griggs's - Martin Scorsese’s Favourite Movies: 84 Films the Director Wants You to See List

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Widely misunderstood and shamefully denigrated at the time of its original release, but now recognised as not simply one of Rossellini's greatest films but as one of the key works of modern cinema, 'Journey to Italy' is a deceptively simple piece.

There is little plot to speak of: a marriage is breaking up under the strains of a trip to Italy, and we watch. But in its deliberate rejection of many aspects of 'classic' Hollywood narrative and its stubborn pursuit of a quite different aesthetic, its meandering story line creates space for ideas and time for reflection.

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Originally released in 1902, this legendary 16-minute film is widely considered to be one of the most important works in film history. Created just six years after the invention of cinema this is where narrative cinema truly began.

George Melies' masterpiece features six members of the Astronomers' Club, fired into space by a giant cannon, on a strange and wonderful journey to the moon to meet its inhabitants. The colour version of A Trip to the Moon, hand-painted frame by frame, was considered lost for many years, until a print, in a desperate condition, was found in Spain in 1993. It is this version which has been meticulously restored by Lobster Films, the Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage - one of the most sophisticated and expensive restorations in the history of cinema. The luminous resulting film is accompanied by a new original soundtrack by French duo AIR. Accompanying the film is an hour long documentary, The Extraordinary Voyage, detailing the restoration process and featuring words from esteemed directors such as Michel Gondry, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Costa-Gavras and Michel Hazanavicius.

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Though she is engaged to a politician (Vincent Price), Ellen (Gene Tierney) lures the handsome Richard (Cornel Wilde) into marriage after knowing him just a few days.

But Richard soon learns from her sister (Jeanne Crain) and mother (Mary Philips) that Ellen's selfish, possessive love has ruined other people's lives. When his own brother drowns while in Ellen's care and she has an accident that kills her unborn child, Richard grows increasingly suspicious of he insatiable devotion.

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Claude (Vince Edwards) is a young man with a regular job, no history of trouble with the law and no chance of making any real money. He also has the brains and emotional detachment to make the big bucks as a hit man, and that becomes his new job title.

A string of successful hits gets him sent to Los Angeles for his latest job. There he is accompanied by two goons: one who is perpetually nervous and the other who quickly worships the young man as a hero. The cold, ruthless hit man finally becomes unglued when he finds out that his latest target is a woman. She's a witness, set to testify against his boss, and guarded day and night by the police. It's her femininity that worries Claude: women are unpredictable, they don't do what you expect. Claude eventually proves that he is the unpredictable one and his own worst enemy.

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For sheer pageantry and spectacle, few motion pictures can claim to equal the splendor of Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 remake of this epic "The Ten Commandments".

Filmed in Egypt and the Sinai with one of the biggest sets ever constructed for a motion picture, this version tells the story of the life of Moses (Charlton Heston) once favoured in the Pharaoh's (Yul Brynner) household, who turned his back on privileged life to lead his people to freedom. With a rare on-screen introduction by Cecil B. DeMille himself.

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When a vivacious half-breed Indian girl named Pearl (Jennifer Jones) is sent to live with the Texas land baron Senator McCanles (Lionel Barrymore), conflict abruptly arises. Hot-blooded Pearl captures the attention of the Senator's sons: Jesse (Joseph Cotten) and fiery Lewt (Gregory Peck).

Soon both of the brothers are vying for her affections, leading to betrayal, wild desert shoot-outs and a lustful but destructive love-hate relationship between Pearl and Lewt.

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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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Based on John Steinbeck's novel and directed by Elia Kazan, 'East of Eden' is the first of three major films that make up James Dean's movie legacy.

The 24-year-old idol-to-be plays Cal, a wayward Salinas Valley youth who vies for the affection of his hardened father (Raymond Massey) with his favoured brother Aron (Richard Davalos).

Drawn from the same events that later inspired 'Gladiator', the film charts the power-hungry greed and father-son betrayal that led to Rome's collapse at the bloody hands of the Barbarians.

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Ann Walton (Mala Powers) is a young woman; newly engaged with a loving family. One night, she's attacked as she leaves work late. She doesn't remember the brutal attacker, only the scar on his neck.

Her shame around her family, her fiancé, and her co-workers eventually drives her out of town, where she seeks solace with the help of the Reverend Bruce Ferguson (Tod Andrews). Yet her assault continues to haunt her even as she tries to repress it, and her terror soon takes a darker turn.

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After a round of partying he can't remember, World War II veteran Dave Hirsh is placed on a bus headed for the last place he'd choose: Parkman, Indiana, the hometown Hirsh hasn't seen in well over a decade.

Frank Sinatra plays Hirsh, whose arrival in Parkman brings small-town hypocrisy to the unforgiving light of day in this character-driven tale directed by Vincente Minnelli and based on a novel by James Jones. In his first screen pairing with Sinatra, Dean Martin, plays a sharp-witted cardsharp.

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Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) are a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart.

But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself to join Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that render the pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving and viscerally disturbing. From the visionary mind of Ari Aster comes a dread-soaked cinematic fairytale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight.

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Nianankoro's father Soma (Niamanto Sanogo) is a part of the order of Komo (Koke Sangare), who practice magic, but he uses his powers for self-gain. He becomes determined to kill his son after receiving a vision that his son will cause his death.

Aided by his mother, Nianankoro (Issiaka Kane) leaves his village to seek out his uncle for help. Soma pursues him with the aid of an enchanted pylon that tracks his son's location and breaks all barriers that deter it. As he travels, Nianankoro encounters a hyena who tells him his destiny is to be great. Passing through the territory of the Peul, he is thought to be a thief and captured. Their king Rouma Boli (Balla Moussa Keita) orders him killed, but Nianankoro creates magic that freezes his guards and declares they cannot kill him. Impressed, King Rouma offers Nianankoro his freedom in exchange for aid against a rival tribe. When the tribe attacks, Nianankoro summons a swarm of bees and a fire that drives their attackers away. The king thanks Nianankoro and asks him to cure his wife Attou's infertility. Nianankoro creates an enchantment, but he and Attou (Aoua Sangare) are overcome by lust and sleep together. That night they return to Rouma to confess their crime, and the king reluctantly orders them married and to leave...

With her son Edward (Tom Hiddleston) about to embark on a volunteer trip to Africa, his mother gathers the family together for a getaway in their holiday home on the idyllic Tresco, one of the Isles of Scilly. However, it's not long until deep fractures within the family begin to surface.

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Offering a fascinating insight into the workings of a 1920s London film studio, and boasting a boldly expressionist shooting style, dramatic lighting and great performances from its leads (Annette Benson, Brian Aherne and Donald Calthrop), 'Shooting Stars' is at once a sophisticated morality tale

and an affectionate critique of the film industry, teasing its audience with revelations about how the fantastic world of the photoplay conceals irony and hidden truths.