A whirling whirlpool of crystal clear cultural reflections, Deliverance is a brooding, boundary breaking journey down the river to hell. Despite his British ethnicity, in 1972 John Boorman proved his ability to capture the unrelenting horrors of the cantankerous South better than many American filmmakers could. He drew constant allegories on a world that we change as much as it changes us, embedded in the story of four businessmen from Atlanta, slowly regretting how they left their suburban, concrete jungle…

When the snow settled and the credits finished rolling, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd digested an animal as slimy and alive as Oh Dae-su's acquired taste. From the first shot until the last; Oldboy is riddled with mystery, tragedy, choreography and controversy. Perhaps more than most though, it is teeming with the electricity of life, a film with a heart that pumps so loudly it's a wonder it doesn't explode. 

Seldom does a director articulate such exciting immediacy…

Alright gang, Whiplash. Coming from the biased perspective of someone who drummed his way through years of music lessons as an adolescent, the personal relativity of this picture placed it in a league of its own. Of course, that's not to say it's just musicians who'll find themselves empathising with this masterful drama.

Damien Chazelle is a man who is determined to define every detail, never failing to render the clearest scope on reality. Each scene is a climaxing crescendo…

As punctually precise as a well crafted stopwatch, Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More breathes even more life into the Western genre than its predecessor did. This picture carries all of the action absurdities to a level of extraordinary believability, sophisticatedly juggling suspenseful and sensitive subject matter with moments of a charming, comedic relief. For a viewer who finds most sexual abuse sequences to be unnecessarily gratuitous, Leone structurally showed me his take on the subject was pivotal to…