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

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From visionary filmmaker Spike Lee comes the incredible true story of an American hero. In the early 1970's, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) becomes the first African-American detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Determined to make a difference, he bravely sets out on a dangerous mission: infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan. He recruits a seasoned colleague, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), into the undercover investigation. Together, they team up to take down the extremist organisation aiming to garner mainstream appeal. 'BlacKkKlansman' offers an unflinching, true-life examination of race relations in 1970's America that is just as relevant in today's tumultuous world.

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Dita Parlo stars as a young bride who begins married life aboard her husband's barge on the Seine. But within the boat's cramped confines, shared with a small crew (including the eccentric Pere Jules, memorably played by Michel Simon) and an abundance of cats, the relationship begins to founder.

Vigo imbues this simple tale, beautifully shot by Boris Kaufman, with social realism, lyrical romance and sensual eroticism to create a unique and enduring classic.

L'Atalante (1934)
This intoxicatingly inventive masterpiece is one of the world's great films. A simple and engaging plot is transformed into a kaleidoscope of dazzling digressions and offbeat characterizations complete with tour-de-force scenes that still seem fresh and startling.
À Propos de Nice (1930)
What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Cote d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.
Taris (1931)
An Inventive short portrait of a swimming champion.
Zero de Conduite (1933)
A radical, delightful tale of boarding-school rebellion that has influenced countless film-makers.

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The plot concerns a yachting trip by a small group of jaded socialites, including Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), an aging architect who sold out for easy money long ago, his mistress Anna (Lea Massari), and her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti), who doesn't fit in with the wealthy jet-setters' dissolute

ethics. When Anna disappears during a tour of a volcanic island, Claudia initially blames Sandro's emotionally barren behavior toward her. As they search the island, however, Claudia and Sandro grow closer and - when it is apparent that Anna is gone forever - become lovers. Unfortunately, Sandro cannot find anything decent inside himself and betrays Claudia with a local prostitute. Caught in the act, Sandro has a heartrending breakdown on a desolate beach, but Claudia silently forgives him.

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Against a dramatic nineteenth-century backdrop of radical Italian Nationalism Luchino Visconti's masterful epic, 'The Leopard', follows the Sicilian Prince of Salina (Burt Lancaster) and his family as they adjust to the social turbulence of revolutionary times.

Adapted from Tomasi di Lampedusa's esteemed novel of the same name, this is a tragicomic depiction of a class eclipsed by history. ..

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Roger Livesey brilliantly portrays a British officer, Clive Candy, through the trials and tribulations of three wars, three lovers and a lifelong friendship across enemy lines. During the Boer War, candy is sent to Berlin to trap a German spy.

There he befriends a German officer, Theo (Anton Walbrook), who marries the girl (Deborah Kerr) Candy is in love with. During the First World War, Candy marries a girl who resembles his lost love and helps Theo - now a POW - to get repatriated. Candy comes back in the Second World War as Brigadier General and once again encounters Theo. On joining a Home Guard exercise, Candy is captured, however, and the two are forced to either aid or betray each other.

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A small-town fable about violence and redemption, 'Moonrise' is the final triumph of Frank Borzage, one of Hollywood's most neglected masters.

Stigmatized from infancy by the fate of his criminal father, young Danny (Dane Clark) is bruised and bullied until one night, in a fit of rage, he kills his most persistent tormentor. As the police close in around him, Danny makes a desperate bid for the love of the dead man's fiancée (Gail Russell), a schoolteacher who sees the wounded soul behind his aggression. With this postwar comeback, Borzage recaptured the inspiration that had animated his long and audacious early career, marrying the lyrical force of his romanticsensibility with the psychological anguish of film noir, in a stunning vindication of faith in the power of love

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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.

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Marlon Brando is Rio, a bank-robber who is double-crossed by his friend and mentor, Dad (Karl Malden). Rio is imprisoned for his role in the crime, but escapes with thoughts of revenge.

He tracks down Dad only to find that, during those years spent behind bars, Dad has used his ill-gotten wealth to become the sheriff of Monterey...

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Made in the aftermath of the Second World War, 'Paisa' is constructed as a series of six encounters which take place during the liberation of Italy as Allied troops advance through the country from Sicily to the northern Po Valley, via Rome and Florence.

Shot on location using a non-professional cast alongside actors, the semi-documentary aesthetic and epic sweep of Paisa is both charming and devastating in its portrayal of the final days of war and the confusion that follows in its wake.

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Alfred Hitchcock's landmark masterpiece of the macabre stars Anthony Perkins as the troubled Norman Bates, whose old dark house and adjoining motel are not the place to spend a quiet evening.

No one knows that better than Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), the ill-fated traveller whose journey ends in the notorious "shower scene". First a private detective, then Marion's sister (Vera Miles) searches for her, the horror and the suspense mount to a terrifying climax where the mysterious killer is finally revealed.

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In one of cinemas most influential, and gripping, roles, James Dean plays Jim Stark, the new kid in town whose loneliness, frustration and anger mirrored those of most postwar teens - and reverberates more than 40 years later.

Natalie Wood (as Jim's girlfriend Judy) and Sal Mineo (in his screen debut as Jim's tag-along pal Plato) were Academy Award nominees for their achingly true performances.

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This Powell and Pressburger classic is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made.

Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), a young ballerina, becomes torn between her love for composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and artistic devotion to her profession, which is dominated by impresario Lermontov.

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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The film that made Francesco Rosi's international reputation, this Citizen Kane-style investigative portrait was originally called Sicily 1943-60, as Rosi sought not so much to depict Giuliano himself as the society from which he sprang, in which the police, the Carabinieri and the Mafia all have

strong vested interests. Filming in the exact locations and utilising court reports as primary source material, Rosi mainly cast local Sicilians, some of whom knew Giuliano personally. The only professional actors were Frank Wolff (Once Upon a Time in the West} and Salvo Randone (L'Assassino).

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With 'The Searchers', John Wayne and director John Ford forged an indelible saga of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, an ex-Confederate who sets out to find his niece, captured by Comanches who massacred his family.

He won't surrender to hunger, thirst, the elements or loneliness. And in his obsessive quest, Ethan finds something unexpected: his own humanity. One of the most influential movies ever made.