizarre at the time, and now, over eighty years on, it seems downright ridiculous. Bogart would go on to take the gong in 1951 for The African Queen, so he got what he deserved, but many would argue it was for the wrong film.

2. James Stewart – It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Thankfully the Academy had already given Stewart what was rightfully his in 1940 for his utterly mesmerising turn as Mike Connor in The Philadelphia Story, so his snub in 1947 was somewhat softened. That doesn’t make it any less strange though.

Again, there’s no doubt you must accept that It’s a Wonderful Life has aged, well, wonderfully, and on its release it obviously wasn’t viewed with the same sort of reverence that we all (hopefully) heap upon it today. But that doesn’t take away from what is clearly an instant classic performance from Stewart as George Bailey in Frank Capra’s masterpiece, not just of Christmas film-making, but of cinema in general. Capra weaves quite a dark narrative into what is ultimately a family festive film, but again this wasn’t necessarily Capra’s aim.

Stewart’s take on an everyday family man, who gives everything to everyone else and never himself, is the opposite of a self-righteous display; you completely forget it’s Stewart leading you and completely come to believe in and love George Bailey. This is one of the all time great performances, and you’d do well to answer who beat him to the Oscar in 1947. It was Ronald Colman, for A Double Life (1947), if you want that for some trivia.

3. Jack Lemmon- The Apartment (1960)

Again, Billy Wilder’s 1960 film is seen now as one of the finest romantic comedies (that once more deals in some pretty bleak subject matter) of all time. Jack Lemmon had already somewhat controversially lost out the previous year to Charlton Heston for Ben-Hur, and although that one perhaps is less confusing than Stewart’s snub for It’s a Wonderful Life, it doesn’t mean Lemmon didn’t deserve the gong for The Apartment.

Lemmon takes his performance from Some Like it Hot and flips it, although he’s still eminently amusing and watchable, he brings a real melancholy and loneliness to Bud Baxter, a man who repeatedly rents out his apartment to his superiors for them to use for their sordid behaviour, while he tries to climb the ladder at work.

Him and Shirley MacLaine bounce off each other perfectly in a will-they won’t-they scenario that is so far from your usual romcom that often you feel like you’re in a different film entirely. Far from upending Wilder’s film though, this is what makes it the classic it is. It might well be the finest thing that Lemmon’s ever done, even though he did go on to win, finally, in 1973 for Save the Tiger.

4. Peter O’Toole – Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

What? I hear you ask. Not only did Peter O’Toole not win Best Actor for Lawrence of Arabia, he never won one full stop. He was nominated eight times, and each time fell short of what was required, according to the academy.

This one seems like the one that really should have got him the gong, but he missed out to Gregory Peck; who admittedly, was superb in To Kill a Mockingbird. O’Toole is magnificent, perfectly matching the sweeping vistas of David Lean’s epic masterpiece, taking on the role of Lawrence, initially a lieutenant in the British army. We all know the tale now of course, but it still stumps many that O’Toole wasn’t recognised for his portrayal, and the fact that he was nominated eight times in all and never won anything (bar a lifetime achievement award in 2002 that felt to many like an attempt to rectify a serious of mistakes) is truly remarkable.

5. Peter Sellers – Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Stanley Kubrick’s masterful political satire that landed just two years after the Cuban missile crisis remains for many, his finest film. Of course, that sort of speculation is entirely subjective, but what isn’t up for debate is the brilliance of Peter Sellers in the film.

Rex Harrison took home the award for My Fair Lady, and as good as he is in it, he doesn’t reach the heights of what Sellers offers in Dr. Strangelove, taking on multiple personalities and providing audiences with something that remains one of the most astonishing screen performances in the history of cinema.

Despite the fact that Sellers was notoriously hard to work with (his work with Blake Edwards on the Pink Panther films would attest to that) it’s not something that resonates on screen, certainly not in Dr. Strangelove. Which is even more impressive considering that they didn’t get on either, with Sellers taking exception to Kubrick’s use of violence in A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Sellers never won an Oscar despite his three nominations, and although he was almost always brilliant (probably best known for his comedy) his work in Dr. Strangelove remains the one that arguably really should have bagged him some gold.