My 25 favourite films

A family of Polish refugees tries to survive in post-World War I Germany. For a while it seems that they are making it, but soon the economic and political deterioration in the country begins to take their toll.

With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.

The lives of two slum neighbors, one of a happy-go-lucky gambler and the other of a poor ronin, converge when the two get involved with the affairs of a powerful samurai official and his gangsters.

The close friendship of three German soldiers is strengthened by their shared love for the same woman, who is dying of tuberculosis.

When young Father O'Malley arrives at St. Dominic's, old Father Fitzgibbon doesn't think much of his new assistant.

An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman see the value of his own life.

A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses, and duplicitous dames.

A former Fascist takes his son and escapes across the border into France, where he tries to avoid being recognized and having to pay for his wartime crimes.

The movie focuses on the plight of ten war orphans hailing from different cities across Japan. With nowhere to go, they scavenge around train stations, scratching out an existence by means of black market work for a one-legged tramp whilst avoiding being picked up by the police for vagrancy. Soon however, they find a more inspiring role model in the figure of a nameless soldier just repatriated after the war. An orphan himself, the soldier also has no home to return to, and so sets out across the country with the kids in tow in search of work before settling on the goal of leading them to the orphanage where he himself grew up.

An escaped convict injured during a robbery falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.

A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember, who may hold the key to his downfall.

Several people try to talk 27-year-old Noriko into marrying, but all she wants is to keep on caring for her widowed father.

The growing pains of three young women contrast with the immutability of the holy Bengal River, around which their daily lives unfold.

A trail guide escorts a group of women from Chicago to California to marry men that have recently begun settling there.

Three gangsters and an ex-con carpenter all fall for the same beautiful golden-haired woman in Belle Époque France.

A retired American boxer returns to the village of his birth in 1920s Ireland, where he falls for a spirited redhead whose brother is contemptuous of their union.

Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.

Follows the lives of the Borgen family, as they deal with inner conflict, as well as religious conflict with each other, and the rest of the town.

In 1898, Irish immigrant Martin Maher is hired as a civilian employee at West Point where, during a 50-year career, he rises to the rank of NCO and instructor.

A former San Francisco police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.

Distrust and uncertainty arise when four long-term inmates cautiously induct a new prisoner into their elaborate prison-break scheme.

A senator returns to a Western town for the funeral of an old friend and tells the story of his origins.

The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.

When a bored Holmes eagerly takes the case of Gabrielle Valladon after an attempt on her life, the search for her missing husband leads to Loch Ness and the legendary monster.

Frankie, an ill-tempered old coach, reluctantly agrees to train aspiring boxer Maggie. Impressed with her determination and talent, he helps her become the best and the two soon form a close bond.