Forest Row Film Society

Il Postino (Michael Radford, 1994)

Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

King Rat (Bryan Forbes, 1965)

Dr Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)

The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963)

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (Robert Aldrich, 1962)

Tale of Two Cities (Ralph Thomas, 1958)

Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, 1948)

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)

Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1974)

The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1968)

Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)

Tony Curtis in a dress - bliss!

Alice in the Cities (Wim Wenders, 1974)

Moving stuff.

Paris Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)

Harry Dean Stanton doing the backward walk thing to reconnect with his son. And the Ry Cooder...

Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1969)

The bell, the bell

My Beautiful Launderette (Stephen Frears, 1985)

My Left Foot (Jim Sheridan, 1989)

Hmm. Bit of a Daniel Day Lewis thing. Great actor.

Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001)

Actually gets the complexity of family ties

Dekalog (Krzysztof Kieslowski , 1989)

Kieslowski a celluoid poet

Plenty (Fred Schepisi, 1985)

Just love this film. Meryl Streep is so good.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988)

Love Spain, love Almodovar, love gekkoes.

War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1968)

Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)

Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958)

Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)

Garden of the Fitzi Continis (Vittorio de Sica, 1970)

Trapeze (Carol Reed, 1956)

Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1944)

1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976)

Orphée (Jean Cocteau, 1949)

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

Le Ballon Rouge (Albert Lamorisse, 1956)

South Pacific (Joshua Logan, 1958)

Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979)

Les uns et les autres (Claude Lelouch, 1981)

Like water for chocolate (Alfonso Arau, 1992)

Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927)

Hôtel du Nord (Marcel Carné, 1938)

Ai no corrida (Nagisa Oshima, 1976)

Like Water for Chocolate (Alfonso Arau, 1992)

Delicious concept.

The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)

Never fails to please.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

Great performances from Kate Winslet and Jim Carey. It's weird and wonderful. Touches the ever romantic side of me when despite trying to 'erase' bad memories, the initial attraction between people is always there. Very touching ending.

Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant, 1997)

If I was to make a montage of great movie dialogues, I would have to take at least three clips from this movie.

Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002)

Kiwi bias here… beautiful story, great performances, fabulous cinematography…

The Weather Man (Gore Verbinski, 2005)

Just had to include a movie by Nicholas Cage… he is doing such fantastic stuff at the moment. Not sure if this will remain in my top 10 forever, but it's a very real story about a family that's failing, without any oversentimental fairytale ending.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)

Or maybe 'Something's Gotta Give'… or 'As Good As It Gets'… or even 'A Few Good Men'… Go Jack!

Practical Magic (Griffin Dunne, 1998)

Run of the mill rom-com that just appeals to the witch in me!

Disney's The Jungle Book (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1967)

What can I say?! Baloo and Bagheera just crack me up… and then there's the soundtrack!

Annabelle's Wish (Roy Wilson, 1997)

OK, admit it, the purpose of this list is to introduce people to new material! This is a Carlton cartoon movie that I picked up very cheaply on VHS one Christmas and has now become a family Christmas Eve tradition — very special. I get a lump in my throat every time and I've seen it at least five times.

Green for Danger (Sidney Gilliatt, 1946)

Cult film in its day, this unaccountably forgotten British comedy-thriller shows Alistair Sim at his finest. Cinematically far superior to Citizen Kane and much better jokes.

Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983)

Intelligent "feel-good" movie with wonderful humour and sense of place.

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

What a trip to the movies is surely all about.

The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, 1951)

Perfect for rainy afternoons drinking lots of tea in front of the TV. Alec Guinness supreme with a cameo by Audrey Hepburn.

The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)

The most recent of my top ten, so will the memory really last? But his best film by far. Must be among the best of all Holocaust movies.

Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources (Claude Berri, 1986)

Slow-moving sad French movies hit the spot.

Lear (Peter Brook, 1971)

Best filmed version of Shakespeare ever by a mile. Paul Schofield in unremittingly bleak monochrome.

The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

Classic well-made cinema. Orson Welles, sewers, cuckoo clocks and zither music.

The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

Still scares me. "Jaws" an inferior rip-off.

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

Still works for me and other softies.

Mandala (Im Kwon-taek, 1981)

A really beautiful film about a Buddhist monk in Korea. I saw it at the ICA years ago and couldn’t talk to anyone for the rest of the evening.

Three Colours: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)

Hard to choose between this and Dekalog, but this also has evocative associations with the Rio in Dalston.

Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)

I had high hopes for this after everything I’d read about it, and I wasn’t disappointed; the pinnacle of the silent cinema.

Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1969)

Worth seeing for the sequence about the bell alone.

Senso (Luchino Visconti, 1954)

Visconti at his sumptuous romantic best.

Le Jour se Lève (Marcel Carné, 1939)

Jean Gabin brooding

Last Year in Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)

Irritatingly mystifying though it is, it is one of the few films that I had to sit and write about when I got home.

Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)

Peter Falk as an angel, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in Berlin; what more do you need?

Celine and Julie go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974)

A magical mystery tour with a bit of Alice in Wonderland thrown in, all the while playing with our ideas of reality.

The Player (Robert Altman, 1992)

The definitive film about films.

Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978)

The ultimate feel good singalong teenage flick — takes you back to when a full can of hairspray just wasn't enough for a night out.

Star Wars (the first three) (George Lucas, 1977, 1980,1983)

They go together so I've classed them as one film — fantastic adventure film bursting with humour, a sort of wisdom and Harrison Ford at his most ruggedly attractive ("I love you", breathes an anxious Princess Leia. "I know," he replies modestly while being lowered into a vat of dry ice).

Life is Sweet (Mike Leigh, 1990)

A lovely film about an ordinary family and the seemingly insignificant predicaments and challenges they face. In my opinion, Mike Leigh's most touching and watchable film.

Nowhere in Africa (Caroline Link, 2001)

A sensitive and insightful portrait of a marriage set in Africa during World War II. Stunning cinematography.

8 Mile (Curtis Hanson, 2002)

Eminem is absolutely brilliant as an aspiring white trailer trash rapper struggling to survive in tough downtown 80s Detroit — it's an education to watch him perform, with a very strong supporting cast.

It's All Gone Pete Tong (Michael Dowse, 2004)

You'll watch this Club Ibiza riches to rags tale with your eyes out on stalks. The cocaine badger is a special feature. Everybody to whom I've recommended this film thinks it's a work of genius.

When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner, 1989)

The quintessential romantic comedy that has me sniffling into my hankie every time.

Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983)

One of the sweetest, most poignant films I've ever seen with truly hilarious moments as a crass Texan encounters local life in the remote highlands of Scotland.

The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)

Every time I see Dustin Hoffman in this beautiful film I just think he is more and more of a genius.

A Room With a View (James Ivory, 1985)

Lush romance in Italy and Chiddingstone. Helena Bonham Carter's finest hour and a gentle reminder that following one's heart must sometimes take priority over convention.

A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946)

Powell and Pressburger's magical tale of a young airman in World War II (David Niven) who cheats death in a terrible plane crash and falls promptly in love. But when a petulant 'angel' descends to transport him hurriedly up to the Pearly Gates, it's a matter of life and death.