Up

The first 10 minutes of Pixar’s arguably most original film features more gut-wrenching emotion than most films manage in their entire running time. The film explores themes similar to Michael Haneke’s recent Oscar nominee Amour, with the added bonus of featuring a giant bird named Kevin. It’s still Pixar’s most convincing evidence for being the American Studio Ghibli.

The Terminator

It’s the subtly tender romance between Reese and Sarah Conner which provides the backbone of this otherwise ruthlessly tense chase movie. As Reese tells Sarah when revealing a picture of her he kept from the future; “I always wondered what you were thinking”. When we finally find out in the final scene (thanks, time travel!), there’s not a dry eye in the house.

The Thin Man

Few on-screen marriages are as memorable as that of Nick and Nora Charles. Their incessant drinking is matched only by their lightning wit, as Nora assists (or hindrances) her detective husband in solving a murder case. This also features the greatest on-screen canine this side of The Artist.

Adaptation.

While efforts like (500) Days Of Summer have claimed to be the ‘anti-rom-com’, it’s really Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s noodle-baking second collaboration which holds the title, mostly because it is (in part) about a screenwriter desperately trying to avoid the tropes of romantic comedy, leading to severe writer’s block. It’s kind of like Inception, but with Meryl Streep.

The Corpse Bride

Notable for being a kind of inverted version of this month’s Warm Bodies, Tim Burton’s characteristically dark and kooky film had the benefit of entering his canon just before his dark and kooky schtick started to feel like old hat.  Thankfully, this is still hugely entertaining thanks to strong voice acting and cool songs.

Sean Hayes