Rashomon

Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice is an electrifying tale of the destructive power of human sexuality.

In this stylish, dark crime thriller, a policeman’s complex web of underworld relationships is threatened by an internal affairs investigator.

A hitman becomes the target in this ultra-stylish neo noir from Kim Jee-woon.

The disturbing true story of a pair of twisted lovers who posed as siblings to seduce, con and - if necessary - kill.

Wes Anderson's debut ditches kitsch in favour of surprisingly subtle comedy, in this tale of a criminally inept gang led by Owen Wilson.

Delirious gothic tale of terror from Czech New Wave master Juraj Herz, about a jealous sister with dark desires and splintered minds.

This influential Dracula adaptation contains some of the most famous images of expressionist film, and remains shocking and stylish after 100 years.

Hailed as Britain's first black feature film, Pressure is a hard-hitting, honest document of the plight of disenchanted black youths in 1970s London.

The late, great Harry Dean Stanton's finest role came as the near-mute Travis, on a journey across America to reunite his family, in Wim Wenders' moving tale of loss and redemption.

Technology and sexuality meet in head-on collision in David Cronenberg’s controversial adaptation of writer J.G. Ballard’s transgressive 1973 novel.

Given extraordinary freedom by Hollywood studio RKO for his debut film, boy wonder Orson Welles created this notoriously brilliant portrait of a media giant.

Chantal Akerman's magnificent epic of experimental cinema offering a feminist perspective on recurrent events of everyday life.

Part gangster film, part melodrama and part social critique, Akira Kurosawa's first critical success follows the troubled friendship between a disillusioned doctor and a young yakuza.

In Akira Kurosawa's comedy of manners, a ronin runs rings around nine young, clean-cut samurai while cleaning up a spot of corruption in local government.

Toshiro Mifune delivers an outstanding performance as a paranoid man striving to move his family to Brazil to escape the nuclear holocaust which he fears is imminent.

Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling mix of fairy story and samurai movie - a story of rival clans, hidden gold and a princess in distress - was famously a key inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars.

The first film made by Akira Kurosawa's own production company is a dark tale of greed, corporate corruption and revenge.

Akira Kurosawa’s procedural crime masterpiece, from Ed McBain’s gritty novel, follows an industrialist who faces an agonising choice as a result of a botched kidnapping by ruthless criminals.

Adapted from Noh and Kabuki theatre, Kurosawa’s classic tale of deception sees a lord and his bodyguard disguise themselves as monks to bypass an enemy roadblock.

Part gangster film, part melodrama and part social critique, Akira Kurosawa's first critical success follows the troubled friendship between a disillusioned doctor and a young yakuza.

In Akira Kurosawa's comedy of manners, a ronin runs rings around nine young, clean-cut samurai while cleaning up a spot of corruption in local government.

Kurosawa’s assured debut film about a young man’s spiritual journey through the study and practice of judo.

Toshiro Mifune delivers an outstanding performance as a paranoid man striving to move his family to Brazil to escape the nuclear holocaust which he fears is imminent.

Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling mix of fairy story and samurai movie - a story of rival clans, hidden gold and a princess in distress - was famously a key inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars.

Haunting Irish folk-horror, from the writer of The Blood on Satan’s Claw, about an introverted farm girl suspected of witchcraft.

Nick Cave and Sarah Snook voice an Oscar-nominated stop-motion classic of divided twins, told with adult candour and uncanny warmth.

A housewife-turned-cop is sucked into a high-profile case that has polarised the local community in this taut, north India-set thriller.

In Mai Zetterling’s scathing rebuke of European entitlement, a man returns to his childhood home and confronts his repressed memories and desire.

Three expectant mothers on a maternity ward recall their personal and sexual experiences in Mai Zetterling’s bold, subversive debut.

Three stage actresses starring in Aristophanes’ classic play Lysistrata start to draw parallels with their own lives in Mai Zetterling’s feminist comedy.