One of his earliest films, Ken Loach's raw, truthful re-telling of Barry Hines' gritty story is a moving account of a boy's alienation and isolation in a Yorkshire mining town of the 1960s. Awkward teenager Billy Caspar (David Bradley) has a miserable home life and a lousy existence at school. A chance discovery of a baby kestrel gives Billy a opportunity to nurture and develop, and the cruel murder of the bird by Billy's brother pains us for Billy, as much as for the baby Kes.

Written, produced and directed by Charlie Chaplin, The Kid stands as one of the comedian's most successful films, a satirical - and partly biographical - look at life in the slums of London. Chaplin's Tramp takes care of an abandoned child in a 'picture with a smile, and perhaps a tear', as the opening title card hints. The scene in which Chaplin and the child are fighting off the social workers intent on separating them certainly evokes the latter.

Perhaps the most harrowing film of the 1980s, The Killing Fields is unstinting in its visceral portrayal of the Cambodian Holocaust. American journalist Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and local guide Dith Pran (Haing S Ngor) are documenting the civil war in Cambodia, but as the Khmer Rouge close in, Pran is taken prisoner and must try to escape from the Killing Fields as the country is turned into a horrific death camp. The entire film is gut-wrenching, particularly the scenes when Pran has to bid his friends and colleagues farewell as he is taken prisoner, and when he and Schanberg are reunited at the end, to the sounds of Lennon's 'Imagine'.

This 70s divorce drama bagged Oscars for both Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as the titular Kramers battling it out in the custodial court. After his wife walks out on him, Kramer is left looking after their son, until Mrs Kramer returns to reclaim their boy. The leads convey real emotional conflict, and one of several effective moments occurs when Kramer reads aloud the letter from 'Mommy', as the little boy lies in bed with tears in his eyes.