We, by the nature of being Human, like to rank things in a preferential order. We have popularised best of entertainments and lists, but when it comes to film this form of revisionism explodes exponentially. Every year, every actor, every director and every genre creates it own set of lists in every film fan and every film critic.

Sam Peckinpah's less known (but superior) Western is a forgotten masterpiece of the genre and explores the theme of dying like no other film before or since.

Though it may have been rendered a relatively minor footnote in the temporary revolution that galvanised American film during the 70s by works more illustrious or grandiose, Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces was one of the best and most significant films of that remarkable decade and may in fact better represent what distinguished the filmmaking of that era than the epic masterworks of Coppola, Altman or Scorsese, as well as remaining one of the touchstone entries of counter-cultural cinema.

In many ways Bob Rafelson's 1970 feature film represents the start of the second golden age of American cinema, coming at the very start of the decade famous for it's subversive and intellectual stature movie making, this represents one of the first American films made with a deliberately European flavour. A film which mirrors the works of Ingmar Bergman in particular.

When we consider the great American films of the 1970’s and indeed the great American film makers who created their best works in that decade, the same names and the same films often appear: Martin Scorsese, Taxi Driver, William Friedkin, The French Connection, Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather, Terrance Malick, Badlands, Sidney Lumet, Dog Day Afternoon.

John Cassavetes' crime thriller is one of the forgotten classics of 1970's American cinema. A brilliant central performance from Ben Gazzara and a intense naturalistic presentation of events make this an unmissable masterpiece.

David Lynch

An enigma of modern cinema, no other film maker has created such vast and inexplicable mysteries, conjured from what could be considered a deeply disturbed subconscious. Elusive, cryptic, genius. Three adjectives which can be used to describe the work of Lynch – they could also easily be countered by the words vague, pointless, and pretentious.

The first of a David Lynch double bill, this episode centering on his 1980's masterpiece and arguably his greatest film. Twisted homages and ironical referencing to the past works of the Hollywood mainstream, with a dark and mysterious but ultimately coherent story line.

The Director: Although the man has not made an uncontrovertibly great film in twenty-five years and has not died or retired in the subsequent two and a half decades since Rumble Fish; he is still one of the greatest directors to ever live. The reasons are very clear to anyone with even a fleeting understanding of cinema. Coppola is a colossus, standing tall above most of his contemporaries.

This weeks episode examines Francis Ford Coppola's under appreciated masterpiece, the film which gave Gene Hackman a career defining turn as the surveillance expert Harry Caul. We also take an extended look back at the long and varied career of Coppola.