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It's got Elizabeth Taylor at her luminous best! It's got Katherine Hepburn being all hysterical!  Montgomery Clift referees, while providing cutting-edge mental health treatment (aka lobotomy) from the worst mental hospital in the world. Add in the  New Orleans lush sweatiness, and the secret of what exactly happened to Katherine's son Sebastian last summer (this is one of those films where actors say the title A LOT), and you have this ripe but delicious slice of Southern gothic.
This one is a winner all year round. 

Three women, strangers to each other, wordlessly agree to murder a man. Are they insane, or is a silent refusal to explain  a rational response when no-one is listening anyway?
Marleen Gorris's 1982 Dutch feminist classic is a truly wonderful film. Pass it on. 

What would happen if filmmakers gave the gangsters who carried out state-sponsored murder in Indonesia's dark history the chance to re-enact their crimes? The result is this jaw-dropping documentary by Joshua Oppenheimer (and Indonesian filmmakers, anonymous for their own safety).  Unbearable stories with incredible images, shocking brutality with unforgettable surreal beauty. Watch it and weep. 

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN vs X: THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES - two fantastic films about what it means to be a man and being careful what you wish for. What happens when powers aren't super? 
 

It's a man's world in 1950s South America, when Yves Montand is tasked with transporting dangerously explosive nitro-glycerine across rough terrain. It's a job that only the poor and desperate will take on, and not everyone will make it. This is a thrill-a-minute intense journey, with Montand in a vest and neckerchief making this like riding the queerest roller-coaster French cinema can provide. Sacre bleu - this is a blast. 

Conwoman meets a chump, and they fall in love, not once but twice, because everything's bigger and better in this dynamite screwball comedy. Barbara Stanwyck pretends to be someone else, but looks exactly the same. Henry Fonda falls over every bit of furniture. They're both smoking hot and funny as hell. All the cast are brilliant. There's a bit with a horse. Honestly, why are you still here? Just watch it already. 

Herzog's epic-feeling but actually pretty spare take on one man's mad quest to travel downriver and find the fabled city of gold El Dorado in 16th century South America. And if you're looking for the one man with the maddest mad quest credentials, there is only Klaus Kinski, at his insane best here both on- and off-screen.  Come for the history, stay for Kinski as King of the Monkeys.  The wildest fo wild rides. 

The worst Christmas holiday ever. Teacher John Grant is travelling from his no-horse outback town to Sydney to meet his girlfriend,  but drunkenness, gambling and the worst of macho humanity conspire to stop him. A horror movie where Australia is the monster. 

Tina is a Swedish border guard with a sixth sense for sniffing out baddies, whether they are drug smugglers or paedophiles. She can't explain her powers until she meets Vore, who has similar talents and a way of making Tina feel seen for the first time in her life. Can these two crazy kids make it work? Part romance (with a once-seen, never-forgotten sex scene), part thriller, part I-genuinely-don't-know-what-this-is, Border takes it to the limit. 

Not long after the Columbine school massacre, Gus Van Sant and his group of amateur youngsters reimagine a school shooting by playing with time and perspective.  What could have been a technical exercise is instead an extremely moving picture of random violence and young lives cut short. A one of a kind.