Smash hit

15 Blade Runner (original release)
Ridley Scott, 1982

The studio-tampered original has much to recommend it, including Harrison Ford’s noir-style voiceover, the perfect complement to Scott’s dark, rain-drenched hellhole. What really sucks is the decision to remove all ambiguity from the ending, leaving Deckard (Ford) and Rachael (Sean Young) driving in sun-drenched mountains that look as if they were torn from another movie. They were. From the outtakes of the opening minutes of The Shining. Read the Times review
NK

14 Magnolia
Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999

How do you tie up the loose ends in an ambitious comedy-drama? Answer: you introduce a freak meteorological event, a rain of frogs that falls on your characters, interrupting suicide attempts and causing havoc on the highway. Biblical imagery? Or a desperate attempt to plug plot holes with amphibians?
WI

13 There Will Be Blood
Paul Thomas Anderson, 2008

For two hours, Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as the monstrous oilman teeters just the right side of the line between genius intensity and unintentional self-parody. Come the bizarre coda and things lurch over the line. “I – will – drink – your – MILKSHAKE!” he slurps crazily at the simpering preacher before smashing in his head with a bowling ball. Hilarious, yes. Intentionally so?
JJ

12 Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock, 1960

“Matricide is probably the most unbearable crime of all!” And so begins an agonisingly dull lecture from know-all Dr Richmond (Simon Oakland) that explains the psychopathology of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in painfully literal terms, and brings the formerly thrilling proceedings to an undignified splat. Read the Times review
KEVIN MAHER

11 Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola, 1979

Philosopher soldier Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) discovers that, after gunfights, river chaos and encroaching insanity, the heart of darkness contains a fat man called Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who allows himself to be killed during a cow-chopping ceremony. Willard subsequently leaves. The horror indeed. Read the Times review
KM

10 The Great Escape
John Sturges, 1963

“The Great Escape Attempt”, more like it. After 170 minutes of digging tunnels and faking documents, nearly every one of the escapers is captured or killed. Even the hero Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen), after a botched bike jump, is sent back to the cooler. But, hey, he’s got his baseball. So that’s OK. Read the Times review
KM

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