Morgiana

A teenager is taken to a Corsican villa where her fugitive mob boss father is hiding, before an assassination attempt forces them to go on the run.

This wildly violent ‘70s Japanese sexploitation film about a gambler hunting her father’s killers was a key influence on Tarantino’s Kill Bill series.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a crime journalist scouring the streets of after-dark LA in a stylish thriller that examines the morals of mass media.

A bouncer is enlisted to fight off a mob boss, in this barmy, shot-on-video cult actioner from famed Mancunian hardman Cliff Twemlow.

Michael Haneke’s drama explores a teenager’s obsession with screen violence, and his inability to distinguish between reality and fiction.

A travelling mariachi is mistaken for a murderous criminal, in Robert Rodriguez’s infamous ‘no budget’ exemplar of DIY action cinema.

Family secrets echo around a Spanish clan, ringing loud enough to rouse the dead, in Pedro Almodóvar's assured melodrama.

Tilda Swinton and Luca Guadagnino’s sumptuous, operatic vision of an aristocratic family disrupted by unstoppable forces of passion.

Céline Sciamma’s BAFTA-nominated film about the tentative love between a painter and her subject in 18th-century France.

Sizzling, feverish melodrama set amid Mexico City’s red-light district nightclubs

Lars von Trier’s unique and divisive dissection of the American Dream, featuring Björk as an immigrant worker finding escape in musical cinema.

Writer Nadia M Oliva tracks the development of the melodrama genre and how it plays out across film, TV and online.

Macabre and singular Czech reimagining of the classic fairy tale about a merchant’s daughter held captive by a mysterious winged beast.

This story of a professional cremator whose increasingly deranged impulses are given free reign during Prague's Nazi occupation, is a brilliantly chilling mix of Dr Strangelove and Repulsion.

A reclusive potter nicknamed ‘Dragon’, exiled from his isolated homestead, returns years later, aiming to win back the trust of the villagers.

Marking the centenary of Sergei Eisenstein’s landmark film, with thrilling music by Pet Shop Boys.

An impressive ensemble cast populate Ang Lee’s riveting portrait of family life in 1970s America.

Two old schoolfriends join forces with an elderly neighbour to fence a shed full of weed, in this sprightly, easy-going British comedy.

A homeless addict (Denis Lavant) and a young painter (Juliette Binoche) with failing eyesight forge a bond on the streets of Paris.

Dazzling epic, in which the young Pharaoh Ramses XIII clashes with Egypt's clergy over influence on the affairs of the state and its coffers.