1. The Third Man 1949

Directed by Carol Reed

Cast: Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Bernard Lee, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Ernst Deutsch, Siegfried Breuer, Erich Ponto, Paul Hoerbiger

After half a century, The Third Man remains a bona fide British classic: rich on atmosphere, strong on suspense and blessed with quite wonderful performances. A true collaboration between director Carol Reed and screenwriter Graham Greene, it is the story of a simple American (Cotten) who arrives in post-war Vienna to meet his old friend Harry Lime (Welles, evil and extraordinary), only to learn that Lime has been killed in an accident. But, as he unravels the truth, he is also drawn into the decadent and corrupt world in which Lime existed. Beautifully shot by cinematographer Robert Krasker (who won an Oscar^® for his work), the film is full of sequences that linger in the mind, while the acclaimed zither rendition of 'The Harry Lime Theme' by Anton Karas helps to create a rare, haunting movie atmosphere.

2. Brief Encounter 1945

Directed by David Lean

Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Valentine Dyall

A rightly celebrated tear-jerker which movingly recreates a little England on a northern railway platform (location: Carnforth, Lancashire). It shows that even the repressed British can display emotion (in a very understated manner, of course) when true love comes along. David Lean directed this expansion of Noel Coward's one-act play Still Life; Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard are the respectable middle-class couple who fall deeply in love but ultimately agree not to meet again and to return to their real lives. They do so with such dignity and restraint that it makes their ultimate parting all the more moving. The atmospheric music is Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2.

3. Lawrence of Arabia 1962

Directed by David Lean

Cast: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Hawkins, Donald Wolfit, Claude Rains, Anthony Quayle, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jose Ferrer, Michel Ray, Zia Mohyeddin

A truly epic film which won the Best Picture Oscar^® and BAFTA awards. Staggering in its scope, execution and impact, it remains a moving and memorable film-going experience. Director David Lean and screenwriters Robert Bolt and (originally uncredited) Michael Wilson combined to craft a story that seems to have two central characters - Lawrence himself (played with charismatic brilliance by 30 year-old Peter O'Toole) and the shifting desert so superbly photographed in glorious 70mm by Freddie Young. British eccentric T.E. Lawrence set about inspiring the Arabs to fight alongside the British against the Turks in the 1914-17 campaign. The film is full of scenes and performances to treasure, though perhaps the best remembered is the arrival at the isolated well of Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) and the long shot of his ride across the shimmering sand.

4. The 39 Steps 1935

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Godfrey Tearle, Lucie Mannheim, Peggy Ashcroft, John Laurie, Wylie Watson, Helen Haye, Frank Cellier

One of the greatest Hitchcock films and by far the best of the three big-screen versions of John Buchan's romping adventure novel, written in 1915. The excellent Robert Donat is the innocent engineer caught up in a web of intrigue when a female spy is killed in his apartment. A wanted man, he escapes by train and eventually on foot into the Scottish Highlands, before returning to London to solve the mystery. Heightened sexual chemistry comes from the scenes of Donat handcuffed to the heroine (played with icy charm by Madeleine Carroll) and having to spend the night with her. Hitchcock directs with a sure sense of pace and wit, and is always ready to add that extra jolt to surprise audiences of the day. At the time he said: "I am out to give the public good, healthy, mental shake-ups". He succeeded.

5. Great Expectations 1946

Directed by David Lean

Cast: John Mills, Bernard Miles, Finlay Currie, Martita Hunt, Valerie Hobson, Jean Simmons, Alec Guinness, Francis L. Sullivan, Anthony Wager, Ivor Barnard, Freda Jackson, Hay Petrie, O.B. Clarence, George Hayes, Torin Thatcher, Eileen Erskine

A masterly adaptation of Dickens' much-loved story, which fluently blends excitement, suspense and emotion. The memorable opening sequence of young Pip meeting Magwitch in the graveyard brilliantly sets the film in motion, and director David Lean handles the transitions from fear to drama and on to comedy with extraordinary ease. The cast is superb - John Mills as the older Pip and Jean Simmons as the young Estella are both excellent, as are Martita Hunt as the crumbling Miss Havisham and Francis L. Sullivan (who played the same role in the 1934 Hollywood version) as the lawyer Jaggers. A deserved Oscar^® for the stunning camera-work of Guy Green and another for John Bryan and Wilfred Shingleton for Art Direction and Set Decoration.

6. Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949

Directed by Robert Hamer

Cast: Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood, Miles Malleson, Arthur Lowe

A deliciously dark Ealing comedy that elegantly allows the audience to side with the killer as he sets about his task. Dennis Price plays the penniless young hero, ninth in line to inherit the D'Ascoyne dukedom, who systematically sets about murdering the eight in the way to his title. The brilliant casting twist was that Alec Guinness played all eight - a general, a snob, a photographer, a suffragette, an admiral, a clergyman, a banker and the duke - with enjoyable ease. Also cast is the wonderful Joan Greenwood as the charmingly evil Sybilla. Robert Hamer directed, based on the book Israel Rank by Roy Horniman.

7. Kes 1969

Directed by Ken Loach

Cast: David Bradley, Lynne Perrie, Colin Welland, Freddie Fletcher, Brian Glover

Ken Loach's engagingly unsentimental story of a working-class boy who manages to find a rare release from his drab life training and caring for a kestrel. Much-loved and well remembered, the film is regarded as a classic of its time, with Loach commenting poignantly on the lack of opportunities for the working classes. It is based on Barry Hines's novel A Kestrel for a Knave, and features cinematography by Chris Menges. Though the subject matter is serious, as usual with Loach there is plenty of room for humour and still to be cherished is Brian Glover's exuberant performance as the warped sports teacher. The film was shot on location in and around Barnsley.

8. Don't Look Now 1973

Directed by Nic Roeg

Cast: Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie, Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania, Massimo Serrato

Stunningly assembled by Nic Roeg, this remains one of the most disturbing of films, with the hint of terror lurking in almost every scene. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland are the parents whose drowned daughter may be sending them messages, leading them into the gothic labyrinthine of a deserted Venice. The Daphne du Maurier story may be the root of Don't Look Now, but the heart is the extraordinary ability of Roeg to create splintered visions, subliminal imagery and a pervasive sense of horror. It is still a film not for the faint-hearted.

9. The Red Shoes 1948

Directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Cast: Anton Walbrook, Moira Shearer, Marius Goring, Robert Helpmann, Albert Basserman, Frederick Ashton, Leonide Massine, Ludmilla Tcherina, Esmond Knight

An extraordinarily imaginative film which has quietly established itself as a classic and has the ability to affect some viewers deeply. At its heart is a 14-minute ballet - also called The Red Shoes - based on a Hans Christian Andersen story of a wicked shoe-maker who makes slippers for a young woman who finds they won't let her stop dancing until she dies, exhausted. This story is, of course, the basis for the film's larger backstage plot concerning the relationship between a megalomaniac impresario (Walbrook) and his young ballerina (Shearer). Beautifully presented by the team of Powell and Pressburger, with choreography by Robert Helpmann.

10. Trainspotting 1996

Directed by Danny Boyle

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald, Kevin McKidd, Peter Mullan, Irvine Welsh

Dark, ironic and made with such style and power, Trainspotting arrived in cinema's centenary year as a much-needed push for British film. Brilliantly marketed and with a pulsating soundtrack, it put Scottish and British talent in the spotlight, and showed that the awful truth of drug-taking could be handled in a clever, witty but still disturbing way. The story concerns a loose band of young Scottish junkies who do their worst before heading down to London with a bag of money. The film is famous also for helping to launch the careers of Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller and others. Writer John Hodge won an Oscar for his adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel.