greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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Claude Rains delivers a remarkable performance in his screen debut as a mysterious doctor who discovers a serum that makes him invisible. Covered by bandages and dark glasses, Rains arrives at a small English village and attempts to hide his amazing discovery.

But the same drug which renders him invisible slowly drives him to commit acts of unspeakable terror.

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Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) a naive writer of pulp westerns, arrives in Vienna to meet his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) but finds that Lime has apparently been killed in a suspicious accident.

Martins, too, curious for his own good, hears contradictory stories about the circumstances of Limes' death and as witnesses disappear he finds himself chased by unknown assailants. Complicating matters are the sardonic Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), head of the British forces, and Limes' stage actress mistress, Anna (Alida Valli). Will Martin's curiosity lead him to discover things about his old friend that he'd rather not know?

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American psychologist John Holden (Dana Andrews) arrives in England to discover that his colleague, Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham), has suddenly died following his efforts to discredit notorious occultist Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnls).

The cynical Holden dismisses Karswell's warnings as supernatural nonsense, even when he and Harrington's niece, Joanna (Peggy Cummins), are confronted by a series of bizarre and inexplicable events. Holden discovers that Karswell has slipped him a parchment featuring ancient runic symbols - a sign that, like Harrington before him, he has been marked for imminent destruction by a fire-breathing demon.

While investigating the bizarre murder of a writer in a small seaside village, Larvardin (Jean Poiret) uncovers more than he bargained when he realises that the victim's widow is an old flame. What follows is a stylish and first-rate thriller from the master of suspense - Claude Chabrol.

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Based on Ira Woldert's true account, the movie casts Tyrone Power as an American Navy officer stranded after the wreck of Bataan.

Along with harassed local - Jeanne Martinez (Micheline Prelle) - he leads a small, heroic band in feats of espionage until General MacArthur's famous return to the Philippines at the end of WWII.

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From the writer of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation comes this hilarious comedy about sexual manners and the perils of conformity. Nathan is a mild mannered scientist with an ambitious mission.

After enduring a strange upbringing due to his parents' obsession with social etiquette, he becomes in turn obsessed with conducting experiments to teach mice table manners! When Lila, another victim of an unhappy past with a dark secret comes into his life, he falls in love. Together they discover a man who has been living alone in the wilds since childhood, and Nathan brings him home to be educated, which could be his greatest triumph. But things get more complicated when Nathan's fetching French assistant tries to snare him into romance, and the consequences are hilarious and unexpected

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Crime novelist Philip Chance (John Justin) is commissioned by his publisher to write the biography of Martin Teckman (Michael Medwin), a young airman who crashed and died whilst testing a new plane.

From the moment he arrives home, however, Chance is beset by a series of 'accidents' - leaving him in no doubt that there are people who do not want Teckman's past investigated...

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Terror lives in the shadows in a pair of mesmerizingly moody horror milestones conjured from the imagination of Val Lewton, the visionary producer-auteur who turned our fears of the unseen and the unknown into haunting excursions into existential dread.

As head of RKO's B-horror-movie unit during the 1940s, Lewton, working with directors such as Jacques Tourneur and Mark Robson, brought a new sophistication to the genre by wringing chills not from conventional movie monsters but from brooding atmosphere, suggestion, and psychosexual unease. Suffused with ritual, mysticism, and the occult, the poetically hypnotic 'I Walked with a Zombie' and the shockingly subversive 'The Seventh Victim' are still-tantalizing dreams of death that dare to embrace the darkness.

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From Marcel Carne, a comic masterpiece set in England circa 1900. Unassuming botanist Irvin Molyneux hides a dark secret: he writes lurid novels using the pseudonym Felix Chapel.

His cousin, the Bishop of Bedford, Archibald Soper condemns the books (without realising a family member has written them) and invites himself to the Molyneux house for dinner. Panic ensues as the cook has walked out leaving Irvin's wife to act like the cook to avoid social ignominy. When Irvin can't explain his wife's absence the Bishop assumes he has killed her and calls Scotland Yard and the newspaper reporters. The Molyneux' escape to a cheap local hotel where psychopath William Kramps is holed up: he being a specialist in killing butchers and blaming novelist Felix Chapel for turning him into a killer and vowing to murder him. Molyneux returns to his home to attend to his houseplants, a big mistake as Kramps is waiting in the living room...

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One of the all time classic French films. Made in 1931, this is one of the first French talkies.

Pre dating Chaplin's Modern Times by 5 years (and the subject of a bitter court case stopped when Rene Clair stated that imitation is the finest form of flattery) and leading the way in a satirical attack on the machine age, Rene Clair created a wicked comedy on the dehumanisation of industrial workers. When Louis (Raymond Cordy) and Emile (Henri Marchand), two prison inmates, attempt to escape, Louis is caught and returned to his cell, while Emile succeeds and becomes a successful businessman. On Louis' release he goes to work for Emile but finds the industrial world no better than the prison regime. When Emile is recognised as an escaped convict he and Louis decide to escape the confines of the factory by taking to the road as tramps.

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In America, can a man be guilty until proven innocent? Suppose you picked up this morning's newspaper and your life was a front page headline... and everything they said was accurate but not true. This is the dilemma that must be faced in this timely drama about the incredible power of the press.

Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman) reads in the paper that he is the subject of a criminal investigation. Suddenly, everything he has ever worked for is in jeopardy. He confronts the author, Megan Carter (Sally Field), a relentless investigative reporter. Together they learn that the story was purposely leaked to Carter as part of a plot by the chief investigator. Gallagher's life hangs in the balance as he and Carter try to uncover the truth.

Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, stars in this, the original adaptation of Gaston Leroux's celebrated novel. When the Phantom falls in love with the voice of a young opera singer (Mary Philbin) he drags her to the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera House and forces her to sing only for him.

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Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) needs the intervention of his beautiful wife Vicki (Gloria Grahame) to keep his job, so Vicki meets with Carl's boss Owens, and secures Carl's job. Insanely jealous, Carl finds Vicki with Owens on board a train and brutally beats her and kills Owens.

Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford), an off-duty engineer, protects Vicki and they begin an affair. Still obsessively jealous, Carl becomes an alcoholic and blackmails Vicki into staying with him. Vicki then comes up with a plan for Jeff to dispose of her violent husband...

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Delusional revolutionary Malcolm Scrawdyke (a mesmerising John Hurt) leads his Party of Dynamic Erection - Wick (John McEnery), Irwin (Raymond Platt) and Nipple (David Warner) - in an enraged battle against an unseen nemesis in this chilling dark comedy.

Financed by George Harrison and based on the celebrated stage play by David Halliwell, 'Little Malcolm 'was shot in wintry Oldham by director Stuart Cooper and cinematographer John Alcott.

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A young woman, Judith Moray (Jean Simmons), deserts her prospective fiance, the nice doctor Alan Kearn (James Donald), for an old flame - the dashing former wing commander Bill Glennan (David Farrar).

Glennan soon gets her pregnant and marries her, then quickly leaves when he learns he's unable to gain financial security from her father. Years later Judith finds out Glennan has died and goes back to Kearn, and they bring up her child together. Suddenly, Glennan reappears in their lives again ready to cause havoc.