Black Orpheus won the 1959 best foreign film Oscar for director Marcel Camus, a crowing feast-of-a-film that overshadowed the rest of his career so much that its hard to know, find or see any of his dozen odd others films. It’s one of many French films that brilliantly captures a city or country unlikely to ever make such a film on its own account, its not a musical, most sound is diegetic, the love story is between nature, music and their people.

The Children of Paradise is the French Gone with the Wind made in 1945 it’s to French Poetic Realism what La Strada is to Italian Neorealism, a comedy about actors and thieves that comes years after the heights of the two movements and somewhat deconstructs them, creating the ultimate smorgasbord of love, loneliness, humour and magic. The acting brings it in most peoples eyes above Gone with the Wind.

Warning: Contains Spoilers

"He's crazy about her, she's crazy about him, and he's just crazy."

Imagine William Shakespeare had got to the last stanza of Romeo and Juliet and decided to scrap the ending and have the young Juliet to hook up with Paris. That’s right, Paris. John Hughes was the darling of 1980’s teen cinema, a recognized creative force of that time. His films were phenomenally successful; popular with critics and audiences alike.