The 100 Best Films of World Cinema

Number 100: t's Buffy meets The Matrix meets Blade! In Moscow! Russian madman / genius Timur Bekmambetov arrived on our screens with a bang thanks to this demented, dizzily dark twist on the action movie. It seems that the world is still peopled with witches, werewolves, vampires and the rest - but they are divided into Light and Dark Others, battling it out for supremacy, and the souls of new, emerging Others, on the streets of Russia's capital. Extraordinary visuals on a shoestring budget, bravura subtitle design (it matters) and a plot that just makes sense (unlike its "Chalk of Destiny" powered sequel), this is the most visually imaginative superhero movie of the last decade.

Number 99: It's the Robin Hood story transferred to the Ch'ing Dynasty, helmed by Yuen Woo-ping, the martial arts director that would go onto create such western fighting spectaculars such as Kill Bill and The Matrix Trilogy. Iron Monkey is an action romp starring the then fresh-faced Donnie Yen, so chock-a-block full of breathtaking fighting sequences that you barely have time to place the popcorn in your mouth. If it's the nuanced acting seen in Crouching Tiger you're looking for, you've come to the wrong place, but set pieces such as the knife fight, and the final balancing-on-top-of-giant-sticks rooftop battle are stone cold classics of the genre. And, it's fair enough to say, this has yet to be beaten in terms of fight skill and direction.

Number 98: Akira Kurosawa was almost blind when he directed his biggest movie, in 1989, and yet it's possibly his most beautiful. A sumptuous and powerful epic inspired by, but not directly based on, King Lear, it tells the story of a powerful warlord whose three sons, bad eggs all, contribute to his downfall. Moving, and packed with images that sear themselves onto the brain, it's an astonishing work from an old master.

Number 97: To fit the span of a character's entire life is no mean achievement; to do so for two (arguably three) characters and take in a swathe of tumultuous Chinese history while you're about it - taking in the Second Sino-Japanese War and Cultural Revolution for kicks - is just showing off. But Kaige's story of two childhood friends who become stars of the Beijing Opera but are torn apart by politics and unrequited love manages to make the personal its focus even against a huge backdrop, helped in huge measure by compassionate performances from Zhang Fengyi, Gong Li and the late, great Leslie Cheung. Operatic but never melodramatic, this shows a more sensitive side to Chinese cinema than we're used to.

Number 96: The central character is grieving the death of his monkey (not a euphemism). The bad guy is a butcher who carves up his assistants to provide meat for his building's tenants. The heroine enlists the help of radical, violent vegetarians to bring the villain down. And it's all played out against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic Paris where all the traditional concerns (gourmet food, music, adultery) remain at the forefront of people's minds while the planet goes to hell around them. Witty, strange and quite brilliant, this is a unique view on what remains when the world ends.

Number 95: Arguably his greatest film, it's undoubtedly the skill, charm and work ethic of Bruce Lee that steamrollered this martial arts movie into the classic it has become. It's tempting to confuse how great a martial artist Lee is with how good his films actually were, but in this case, the individual set pieces that dominate the film (notably the Chuck Norris gladiatorial fight at the end) are so well choreographed and so well delivered, that nothing else matters much. In a world now where every every fight and every punch is so full of trickery and post-production, the sheer purity of Lee's work here makes it one of the best of its kind ever made.

Number 94: FACT! African films move at a funereal pace to mirror the rhythms of African life. FACT! It doesn't matter if they are all as good as Yeelen. A strange beautiful film, Yeelen weaves together elements of African folklore to tell the tale of a boy who, fleeing his jealous Shaman father, goes on a journey to reach his uncle, helping strangers on the way, all the while gaining knowledge to face his father (it's a bit like Star Wars, this). Yet what really grabs the attention is Cisse's skill with the breadth of landscapes and the simplicity of the human face. Its symbolism might not translate, but it is hypnotically ravishing.

Number 93: Perhaps not as controlled as Soldier Of Orange, Spetters and Black Book amongst non-Hollywood Paul Verhoeven flicks, this is the Dutch master channelling Hitchcock if Hitch had given in to every one of his warped impulses and is therefore unmissable. Jeroen Krabbe is the bisexual writer who falls into the orbit of hairdresser/femme fatale Renee Soutendjik, who may or may not have killed her previous three husbands. Cue rampant symbolism, castration images, kinky sex and dead seagulls - welcome to Verhoevenland.

Number 92: The fact that both the Wachowski brothers and James Cameron are huge fans of the film should come as no surprise - it's set in a futuristic cyperpunk world where everyone is connected to a mainframe, and a cyborg by the name of Motoko Kusanagi must hunt down 'The Puppet Master' who's hacking into people's memories. Matrix, much? The film itself remains so popular because it picks up where Akira left off - delivering a grown-up, engaging, fascinating version of a future that challenges the viewer whilst wowing them with stunning animation and eye-candy visuals. Car chases, shoot-outs and existential philosophy are exquisitely mixed together to make a film that intrigues and excites, time and again.

Number 91: Subtle and delicately delivered humour is where Goodbye Lenin is at. The main premise, that a son must pretend that the Berlin Wall is still up so that his mother, fresh out of a 9-month coma, isn't shocked into a relapse, is one that had to be deftly handled, and deftly handled it is. Though out-and-out farce could be on the cards, leading actor Daniel Bruhl delivers the script with understated aplomb, making intentional audiences wonder whether 'German comedy' was really a contradiction in terms after all.

Number 90: There's delicious irony in the fact that Rififi was made in Montmartre while American director Jules Dassin - one of Hitchcock's proteges - was on the Hollywood blacklist, as this striking crime-masterpiece has exerted a heavy influence on virtually every Hollywood heist movie since. Dealing with the set-up, execution and fall-out after a diamond-store safe-break in '50s Paris, it may sound conventional, but with a virtuoso near half-hour - the heist itself - playing out with no dialogue or score in near silence, it's anything but.

Nuber 89: Milos Forman's Loves Of A Blonde is a thing of low-key beauty. Charting the romantic hopes and disappointments of shy young factory worker Andula (a terrific Brejchova), Forman etches a tender gentle but never twee portrait of young love. A central set-piece where the hot young girls of a small town are wooed by aging soldiers (they send a bottle of booze to the wrong table) is ripe for Hollywood remake, but it is Andula's pursuit of a rakish piano player (Pucholt) that delivers true emotional wallop. Forman went onto make Oscar winners (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus) but this stands with the best of them.

Number 88: It's essentially a one-joke movie - blundering and incompetent rockers The Leningrad Cowboys (real band, real weirdos), having failed to make it in Russia, are told to try America "because they'll listen to any old *beep* Luckily, it's a good joke. True oddballs, the band grab themselves a Cadillac and head south into America's heartland, performing godawful show after godawful show, all with their dead frozen guitarist in a coffin alongside them. Deadpan wit is the order of the day, and with its expert location shooting, it's an off-the-wall adventure like no other, and easily the best Finnish-rock-band-travelling-across-America movie you'll ever see.

Number 87: A kind of companion piece to The Seventh Seal, Andrei Tarkovsky imagines eight episodes in the life of a medieval monk (Solonitsin) with a gift for painting icons. Similar to Bergman's knight in Seal, Rublev traverses feudal Russia renouncing speech, his art and his faith in response to the horrors he witnesses. Alongside the heavy duty themes, there are stunning visual set-pieces - Tartars ransacking a cathedral, the forging of a bell - and a fresh take on artist biopic cliches, only revealing Rublev's artwork in stunning colour and Cinemascope at the very end.

Number 86: On the face of it, it's a very simple premise: one woman called Lola must find 100,000 DM in 20 minutes to save the life of her drug-dealing boyfriend who's left that sum on the subway (the doofus) and whose boss is about to rock up to collect. Combining a lo-fi aesthetic with Hollywood-worthy thrills, Twyker created an extended short, repeated three times as Lola tries again and again to get it right. It's as fast-paced as you'd expect, full of likable characters, and perfectly balances arthouse sensibilities with multiplex action to create one of the most enjoyable movies Germany had made for years.

Number 85: Conceived by a director at the top of his game, Il Conformista is a period piece that looks as good today as 40 years ago. Betrayals take place in dappled, sun-filtered woods and compromises are made on blue-lit Parisian streets, as a venal man, Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), vainly tries to negotiate his way through Mussolini's Italy. Bertolucci's ornate design and Vittorio Storaro's sensual cinematography enhance a story that perfectly captures the immoral world of fascist Italy.

Number 84: Jean Cocteau's greatest film takes the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice (He: head over heels in love; She: also head over heels but inconveniently stuck in the netherworld) and updates it to a menacing, post-war Paris. Orpheus, played by the devilishly debonair Jean Marais, is a poet plunged helplessly into a startling world of bombed out landscapes, Rolls-Royce-riding angels of death, leather-clad outriders, and, of course, that mirror to the Underworld. Marie Dea's radiant, pregnant Eurydice is the love who awaits him there. Made by a man who laid claim to being a painter and sculptor as well as a filmmaker, this is a true work of art in every sense.

Number 83: Just pipping Moolade and Ceddo as Sembene's best film. Xala, based on his own novel, is satire at its most subtle yet savage. A powerful business man (Leye) is taking his third wife, much to the chagrin of his exes and daughter, yet on his wedding night he is hit by a Xala or curse, rendering him impotent. Sembene turns the tale into a metaphor for Senegalese ineffectuality, skewering the pretensions and underhandedness of African politics with a quiet anger. He also creates a gallery of strong female characters, a direct contrast to the useless men.

Number 82: A high-concept masterpiece, this controversial effort (several attempts were made to ban both film and its source novel in Japan) from Fukasaku continues to provoke discussion with its devastating premise: a class of teenagers are taken to an island, fitted with explosive collars and told to kill one another until only one remains. It's gory - but this is not violence for its own sake. Fukasaku's got something powerful to say about intergenerational distrust, modern society, our attitudes to violence and one another and modern Japan as a whole.

Number 81: Most monster movies spend a good hour buying you dinner and making inconsequential small-talk before unveiling their beastie (blame Jaws' limited budget, perhaps); The Host is remarkable for whipping it out before you've even said hello - and what a creation it is. Slimy, grotesque, moving like the mutant offspring of a frog, a fish, a monkey and something from Miyazaki's nightmares, it cuts a swathe through otherwise down-to-Earth characters, the sort of blue-collar family usually seen in kitchen sink dramas. See it as a critique of American foreign policy or government's oppression of the working man, but either way a film that can go from horror to humour to tragedy this fast deserves our respect.

Number 80: This huge crowd-pleasing blockbuster may be a bit creaky now but it has the Big Entertainment value to rival the biggest Hollywood spectacular. The plot sees a mother (Nargis, a force of nature) go through hell and high water to raise her children and keep her farm from money lenders. At nearly three hours long, it puts you through the wringer but it is a four hankie experience courtesy of heartrending songs and a devastating climax.

Number 79: Quite possibly Godard's most blissfully entertaining movie, a heist gone wrong flick where two guys (Frey, Brasseur) and a gal (Godard's muse, Karina) plan to steal a huge wad of dough and end up with a murder on their hands. This is a Hollywood thriller relocated to Paris' grey suburbs, but Godard doesn't care about plot. Instead, he focuses on putting his characters through a series of CAF (cool as *beep*) set-pieces - a minute of silence where the entire soundtrack goes silent, a world record race through the Louvre and, most famously, a sequence in which the three heroes perform an impromptu dance number in a cafe. Godard may have made more challenging and more interesting films - Le Mepris, Pierrot Le Fou - but none have Bande's sprightliness and charm.

Number 78: A neon-bright farce tinged with a healthier dollop of insanity than is usual even in that genre, and served with a bucket of drugged gazpacho, this is probably the best example of Almodovar's early, funny stuff. Carmen Maura is trying to hold it all together as Pepa, just dumped by her lover, while her apartment becomes the scene of accidental overdoses, suicide attempts, terrorist plots, police inquiries, illicit trysts and hostage situations. As is traditional, Almodovar writes great female characters, hands them to some of Spain's best actresses and shoots them beautifully as they go. It may not have the polish of a Volver, but it's zany comedy at its best.

Number 77: As with the director's similarly gorgeous Hero, this emphasises the eye-candy element in the reborn Wushu genre. The basic technique is this: cast gorgeous people. Have them fight each other in scenic places. The difference in the case of Flying Daggers is that the plot is a little more structured than usual: Mei (Zhang) is a blind dancer with links to the subversive House of Flying Daggers. Arrested by Leo (Lau), she escapes with the help of Jin (Kaneshiro) - but as both officers are in love with her, and Mei knows more than she lets on, it's soon tragedy time. Also, really kick-ass fight scenes.

Number 76: A group of middle-class intellectuals come together in a commune and indulge in the practice of spazzing - the act of pretending to be mentally impaired. This is Lars von Trier at his most incendiary, allying the rough hewn, improvised qualities of Dogme with funny, disturbing, shattering scenes of intelligent people finding their inner spastic, most famously a gang bang that features unsimulated sex. Played in a completely different way, this could be a whacky edgy comedy starring Will Ferrell, but von Trier takes it in another direction, never adding easy-to-grasp motivations for behaviour and never shying from the uncomfortable ideas thrown up by the premise. Ballsy cinema with a capital B.