15. SOME LIKE IT HOT (WILDER, 1959)

This was the first video i bought, for my birthday in 91, the receipt i've kept confirms. Of course it's the most inspired, irrepressible, scintillating and resoundingly popular comedy, even voted best ever film by Time Out readers last Year. I was once horrified to realise i'd accidentally left it out of a 101 selection for MovieMail, but nobody's perfect. Full of wonderful scenes- the train party with Lemmon gasping "Sugar!" as Marilyn clambers into his bunk, before he's squashed by a bevy of beauties; his maracca- shaking engagement announcement; the riotous escapades; Curtis kissing Hitler, and last but not least Joe. E. Brown's punch-line. Familiarity breeds content.


14. NORTH BY NORTH WEST (HITCHCOCK, 1959)

Simply the most thoroughly entertaining Hitch movie, and the thrilling summation of certain favourite themes; the innocent man on the run, enticing blonde, suave and sinister spies, disguise and false identity, dangers from a height. 

I first saw this aged 15 and was bowled over by oh-so-seductive Eva Marie-Saint in her red dress, her smouldering smooching with Grant, the way the train glides into the evening round the corner of a bay, the sparring with Mason, the architecture (the baddies' hillside hide-out!), Robert Burk's photography, Herrmann's score, Grant's set-up wait by the roadside in the middle of nowhere, the famous crop-spraying and Mount Rushmore set-pieces, and the consummate finale. It's still as deliciously satisfying as ever.   


13. TOKYO STORY (OZU, 1953)

Tokyo Story's plot and cinematic effects are simple. An elderly provincial couple go to stay with their adult children in the capital but find only their widowed daughter-in-law, the lovely Setsuko Hara, has time and genuine concern for them. With his trademark restrained technique- still, low camera placed at shoulder height to characters seated on the floor-, subtle sense of events and space off-screen, and quiet observations that invest the locality and everyday objects with a range of meanings, Ozu fashions one of the world's most profoundly wise, humane and poignant masterpieces.

