history-light's - Favourites List

LucasFilm and director J.J. Abrams join forces once again to take viewers on an epic journey to a galaxy far, far away with 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker', the riveting conclusion of the seminal Skywalker saga, where new legends will be born and the final battle for freedom is yet to come.

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"Come and See" is one of the greatest war films ever made and one of the finest achievements of Soviet cinema.

A devastating account of the Nazi occupation of Belarussia during World War II, it tells the story of a young boy's abrupt loss of innocence when he joins the Soviet resistance and is thrust headlong into the brutal horrors of combat. Featuring terrifyingly authentic battle scenes and poetic, almost surreal imagery, director Elem Klimov has fashioned a vivid and unforgettably powerful portrait of the terrible atrocities committed by men in the name of war.

Holy Motors is a fascinating, visually striking labyrinth of interwoven fantasies that follows the mysterious Monsieur Oscar (played in jaw-dropping style by the miraculous Denis Lavant) who, over the course of a single day, takes on 10 bizarre guises, ranging from a gangster and ageing millionaire to a troubled parent and anarchic tramp.

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Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), who works as a small-time courier for a big-time gangster, is in huge trouble. He has accidentally left the cash from a mob deal on the subway, and he has only twenty minutes to deliver the 100,000 marks to his unforgiving boss.

Desperate, he calls his girlfriend, Lola (Franka Potente), the only person who can rescue him from certain death. As the seconds tick away and the tiniest choices become life altering, Lola must try to reach Manni before the line between fate and fortune begins to blur. One story told from three different perspectives, 'Run Lola Run' is a veritable maze of intriguing plot twists and heart-stopping suspense in a high-octane thrill ride about one woman's desperate attempt to save her lover.

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Robert Rodriguez double bill.

El Mariachi (1992)

All he wants to be is to be a Mariachi, like his father, his grandfather before him. But the town he thinks will bring him luck brings only a curse - of deadly mistaken identity. Forced to trade his guitar for a gun, the Mariachi is playing for his life in this critically-acclaimed film debut from director Robert Rodriguez.
Desperado (1995)
Antonio Banderas, Joaquim de Almeida, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin and Quentin Tarantino star in this stylish shoot-'em-up described as a south-of-the-border Pulp Fiction. Director Robert Rodriguez follows up his legendary debut film, El Mariachi, with this sexy sequel about a mysterious guitar player (Antonio Banderas) searching for vengeance against the men who murdered his girlfriend.

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When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate.

From Harlan's dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan's untimely death.

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"Jojo Rabbit" follows a lonely German boy Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic.

Aided by his wildly idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.

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In 1950's New York, Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective with an affliction, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis).

Armed only with a few clues and the powerful engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely guarded secrets that hold the fate of the whole city in the balance.

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The Doctor and his friends Ben, Polly and Jamie arrive at Gatwick airport. They quickly stumble upon an alien plot, centring upon the mysterious 'Chameleon Tours' - a low-price holiday company, whose young passengers have been vanishing in unexplained circumstances.

With the help of Scotland Yard and the airport staff, the Doctor investigates further, but it isn't long before his own friends start disappearing too. What is happening to the passengers of Chameleon Tours? Where are the company's planes really going? Can the Doctor unravel the mystery of Chameleon Tours before it's too late? Most of the BBC's original 1967 master recordings for 'The Faceless Ones' were lost soon after the programme's original transmission. However, audio-only recordings have survived and have been used here to create a brand new fully animated reconstruction of this lost classic.

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Kim Ki Taek's (Song Kang Ho) family are all unemployed and living in a squalid basement. When his son, Ki Woo, gets a tutoring job at the lavish home of the Park family, the Kim family's luck changes.

One by one they gradually infiltrate the wealthy Park's home, attempting to take over their affluent lifestyle, but as their deception unravels events begin to get increasingly out of hand in ways you simply cannot imagine.

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From Robert Eggers, the visionary filmmaker behind the modern horror masterpiece 'The Witch', comes this hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890's.

As an approaching storm threatens to sweep them from the rock and strange apparitions emerge from the fog, each man begins to suspect that the other has become dangerously unmoored.

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Painter Marianne (Noemie Merlant) is commissioned by an affluent countess to paint the wedding portrait of her sheltered but headstrong daughter Héloïse (Adele Haenel).

While posing as her hired companion, Marianne is instructed to complete the portrait in secret, observing Héloïse by day and painting her by night. However, as the two women grow closer, their intimacy and attraction begins to blossom, paving the way for a simmering, star-crossed romance.

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The 'Justice League' has always been Earth's first and last defense, but with the imminent arrival of 'Darkseid' and the horrors of war that will follow, everything is about to change! With time running out, the Justice League will need all of its members and their powers like never before.

But even the world's most powerful Super Heroes, including reluctant member John Constantine, may not be able to make a difference against Darkseid's legions. Witness the most shocking battle in the DC Universe, where survival itself is a victory.

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In Disney and Pixar's Onward, teenage elf brothers Ian and Barley Lightfoot (voices of Tom Holland and Chris Pratt) get an unexpected opportunity to spend one more day with their late dad, so they embark on an extraordinary quest aboard Barley's epic van Guinevere.

Like any good quest, their journey is filled with magic spells, cryptic maps, impossible obstacles and unimaginable discoveries. But when the boys' fearless mum Laurel (voice of Julia Louis-Dreyfus) realises that her sons are missing, she teams up with a part-lion, part-bat, part-scorpion, former warrior - aka The Manticore (voice of Octavia Spencer) - and heads off to find them. Perilous curses aside, this one magical day could mean more than any of them ever dreamed. "It's pure, perfect Pixar"

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One of the most visually striking of all the later silent films, 'The Man Who Laughs' reunites German Expressionism director Paul Leni and cinematographer Gilbert Warrenton from their horror hit the previous year, 'The Cat and the Canary' (1927).

Both films are often considered to be among the earliest works of legendary horror classics from Universal Studios, yet the undeniably eerie 'The Man Who Laughs' is more accurately described as a Gothic melodrama. However, its influence on the genre and the intensity of the imagery - art director Charles Hall and makeup genius Jack Pierce would go on to define the look of those 1930's Universal horror landmarks - have redefined it as an early horror classic, bolstered by one of the most memorable performances of the period. Adapted from the Victor Hugo novel, 'The Man Who Laughs' is Gwynplaine (an extraordinary Conrad Veidt), a carnival sideshow performer in 17th-century England, his face mutilated into a permanent, ghoulish grin by his executed father's royal court enemies. Gwynplaine struggles through life with the blind Dea (Phantom of the Opera's Mary Philbin) as his companion - though she is unable to see it, his disfigurement still causes Gwynplaine to believe he is unworthy of her love. But when his proper royal lineage becomes known by Queen Anne, Gwynplaine must choose between regaining a life of privilege, or embracing a new life of freedom with Dea. The startling makeup on Veidt was the acknowledged direct inspiration for The Joker in the 1940 Batman comic that introduced the character, and film versions of The Joker have been even more specific in their references to Leni's film. While 'The Man Who Laughs' contains powerful elements of tragedy, doomed romance, and even swashbuckling swordplay, its influence on horror cinema is most pronounced. Leni died suddenly at the age of 44 a year after this film (with Veidt also unexpectedly passing away too soon in 1943), and 'The Man Who Laughs' endures as one of the most haunting and stylish American silent films, made just as that era was coming to a close.