HOWZAT

Robert De Niro’s dazzling performance in the title role encompasses both La Motta as a savage fighter and his later incarnation as an overweight would-be comedian. Scorsese brought to the film what he called a “kamikaze” approach, in which he put everything he knew and felt.

8. Vertigo
US, 1958, Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock used a combination of a forward zoom and a reverse tracking shot to create a feeling of vertigo in this double identity thriller: as unsettling as the phobia it dealt with. Hitchcock’s study of an obssessive and haunted love is the darkest of his films, and the best.

9. Some Like It Hot
US, 1959, Billy Wilder

A milestone of film comedy that keeps its central situation alive with fresh invention. Marilyn Monroe was worth all the trouble, and Curtis and Lemmon are a brilliantly contrasting pair. “Nobody’s perfect” is the last line, hilarious in its context but, on this occasion, cast, script and director all were.

10. 8½
Italy, 1963, Federico Fellini

A coruscating, melancholy, self-reflecting spectacle of a man beginning to be at his wits’ end. Marcello Mastroianni, who used many of Fellini’s characteristic gestures and tone of voice, saw his role as a “symbol of a generation that had nothing more to give”.

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11. Doctor Strangelove
GB, 1963, Kubrick

12. Singin’ in the Rain
US, 1952, Kelly

13. Taxi Driver
US, 1976, Scorsese

14. The Searchers
US, 1956, Ford

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