cato's - Favourites List

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Legendary director Nicholas Ray began his career with this lyrical film noir, the first in a series of existential genre films overflowing with sympathy for America's outcasts and underdogs.

When the wide-eyed fugitive Bowie (Farley Granger), having broken out of prison with some bank robbers, meets the innocent Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell), each recognizes something in the other that no one else ever has. The young lovers envision a new, decent life together, but as they flee the cops and contend with Bowie's fellow outlaws, who aren't about to let him go straight, they realize there's nowhere left to run. Ray brought an outsider's sensibility honed in the theater to this debut, using revolutionary camera techniques and naturalistic performances to craft a profoundly romantic crime drama that paved the way for decades of lovers-on-the-run thrillers to come.

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In 1981, four Polish builders arrive in London to renovate the home of a rich fellow Pole, with only the foreman, Nowak (Jeremy Irons), speaking English.

Whilst the military crackdown by the communist regime is underway in Poland, a string of disasters is unravelling for the builders, who are unaware of the turmoil back at home as Nowak keeps events hidden from them in order to get the job finished.

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In their first film since the Palme d'Or winning 'Rosetta', brothers Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne present a subtle and disquieting study of a man whose life has been devastated by tragedy.

Olivier Gourmet won the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his masterfully understated portrayal of a carpenter who teaches teenagers at a rehabilitation school. He is disturbed by the arrival of a new student, Francis (Morgan Marinne), and he struggles to maintain a professional distance in the boy's presence. An ambiguous relationship develops between the two until the eventual revelation of a terrible secret from the past that binds them together. Utilising their trademark pared-down visual aesthetic to great effect, the Dardennes have crafted a riveting, strikingly powerful film of profound emotional and moral complexity.

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Welcome to a bittersweet world of episodic adventures and strange encounters. Welcome to a sordid, nocturnal world of ruthless, callous boyfriends and stray movie stars looking for seedy kicks.

Welcome to the harsh, unforgiving streets of a crumbling Rome where hope can still prevail and dreams cradle the lost. Welcome to the world of Cabiria, a feisty, loud, outspoken and somewhat naïve prostitute waiting for a miracle, and one of the most unforgettable and endearing characters of European cinema. Eventually remade in Hollywood as 'Sweet Charity', 'Nights of Cabiria' is a often humorous, poignant, unflinching and vivid portrait of one woman's picaresque existence and her perseverance through adversity. Starring Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, as the irrepressible protagonist, 'Nights of Cabiria' marked Fellini's last foray into gritty neo-realism before venturing into the surreal satire and dream logic of 'La Dolce Vita' and 'Eight and a Half'.

Where to find your favourite fast-food hamburger in Paris? How many laundry soap packets does a trip to Atlanta require? Ask Macon Leary, whose guidebooks are revered by home-loving business travellers who loathe being in transit. About matters of the heart, don't ask Macon. he doesn't have a clue. At least, not yet.

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With his eighth and most personal film, Alfonso Cuaron recreated the early-1970's Mexico City of his childhood, narrating a tumultuous period in the life of a middle-class family through the experiences of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, in a revelatory screen debut), the indigenous domestic worker who

keeps the household running. Charged with the care of four small children abandoned by their father, Cleo tends to the family even as her own life is shaken by personal and political upheavals. Written, directed, shot, and coedited by Cuaron, 'Roma' is a labor of love with few parallels in the history of cinema, deploying monumental black-and-white cinematography, an immersive soundtrack, and a mixture of professional and nonprofessional performances to shape its author's memories into a world of enveloping texture, and to pay tribute to the woman who nurtured him.

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Originally released in 1902, this legendary 16-minute film is widely considered to be one of the most important works in film history. Created just six years after the invention of cinema this is where narrative cinema truly began.

George Melies' masterpiece features six members of the Astronomers' Club, fired into space by a giant cannon, on a strange and wonderful journey to the moon to meet its inhabitants. The colour version of A Trip to the Moon, hand-painted frame by frame, was considered lost for many years, until a print, in a desperate condition, was found in Spain in 1993. It is this version which has been meticulously restored by Lobster Films, the Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage - one of the most sophisticated and expensive restorations in the history of cinema. The luminous resulting film is accompanied by a new original soundtrack by French duo AIR. Accompanying the film is an hour long documentary, The Extraordinary Voyage, detailing the restoration process and featuring words from esteemed directors such as Michel Gondry, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Costa-Gavras and Michel Hazanavicius.

Drama of the early 60s, an intimate, very British portrait of the fall-out that occurs when a husband (Anthony Quayle) decides to leave his wife for a younger, more beautiful woman (Sylvia Syms).