Love good films?

Father Urbain Grandier (Reed) champions the rights of the people of Loudun against Cardinal Richelieu who wants to tear down the town’s defences. Local nuns, led by Sister Jeanne (Redgrave), accuse Grandier of witchcraft. The trial and the exorcisms of the nuns involved were sensational. Based on a true story written up as a novel by Aldous Huxley. Sets by Derek Jarman. The Devils was banned in several countries, but it remains a visually striking, distinctive milestone of British historical drama, with traces of black humour. Not as shocking today as it was on release, it remains unforgettable.

Two Orthodox Jews arrive in a small remote rural Hungarian village which is getting ready for the wedding of the magistrate’s son. They’re accompanied by two coffin-like wooden crates supposedly filled with perfumes and soaps. Is this the start of a Jewish influx, reclaiming properties? Histories resurface, rumours spread wildly, paranoia reigns, and the villagers behave accordingly. This subtle and nuanced film is atmospherically shot in black and white with the mood of the film ably enhanced by Tibor Szemzö’s soundtrack. The filmmaker has sensitively examined the European war’s postscript, a period of history that everyone quickly wanted to forget.

An heiress is trying to run away and elope, and a newspaper reporter offers to help her in exchange for a story; what follows may be the single most influential film of the 1930s – after, perhaps, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Both films defined a genre: in one case, animated features; in the other, romantic comedies, as we know them today. It scarcely matters that neither was technically the first. Made in a Poverty Row studio which had low expectations for it, the film swept the Oscar®s: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay; a feat equalled only twice since.