When The General was released in 1926, the critics dismissed it and audiences stayed away. However, Buster Keaton's silent comedy has come to now be regarded as a masterpiece and one of the great war-comedies. It follows steam-engine engineer Johnnie Gray (Keaton) as he fights to regain his two great loves: his trusty train, General, and his beautiful girl, Annabelle (Mack). The former has been stolen by Union soldiers, who are hightailing it back to the North with Annabelle on board. Far more cinematic than anything Chaplin ever mustered and a damn site funnier, The General presents a forceful argument that it was Keaton, not the little tramp, who was the king of silent comedy.

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Powerful documentary from Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo about the guerilla war against the French in Algiers. Banned in France for years because of its hard-hitting and heart-rending account of the activities of a group of Algerian Liberation Front fighters, the film is still as shocking today as it was when first released.

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A classic cartoon book is brought successfully to the screen in this desperately moving satire which portrays the efforts of rural pensioners Jim and Hilda Bloggs to act upon the wisdom of the government's once notorious nuclear war handbook, Protect and Survive. Their diligent removal of doors, collection of drinking water and discussion of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction doesn't save them when the missiles land.

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The Japanese master director Akira Kurosawa tackles Shakespeare in this epic retelling of King Lear. Kurosawa sets the tale in 16th Century Japan. Aging warlord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai) is preparing to divide his land up between his three sons. Refusing to take part in hypocritical professions of love for material gain, Daisuke Ryu fulfils the same role as Cordelia in Shakespeare's original. As the sons bicker and argue over the division of the spoils, the aging lord is driven from his home and slowly goes mad. A landmark of world cinema, this is a rousing, staggering epic and a haunting drama of timeless significance.

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One of the true classics of world cinema and a landmark anti-war statement by the great Jean Renoir, La Grande Illusion is less about the rigours of modern combat than its dehumanizing influence on the participants. The story centres on two French soldiers, working class Lieutenant Maréchal (Gabin) and upper class Captain De Boeldieu (Fresnay), taken captive during the First World War. The significance of the film lies not in this action, however, but in the relationships and class dynamics. The 'grand illusion' itself is that the upper classes are somehow exempt from the barbarity of war.

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