Bare-chested fist-fights, loud guitar riffs, a billowing American flag and Malkovich turned up to 11. This is a cheese-filled treat

Spielberg’s beautifully shot three-hour multi-Oscar-winner is at times overwrought, but fully worthy of its masterpiece status

The music is the action in Andrea Arnold’s intense tale of a young woman deep in a moshpit of flesh and excess but in charge of her own desires

John Carpenter’s 1978 original slasher film isn’t scary at all – it’s too clunky for that

Forty years after its release the largest critical and commercial flop of its era has undergone a remarkable critical reappraisal. Is it really worth sitting through three-and-a-half hours?

This 40-year-old comedy – repackaging blues for a white audience – in many ways uncomfortably mirrors what is happening in the UK and America right now

Peter Jackson’s mammoth Tolkien adaptation seemed to be too humourless and chockful of pointless names to be worth the bother – but I hit my stride en route

Richard Attenborough’s epic, starring Ben Kingsley as a speechifying version of the Indian independence hero, takes some breathtaking liberties with history

The dunes are alive with the sound of screaming as a monstrous, ravenous fish terrorises a seaside community – but this is not a film about a shark

I’ve always imagined John Wayne as the epitome of gun-toting American racism. And I didn’t expect this white-supremacy parable to change my mind …

Nora Ephron’s world maybe narrowly middle class and privileged, but in this romcom classic she beautifully balances melancholy with fizzing optimism

Having long avoided romcoms, I shrugged off my gendered preconceptions and gave this love story a chance

In one sense this is a glorified rip-off that guts Kurosawa’s thoughtful original, repackages it with a stylish title and fills it with guns … but it’s fun!

I didn’t know whether to expect a dose of medicine or a miracle. What I got was a breathtakingly gorgeous piece of cinema – though Fellini’s questionable fantasy leaves a bad taste

A bumbling Hugh Grant charms a headstrong Yank at an aristocratic cousin’s wedding in the Cotswolds and can’t shake her. Is it still entertaining? I’ve finally noticed

Would David Lean’s epic Russian-revolution romance stir my heart or leave me stone-cold? Well, all the balalaikas set my teeth on edge from the start

For years I have been the self-professed biggest Terminator fan on the planet. There’s only one problem...

Tarkovsky’s mysterious epic – a response to the ‘phoniness’ of 2001: A Space Odyssey – draws you into its melancholic dreamworld superbly

As a snooty avoider of crowdpleasers, I’d spent years steering clear of this beloved blockbuster. But how bad could it be?

I knew the plot, the song ... so could James Cameron’s blockbuster surprise me? No, but a young Leonardo DiCaprio goes rogue and lifts this sinking ship