Nick's Favourites
Through the musty halls of the old Harbour Light Picture theatre Lyttelton and where the old merchant crusty sea captains checked their hand held compasses with the metallic 'star' inbuilt in the foyer floor I knew i had a passion till life's end. Contained therein is my retina's wink of approval with no one genre favoured. Ladies and Gentleman "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war'
The Straight Story (1999)
8/10
Director: David Lynch
Starring: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Everett McGill, Harry Dean Stanton
In a gentle, G-rated change of pace that still features his trademark fascination with rural American quirkiness, director David Lynch recounts the tr... Read more
The Departed (2006)
8.5/10
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray...
Scorsese's dazzling remake of Hong Kong flick 'Infernal Affiars' packs a powerful punch and a highly-charged ensemble led by Leonardo DiCaprio as a co... Read more
Breaking the Waves (1996)
7.9/10
Director: Lars von Trier
Starring: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier
The extraordinary story of a young, simple-minded, God-fearing Scottish woman who willingly takes on lovers in the belief that it will cure her paraly... Read more
Jackie Brown (1997)
7.5/10
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Pam Grier, Samuel L Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, Robe...
This flavourful adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel 'Rum Punch' is reset in Southern California. Pam Grier plays a flight attendant who's been traffi... Read more
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
7.3/10
Director: Francois Truffaut
Starring: Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack
In a future society all books are destroyed, so that hope for humanity resides in those few outcasts who have committed them to memory. Based on Ray B... Read more
If.... (1968)
7.7/10
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan
A daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in 'A Clockwo... Read more
My Name Is Joe (1998)
7.5/10
Director: Ken Loach
Starring: Peter Mullan, Louise Goodall, David McKay
Joe, a reformed alcoholic trying to maintain hope in grim, impoverished Glasgow, tentatively begins a romantic relationship with a sympathetic social... Read more
The Thin Red Line (1998)
7.6/10
Director: Terrence Malick
Starring: Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Jim Caviezel, Elias Koteas, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack
Returning to the screen after a 20-year absence, writer/director Terence Malick adapts James Jones' semi-autobiographical novel about the pivotal WWII... Read more
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
7.3/10
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Luis Guzman
This change of pace for Adam Sandler stars the comic actor as a bathroom supplies salesman who has a problem with his anger and is obsessed with winni... Read more
Lord of the Flies (1963)
7/10
Director: Peter Brook
Starring: James Aubrey, Tom Chapin, Hugh Edwards, Roger Elwin
"Lord of the Flies" is famed theater director Peter Brook's daring translation of William Golding's brilliant novel. The story of thirty English sch... Read more