Robert Redford directs John Turturro, Rob Morrow and Ralph Fiennes in this recreation of the 1950s rigged quiz show scandals.

Forrest Gump is a perfectly fine movie but it came out, and jarringly swept up at the Oscars, during one of the greatest years of cinema ever. 1994 saw the release of Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Ed Wood, Clerks, Speed, The Paper, Leon and this… a crackingly sophisticated drama. Redford recreates the sheen, concerns, opportunities and slick corruption unique to the end of the fifties in a way that even the brilliant Mad Men never quite executed so insightfully. The ensemble is uniformly brilliant, oozing a collective urbane sharpness until they realise only the house wins at these tables – none more so than Turturro whose near manic fall guy Herb Stemple is a portrait of short sighted working class frustration. A narrative that dextrously explores class, deceit and ethics… it is sad to think sentiment rather than smarts is still what the Academy embraces those days and these days when it comes to ordaining the best of Hollywood.

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Jason Reitman directs Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin and Gattlin Griffiths in this melodramatic romance between a sensitive convict on the run and the agoraphobic single mother whose house he holes up in for the weekend. 

Bit of class this. They don’t really makes out and out romance movies for adults anymore but this wears its maturity and sultry heat proudly on its sleeve. It dips into tragedy surprisingly often and surprisingly hard each time it does, it has a measured patience to allow us to fall for a set of people who might struggle to be appealing outside of this particular overbaked pressure cooker. And it is consistently sexy. Winslet deserved more award attention for another standout lead while Reitman directs with one eye on seductive nostalgia, another on keeping the entire fantasy rooted in some tough, complex soil. When the dream inevitably falls apart the causes are multiple and all believable. A missed great from the Juno and Up in the Air director well worth seeking out if you’ve outgrown The Notebook.

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Noel Black directs Anthony Perkins, Tuesday Weld and Beverly Garland in a quirky thriller about a released sociopath and a cleancut looking jailbait who fall for each other.

A very watchable little flick this, presenting more in common with a 1990s indie movie than a sixties noir. Perkins is loveable as the dangerous fantasist while Weld is incendiary as the kid who sees this handsome weirdo as a means of escape from her smalltown existence. It has the jazzy edits and primary colour palette of its era, an enjoyable twist and some wryly dark moments. Give it a try.

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Nicholas Ray directs James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo in this teen drama about kids putting themselves in tragic situations out of boredom and frustration at the inevitable compromises of approaching adulthood. 

The kids keep praising “sincerity” but that’s hard to do when one henpecked Dad wanders around in a floral pinny, another can’t show his daughter affection for fear it’ll translate as sexual desire and yet another has long gone. Best just drink, knife fight and race cars off cliffs into oblivion. Glorious technicolor oblivion. Amplifying the primary red, blue and greens of the teenagers fashions the whole thing looks like a fantasy. Obviously this is short lived Dean’s most iconic role – the rebel, the sensitive tough. He is fantastic… but everyone here is. Delivering dialogue that reaches for truth and connection but is full of anger and compromises. Smart melodrama, cool vision. A timeless classic.

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Ben Wheatley directs Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley and Armie Hammer in this claustrophobic action farce where a gun deal in an abandoned factory turn into a prolonged shoot-out. 

Given his perfect track record I had high hopes for Ben Wheatley’s first “American” film (it was mainly filmed in Brighton and the cast is more international than a Peruvian hostel). So slightly disappointed that Free Fire is a daft, throwaway amusement which after a while get stuck in the rut of prolonged bullet exchanges, non lethal leg wounds and dusty crawling. That’s the gag, I get it, but there’s often a lack of surreal spectacle or shock spunk to it that Wheatley normally includes as standard. As well packaged and knowing as it all is, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before. And what Wheatley and Amy Jump have made their names doing previously is always taking you to places you didn’t know existed in the movie theatre. There’s still plenty to enjoy; Copley (endearingly repugnant) and Hammer (ridiculously cool) have a 90 minute dance off of scene stealing moves. Larson and Cillian Murphy have a nice chemistry in their quickly aborted flirting. And some of the deaths are satisfyingly quirky enough and framed well. All in all, a fine, almost nostalgic, five finger exercise.

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Richard Marquand directs Glenn Close, Jeff Bridges and Robert Loggia in this courtroom thriller about a lawyer who falls for her client without ever trusting his Not Guilty plea for his wife’s sexually violent murder. 

Glossy. So glossy you slide through it without feeling a thing. It passes 90 minutes. Mainly of interest as an early Joe Eszterhas screenplay, it has his swear heavy dialogue (amusingly Loggia’s investigator can’t get through a sentence without adding an unnecessary expletive), misogynistic violence, red herring characters and the worst telegraphed smoking gun in movie history (a broken typewriter). Obviously Close and Bridges are better than this but curiously they don’t really add anything to the rote proceedings.

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Frank Capra directs Lionel Barrymore, Jean Arthur and James Stewart in this Best Picture winning romantic comedy about a young couple who struggle to introduce their respective families; a titan of industry and his snooty wife versus a bunch of Bohemian oddballs. 

As baggy as an oversubscribed luggage carriage and as dated as the values it simultaneously celebrates and attacks this still has enough Capra lightness to be perfectly watchable. The sequences of smart satire have aged better than the stage farce zaniness. Quirky rather than quality entertainment.

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George Marshall directs Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and Torin Thatcher in this George Pal produced “biography” of the famous magician’s rise to fame and marriage. 

If the doorstop biography I read a few years back is anything to go by this is absolute bobbins, but colourful, utterly watchable bobbins. The real life couple translate that chemistry nicely to the big screen and Curtis performs his recreation of the tricks with an unfakable enthusiasm and showmanship. Fun.

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Nicolas Winding Refn directs Mads Mikkelsen, Ewan Stewart and Gary Lewis in this violent dark ages odyssey. 

Frustratingly slow and oblique, it often feels more like a long winded pisstake than the leather and axe grindhouse saga promised on the DVD box. Despite arty pretentiousness and a mean spiritedly shambolic pace, the mute lead turn by Mads and some promisingly disturbing moments just about allow this to pass muster. Maybe on the big screen, where you might get more lost in the stark imagery, it wouldn’t appear like quite the grubby middle finger to the watcher.

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Tim Burton directs Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci and Miranda Richardson in a fantasy horror of the classic Icabod Crane versus Headless Horseman story given a serial killer cop thriller add-on. 

The noticeable start of the shockingly steep Tim Burton decline, this has the feeling of project done out of boredom rather than passion. A feeling now familiar after a near constant run of uninspired house style remakes and reimaginings. But back then you gave the Burton / Depp powerhouse the benefit of the doubt. It is not a terrible movie. The set and costume design is stunning, Ricci is lovely in her first adult role, Walken puts in a fine extended cameo as the headless and wordless horseman. But for Depp and Burton this feels like ground well trod already and now you know they’d continue to walk back and forth in these deeper and deeper descending mud puddles you just wish they went off route and parted ways sooner. Both talents seem wasted by finding a groove that worked and the only post- Ed Wood endeavour that seemed to create genuine excitement was their awkward but gloriously violent musical sidestep Sweeney Todd. This shares some of that exception’s Grand Guignol excess, but not enough to elevate it to the Edward Scissorhands heyday. Hell, it is not even as fun as Mars Attacks.

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