Citizen Kane's reputation as one of the greatest films of all time is matched only by the accumulation of critical commentary that surrounds it. What more can there be to say about a masterpiece so universally acknowledged? Laura Mulvey, in a fresh and original reading, illuminates the richness of the film, both thematically and stylistically, relating it to Welles's political background and its historical context. In a lucid and perceptive critique...

"Fritz Lang's 'M' (1931) is an undisputed classic of world cinema. Lang considered it his most lasting work. Peter Lorre's extraordinary performance as the childlike misfit Hans Beckert was one of the most striking of film debuts, and it made him an international star. Lang's vision of a city gripped with fear, haunted by surveillance and total mobillization, is still remarkably powerful today. And 'M' resonates too in the serial-killer genre which...

"Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette, 1948) is unarguably one of the most important films in the history of cinema. It is also one of the most beguiling, moving and (apparently) simple pieces of narrative ever made. The film tells the story of one man and his son, as they search fruitlessly through the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle; the bicycle which had offered the possibility of escape from the poverty and humiliation of long-term unemployment."...

"Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) marked a transition in American filmmaking, and its success as a work of art, as a creative property exploited by its studio, Paramount Pictures, as a model for aspiring filmmakers - changed Hollywood forever. Jon Lewis's study of the film looks at the significance of The Godfather in Hollywood's dramatic box-office turnaround in the 1970s and offers a critical and historical discussion of The Godfather's...

La Règle du jeu was the first and is still the finest of all the films that we see in a director's cut. The work of French cinephiles in the 1950s restored Jean Renoir's work to glory. It had been a disaster at its premiere in 1939, just weeks before the outbreak of war. Its failure, Renoir wrote, 'depressed me so much that I made up my mind either to forsake cinema or to leave France.' Before and after its rejection at the box office, panic cutting...