greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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After shaking the world with his hugely controversial epic 'The Birth of a Nation', pioneer filmmaker D. W.

Griffith spared no expense in putting together his next project: a powerful examination of intolerance as it has persisted throughout civilisation, set across four parallel storylines that span 2500 years. There is the Babylonian story, depicting nothing less than the fall of Babylon; the Judean story, which revolves around the crucifixion of Christ; the French story, which presents the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in all its horror; and a modern American story of class struggle, crime, and the plight of life in the early 20th century set within urban slums and the prison system. Starring such luminaries as Lillian Gish, Constance Talmadge, and Miriam Cooper, who share screentime with an enormous main cast and some 3,000 extras, Griffith's film - the most expensive motion picture ever produced at the time - went on to become a critical success whose influence has only grown in the decades since.

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Leo (Albert Finney), a likeable Irish gangster boss, rules an Eastern city along with Tom (Gabriel Byrne), his trusted lieutenant and counsellor. But just as their authority is challenged by an Italian underboss and his ruthless henchman Leo and Tom also fall for the same woman (Marcia Gay Harden).

Tom, caught in the jaws of a gangland power struggle, walks a deadly tightrope as he tries to control and manipulate its violent outcome.

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It's the story of Jason (Todd Armstrong), a fearless sailor and explorer, who returns to the kingdom of Thessaly after a 20-year voyage to make his rightful claim to the throne. But to do so, Jason must first find the magical Golden Fleece.

He selects a crew and with the help of Hera, Queen of the Gods, sets sail in search of the Fleece - Jason and his crew must overcome incredible obstacles including a 100-foot bronze giant, the venomous Hydra - a huge creature with the heads of seven snakes - and a spectacular battle with an army of skeletons.

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In one of his most chilling performances, Richard Widmark stars as Stiles, an up-and-coming crime boss trying to stake his claim in the criminal underworld. The FBI files are filled with lurid crime stories. One case in particular baffles FBI Inspector Briggs.

It involves the murders of a housewife and a bank guard. Both were killed by the same gun, yet there isn't any connection between the victims. Determined to get to the bottom of the crime, Briggs sends his best agent undercover to penetrate the inner circle of the notorious Stiles gang. Everything goes according to plan, until an informant inside the police department tips off Stiles. Now the enraged crime boss targets the agent for murder.

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Philip Hannon (Van Johnson) is a playwright, newly relocated from New York to London. Drowning his sorrows in a pub one night, Philip is disturbed to overhear a crime being plotted.

The police don't believe his story and so, aided by his faithful batman Bob (Cecil Parker) and ex-fiance Jean (Vera Miles), Philip resolves to stop the villains. But it will not be easy: Philip, you see, is blind...

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Set in the German prison camps of WW1, the film stars Jean Gabin as Marechal, and Marcel Dalio as Rosenthal.

Like the charming aristocrat Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay), these two French aviators were shot down and now spend most of their time escaping from German prison camps before inevitably being recaptured. Between escapes, they do what they can to amuse themselves, but after a tunnel they've dug is discovered, the three are sent to Wintersborn, a forbidding fortress of a prison commanded by former ace pilot Von Rauffenstein (Erich Von Stroheim). Von Rauffenstein cannot help but strike up a friendship with Captain de Boeldieu, a kindred spirit from the doomed nobility.

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Adapted from a hit radio series, each episode has the 'Whistler' emerge from the shadows to introduce a nightmarish, twisting tale in his own sardonic manner, with the first seven films starring Richard Dix (It Happened in Hollywood).

The Whistler (1944)

A man, despondent over the death of his wife, wants to commit suicide but can't bring himself to do it. He hires a man to hire a professional killer to do the job. However, he soon finds out that his wife isn't really dead - but the man he paid to hire the hitman is, and he has no idea who the man hired or how to get him to call off the hit.
The Mark of the Whistler (1944)
A drifter claims the money in an old bank account by impersonating someone else with the same name. Soon he finds himself the target of a man who turns out to be the son of the old partner of the impersonated man's father, who caused his partner to do time in prison.

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James Cagney is at his best as Terry Rooney, a Manhattan bandleader who journeys to Hollywood, where he is offered a lucrative film contract, but he is determined to do things his way and not theirs. Mr.

Regan (Gene Lockhart), the head of the studio, believes that Rooney's true lack of desire for stardom is arrogance on the band leaders part. When his first film is huge success and hit for the studio, Regan tries to hide the truth from Rooney. Feeling a need to get away from Hollywood, Rooney takes his wife on a South Seas cruise, only to return to the real truth of his fame.

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Humphrey Bogart plays one of his rare comedy roles in this jaunty excursion about three convicts - Joseph (Bogart), Albert (Aldo Ray) and Jules (Peter Ustinov) - who are plotting their escape from Devil's Island. Fate intervenes when they hide out with the kindly but inept Felix Ducotel (Leo G.

Carroll) and his family. Felix manages a store for his demanding, arrogant cousin Andre (Basil Rathbone), who decides to make the fatal mistake of stealing Albert's beloved pet, a poisonous snake! For the Ducotels, it will be a Christmas to remember - shared with a trio of rogues who turn out to be three "wise men" after all!

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Off-screen pals James Cagney and Pat O'Brien teamed for the sixth time in this enduring gangster classic. Cagney's Rocky Sullivan is a charismatic ghetto tough whose underworld rise makes him a hero to a gang of slum punks.

O'Brien is Father Connolly, the boyhood chum-turned-priest who vows to end Rocky's influence. Other ace talents join them: Humphrey Bogart as a scheming lawyer, Ann Sheridan as Rocky's hard-edged girlfriend and the Dead End Kids as worshipful street urchins, all ably directed by Michael Curtiz.

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Gene Tierney, Bruce Cabot and George Sanders star in this classic war film set in a small African outpost during the Second World War. As the British fight to control East Africa word reaches them that a vicious local tribe are being smuggled guns from a unknown source.

When the soldiers encounter the exotic and beautiful Zia, the leader of attaining trader caravan, she is assumed to be the supplier of the illicit firearms. But in this thrilling drama the African desert hides many secrets beneath its ancient sands.

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A band of Italian strolling players has come to perform, seeking fame and wealth. Lusty Camilla, the troupe's fiery prima donna, soon turns the heads of the Spanish viceroy, a soldier and a famous bullfighter.

To prepare for an impending war the viceroy demands great financial sacrifices from the local aristocrats, but when he then gives his official gilded coach to Camilla in order to win her love, the noblemen rebel. Camilla is pursued by the three infatuated men, but her first love is always the stage.

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South Africa, 1976. The police ruled Gordan Ngubene's death a suicide. But when Afrikaans schoolteacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland) saw the body he knew his friend of 15 years was the victim of police torture.

Seeking justice, Ben hires barrister Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) to represent the Ngubene family at the inquest, but the judge ignores the evidence and exonerates the police. Refusing to "give it up", Ben risks his family and career as he takes on a system run by racists, thugs and murderers. For if you're not with the Afrikaners, you're against them. And choosing the wrong side could get you killed.

Jean Renoir's intoxicating first colour feature - shot entirely on location in India - is a lyrical adaptation of Rumer Godden's autobiographical coming-of-age tale of an adolescent girl living with her English family on the banks of West Bengal during the waning years of British colonial life.

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Disillusioned with life, celebrated artist Bradley Morahan (James Mason) retreats to the solitude of a tropical island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The island, however, turns out to be far from uninhabited.

Bradley soon stumbles upon Cora, played by Helen Mirren, a beautiful, highly spirited teenage girl who lives with her alcoholic grandmother. Cora dreams of escaping the island and running away to the bright lights of Brisbane. Inspired by the young girl, Bradley starts to paint naked portraits of her. To Cora, it's an innocent way to earn money and finally escape the island. To him, Cora is a fresh source of artistic inspiration. Others, though, may see their relationship differently...