griggs's - Favourite 100 Films List

Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday, drinking, clubbing and hooking up in what should be the best summer of their lives. As they dance their way across the sun-drenched streets of Malia, they find themselves navigating the complexities of sex, consent and self-discovery.

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Alexander Mackendrick's last Ealing comedy and certainly one of the best, William Rose received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Sir Alec Guinness stars in one of his most vivid disguises, in this killingly funny black comedy gem.

The villains plot to kill the old lady who discovers their robbery. But the pensioner is not as harmless as she seems! A rare colour film from Ealing in the '50s, it was premiered in 1955 at the end of the Ealing Green period.

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It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) is returning to a loveless marriage; Sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March) is a stranger to a family that's grown up without him; and young sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) is tormented by the loss of his hands. Can these three men find the courage to rebuild their world? Or are the best years of their lives a thing of the past?

In the Deep South, homicide detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) becomes embroiled in a murder investigation. When the bigoted town sheriff (Rod Steiger) gets involved, both he and Tibbs must put aside their differences and join forces in a race against time to discover the shocking truth.

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"Kramer vs. Kramer" is a ground-breaking drama about the heartbreak of divorce and the struggle between work and family. Young husband and father, Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) loves his family - and his job, which is where he spends most of his time.

When he returns home late one evening from work, his wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) confronts him and then leaves him to take care of their six-year-old son while she goes off to find herself. Ted struggles with the demands of balancing a high-pressure career while trying to adapt to his new role of single parent. Just as Ted starts to feel like a fulfilled parent, Joanna returns, but this time she wants her son back...

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An uncompromising, double-Bafta winning portrait of a particular milieu of working-class family life in southeast London, where its writer and director grew up, 'Nil by Mouth' is a powerful, astute, authentically foul-mouthed account of unfettered machismo, booze and drugs, petty crime and domestic

abuse. The performances are mesmerising throughout, with Ray Winstone as the volatile and self-pitying Ray, Kathy Burke as his longsuffering wife Val and Charlie Creed-Miles as her junkie brother Billy. Shot and scripted in a deceptively casual realist style reminiscent of John Cassavetes, this profoundly personal and humane film eschews sensationalism and sentimentality to illuminate a vicious circle of abuse and criminality. A dark but dazzling masterwork.

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Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) is a 21 year old supermarket worker from a small port town in the west of Scotland. Morvern believes that life is something that you get on with as best you can with what you've got.

one morning, Morvern finds that what she's got is a dead boyfriend on the kitchen floor...

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Following the destruction of the Death Star, Imperial forces pursue the Rebel Alliance to the ice planet Hoth. After a devastating defeat, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) journeys to the planet Dagobah to train with the Jedi Master Yoda.

Meanwhile, in the Cloud City of Bespin, Darth Vader attempts to lure Luke into a trap by kidnapping Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). When Luke comes to their rescue, he must fight a fierce lightsaber duel with Darth Vader himself and come face to face with a stunning revelation that could change his destiny.

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"2001: A Space Odyssey" is a countdown to tomorrow, a road map to human destiny, a quest for the infinite. It is a dazzling, Academy Award-winning visual achievement, a compelling drama of man vs. machine, a stunning meld of music and motion.

It may be the masterwork of director Stanley Kubrick (who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur C. Clarke) and it will likely excite, inspire and enthrall for generations. To begin his voyage into the future, Kubrick visits our prehistoric ape-ancestry past, then leaps millennia (via one of the most mind-blowing jump cuts ever conceived) into colonized space, and ultimately whisks astronaut Bowman (Keir Dullea) into uncharted realms of space, perhaps even into immortality.

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A landmark movie in the film noir tradition, Roman Polanski's 'Chinatown' stands as a true screen classic. Jack Nicholson is private eye Jake Gittes, living off the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-war Southern California.

Hired by a beautiful socialite (Faye Dunaway) to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together for one, unforgettable night in...Chinatown.

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What do a sexy stewardess (Pam Grier), a street-tough gun runner (Samuel L.

Jackson), a lonely bail bondsman (Robert Forster), a shifty ex-con (Robert De Niro), an earnest federal agent (Michael Keaton), and a stoned-out beach bunny (Bridget Fonda) have in common? They're six players on the trail of half a million dollars in cash! The only questions are... who's getting played...and who's gonna make the big score?

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Made in 1922, on location in the Carpathians and several Baltic Towns, Nosferatu is in all but name Bram Stokers Dracula with the lead names changed. Starring Max Schrek as Nosferatu the film relies heavily on lighting, shadow and pictorial compensation. Following closely Bram Stokers novel.

Stokers wife took offence and won her case against the producers forcing them to destroy all prints. Luckily a couple survived.

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In the savage and deadly world of the gangland king, the man at the top is ruler, only for as long as he controls everything in his territory. For that man, the rewards can be infinite, but so are the dangers.

Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) is enjoying the height of his powers, and he is on the verge of something that would make his current 'arrangements' small fry. But stronger forces than even he can control have moved in and taken over. Climaxing in one long and bloody day of terror, an Easter Good Friday, he is to see his empire begin to crack and crumble.

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A battle of gigantic proportions is looming in the neon underground of New York City. The armies of the night number 100,000; they outnumber the police 5 to 1; and tonight they're after the Warriors - a street gang unfairly blamed for a rival gang leader's death.

This contemporary action-adventure story takes place at night, underground, in the sub-culture of gang warfare that rages from Coney Island to Manhattan to the Bronx. Members of the Warriors fight for their lives, seek to survive in the urban jungle and learn the meaning of loyalty.

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"Amadeus" triumphs as gripping human drama, sumptuous period epic, glorious celebration of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It's 1781 and Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is the competent court composer to Emperor Joseph II.

When Mozart (Tom Hulce) arrives at court, Salieri is horrified to discover that the godlike musical gifts he desires for himself have been bestowed on a bawdy, impish jokester. Mad with envy, he plots to destroy Mozart by any means. Perhaps, even murder.