The Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film from 2015 transports us back to 1960's Poland, where a young nun named Ida (also the name of the movie) will soon be taking her vows. Prior to doing so, the inexperienced girl takes a trip to visit the only family she has left living, an aunt named Wanda that she has never met.

It is rather unusual to see a film-noir made in glorious Technicolor – though this is exactly what the 1953 crime thriller Niagara is. Director Henry Hathaway swaps the moody shades of black and white for strikingly vivid colours as we watch two couples cross paths in stunning 1950's Niagara Falls, Ontario (the film was almost completely shot on location).

The Cold War was a truly unique, interesting and scary time when the whole world felt upside down – how else can you describe a worldwide conflict where tensions could not be higher yet bullets and bombs were not being fired. Paranoia, fear and propaganda ruled the day as two very different ideologies, brought forth by two powerhouse nations, fought for the hearts and minds of the world’s populace. It is in this intense setting that Steven Spielberg re-teams with Tom Hanks to make the harrowing, fish-out-of-water story Bridge of Spies.

10 days: that was how long it took to film the 1963 B-movie Shock Corridor. Originally advertized as an exploitation picture (and it does have some of those elements), Samuel Fuller’s film about a journalist who has himself committed to solve a mysterious murder is so much more than its original label.

It is generally believed that tv movies are pretty average fare. It is rare that a film released on the tube can transcend this preconceived notion and be considered a great movie, yet this is the case with the excellent 1983 flick The Scarlet and the Black.