Placing us in the back seat with three escaped convicts, director André De Toth makes us culpable from the very beginning in his 1953 film noir Crime Wave. We know that there is an inevitability to the scene, though at first, we do not know exactly what that is. The three unscrupulous amigos are on a crime wave (who would have thunk it?). Pulling up to a gas station late one night, the attendant finds himself knocked out by the group – they then take their sweet time filling their tank and robbing the store. Soon, a cop drives by, circling around when he does not see his friend at the pump. Things turn ugly, leaving one of the criminals shot and the officer dead with two slugs in his chest. Splitting up, gang leader ‘Doc’ Penny (Ted de Corsia) and his thuggish accomplice Ben Hastings (an early role for Charles Bronson – you can tell this as he is credited as Charles Buchinsky) take off, leaving their wounded compatriot to fend for himself.

Depicting a nightmarish landscape of big city nights, with a mix of brightly flashing neon signs and foggy, shadowy landscapes, the classic 1944 film noir Murder, My Sweet, directed by Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny), is a feast for the eyes. Our reflective narrator is Philip Marlowe (played by Dick Powell in this one), his eyes bandaged in ominous fashion as he recounts the strange tale of his most recent mysterious cases to the circling sharks that are the police – especially lieutenant Randall (Don Douglas). The iconic private detective is, as he says, "just a small businessman in a very messy business". Dmytryk’s canvas oozes a certain visual panache, a perfect example being the way in which Marlowe meets a new client. Gazing out at the flashing neon signs from his office, in certain lights, he sees a face no one could forget (though at first it feels like some sort of vision or premonition). Soon, he realizes that there is a behemoth of a man standing behind him, named ‘Moose’ Malloy (Mike Mazurki) – he is a tough, thuggish giant who lacks brains, but makes up for it with brawn and a stick-to-it-iveness that is difficult to ignore. Marlowe soon realizes that the confused man won’t take no for an answer, so he accepts the money being offered to him and decides to hear him out.

Upon winning Best Director at the Academy Awards for his 1937 screwball comedy The Awful Truth (the highest grossing film of the year), Leo McCarey took his Oscar, turned to the applauding crowd and uttered the unusual acceptance of "I want to thank the Academy for this wonderful award . . . but you gave it to me for the wrong picture". The movie he was talking about was the powerfully emotional drama Make Way for Tomorrow. A bust at the box office, the film still brought recognition to one of the premier filmmakers of the era. Being a favourite of John Ford, Frank Capra, Jean Renoir, Ernst Lubitsch, George Bernard Shaw and Orson Welles (who called it one of the saddest films ever, claiming that "it would even make a stone cry"), as well as being the inspiration behind Yasujirô Ozu’s classic 1953 picture Tokyo Story, this is a pure piece of emotional film making. Funnily enough, though praised by iconic filmmakers and ardent film fanatics alike, it is probably one of the least known motion pictures out there. Nearly unseen, thankfully Criterion has released it, providing the movie with an avenue to finally reach a larger audience.

It would be hard not to argue that the fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the most iconic moments of the last thirty years. Dividing families, separating a city, forming a chasm between the Western and Eastern world; the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the borders that we, as humans, put in our own way, blocking us from achieving unity and peace. The fall of the wall was an empowering and supremely positive event, and Wolfgang Becker’s 2003 film Good Bye Lenin! is a heartfelt motion picture that builds an intriguing family centred story around the iconic happening. Narrated by Alex (Daniel Brühl), a twenty-something who lives in Berlin on the east side of the wall, he transports us through a tumultuous year in his family’s life. With a father that fled to the West without his wife and children, Alex has grown up with a mother, Christiane (Katrin Saß), who has become married to the Socialist Fatherland. An idealist and ardent patriot, she is enamoured with the system that she lives within. Alex’s older sister, the quirky Ariane (Maria Simon) also lives with them (she has an infant daughter).