30 - REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (Nicholas Ray, 1955)

The film that gave voice to the new phenomenon known as the generation gap also created one of the lasting film icons of the 20th century. James Dean’s Jim Stark is a masterful portrayal of a directionless teen seeking guidance from parents who are preoccupied with problems of their own. The film has acquired a morbid reputation since all three of its leads, Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo died in tragic circumstances. Dean’s death mirrored the car accident in the film, while Mineo was murdered in 1976 and Wood drowned in 1981. Nigel Kendall

29 - DUCK SOUP (Leo McCarey, 1933)

Groucho Marx, toying with the matronly Margaret Dumont in Duck Soup: “Where’s your husband?” Dumont: “He’s dead!” Marx: “I bet he’s just using that as an excuse.” Dumont: “I was with him at the very end.” Marx: “No wonder he passed away.” Dumont: “I held him in my arms and kissed him.” Marx: “I see, it was murder?” And on it goes, breathtaking rapid-fire badinage coupled with a fantastically provocative satire about the tin-pot dictatorship of Marx’s Rufus T. Firefly (he runs the European nation of Freedonia) at a time when genuine European dictatorships were emerging. Kevin Maher

Have your say

Did we get it right? Tell us your favourite films and why you love them here

Background

• 100 - 91

• 90 - 81

• 80 - 71

• 70 - 61

• 60 - 51

Background

• 50 - 41

• 40 - 31

• 30 - 21

• 20 - 11

• 10 - 4

Background

• 3 - ET: The Extra Terrestrial

• 2 - There Will Be Blood

• 1 - Casablanca

28 - GONE WITH THE WIND (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Well fiddle-deedee, “as God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!” Screen’s biggest love story, as Atlanta burns around it, is not (at 222 minutes) for those with short attention spans. But Gone with the Wind, which won eight Oscars, is more than Scarlett standing on the scorched earth of her home, or the famous staircase scene. The chemistry between Vivian Leigh (as Scarlett) and Clark Gable (as Rhett) is as colourful as the scenery of Fleming’s epic. It is remembered for “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”, but the sparring throughout is classy. Tim Teeman

27 - A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (Stanley Jubrick, 1971)

Kubrick’s most notorious film is a striking vision of a world terrorised by fashionable delinquents. Malcolm McDowell’s bad-boy reputation was cemented by his performance as Alex, a gang leader who memorably murders a professor’s wife with a giant phallus. The film became a cult the moment the British release was pulled by Kubrick himself after tabloid reports of copy-cat violence. The film’s real target is the Orwellian “cure” embraced by the Establishment: notably the use of psychological torture to transform sick minds into model citizens. James Christopher

26 - GOODFELLAS (Martin Scorsese, 1990)

“I’ve been waiting for this book my entire life,” Martin Scorsese told Nicholas Pileggi after reading the proofs of his Mafia memoir, Wiseguy. “I’ve been waiting for this phone call my entire life,” came the delighted answer. Their collaboration was a match made in, if not heaven, then a captivating version of hell. Assuaging Scorsese’s worries about returning to the gangster genre, its authenticity and unflinching violence proved a key influence on that other Mob masterpiece The Sopranos, whose creator David Chase described it as “my Koran” and cast a total of 27 Goodfellas alumni. Ed Potton

25 - PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (Peter Weir, 1975)

A film that seeps creepiness and atmosphere, which — while shocking — doesn’t overdo overt shock. It’s crept into our heads as being based on fact but isn’t. A group of Australian Victorian schoolgirls go into the countryside for a day trip. It is stiflingly hot and Weir hints at all kinds of hidden passions and desires simmering beneath the surface. Four of the girls disappear; one returns with no memory of what has happened. A trailblazing film, it launched the Aussie avant-garde and Weir went on to direct films including Gallipoli (1981), Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Truman Show (1998). Tim Teeman

24 - THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (George Cukor, 1940)

Katharine Hepburn plays a naughty heiress in this fizzily brilliant romantic comedy. Hepburn was “box-office poison” after a string of flops, but the spunkiest of the Golden Age actresses was determined to revive her reputation. Bought the rights to Philip Barry’s play by her then boyfriend Howard Hughes, Hepburn secured a sympathetic director, Cukor, and set about finding a pair of debonair gentlemen to play her competing suitors. First choices Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy were unavailable, so the poor girl had to make do with Cary Grant and James Stewart. Ed Potton

23 - SOME LIKE IT HOT (Billy Wilder, 1959)

A brawny man in a dress is one of those failsafe devices that will always get a laugh. Add to that a wickedly sophisticated script, a gang of lantern-jawed gangsters and Marilyn Monroe, and you have one of the great American comedy films of all time. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play a pair of itinerant musicians on the run after they inadvertently witness a gangland shoot-out. They take cover, in somewhat unconvincing drag, in an all-girl jazz band. But boys will be boys, and the arrival of Monroe’s delectable Sugar Kane has them battling for her attention like smitten schoolboys. Meanwhile Lemmon’s Daphne has her own persistent admirer in the wealthy ankle-fetishist Osgood Fielding III. And while, to quote Osgood, “Nobody’s perfect”, this film comes pretty close. Wendy Ide

22 - THE BREAKFAST CLUB (John Hughes, 1985)

We felt we couldn’t have both this and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (written and directed by Hughes, 1986), but boy it was close. The mix of characters stuck in a ball-achingly boring detention swung it: Emilio Estevez as jock Andy, Anthony Michael Hall as the nerd, Judd Nelson as the slightly terrifying John Bender, Molly Ringwald as brittle prom queen Claire and Ally Sheedy as the goth. As with Ferris Bueller, Hughes wrote and directed a teen classic, a zesty mix of squabbling, soul-searching and scrapping. Tim Teeman

21 - BONNIE AND CLYDE (Arthur Penn, 1967)

Arthur Penn’s folk legend tapped into the late 1960s zeitgeist of rebellion and counter-culture like almost no other film of its time. Violent, stylish and sexy, it had its audiences sympathising with the bad guys — the young, glamorous bank robbers Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) — while the cops are portrayed as the antagonists. Against the backdrop of depression-era America, the photogenic outlaw couple seem impossibly thrilling. Audiences adopted the distinctive fashions: thousands of berets were sold after Dunaway wore one. Wendy Ide