Monk: Season 4 (2005-2006)

USA
Television Series
Creator: Andy Breckman
Cast: Tony Shalhoub, Traylor Howard, Ted Levine, Jason Gray-Stanford, Stanley Kamel

A horribly sentimental white Christmas apart, this fourth season of the addictive detective show, following the severely phobic but incredibly brilliant titular detective, is as outrageously, sillily, and outlandishly entertaining as ever. Iain Stott

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Monk: Season 3 (2004-2005)

USA
Television Series
Creator: Andy Breckman
Cast: Tony Shalhoub, Bitty Schram, Traylor Howard, Ted Levine, Jason Gray-Stanford, Stanley Kamel

A major mid-season cast upheaval ensures that the third season of this ever-popular detective series is an inconsistent affair, and, add to that, a number of sub-par episodes and the odd uncharacteristically sentimental moment means that this season is something of a disappointment, but of course, there are enough episodes of a suitably high standard to make it recommended viewing. Iain Stott

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Monk: Season 2 (2003-2004)

USA
Television Series
Creator: Andy Breckman
Cast: Tony Shalhoub, Bitty Schram, Ted Levine, Jason Gray-Stanford, Stanley Kamel

The second season of this tremendously entertaining detective show, following the brilliant but deeply troubled titular detective as he tracks down the world’s most fiendishly clever murderers, is, with its increasingly outlandish and intricate plots, humorous sub-plots, and excellent performances, a more consistently entertaining season than the first one. Iain Stott

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Overtaken (2003)

UK
Novel
Author: Alexei Sayle

Sayle’s Grimly funny and surprisingly insightful novel follows the misadventures of Kelvin, a property developer in his early 30s from Liverpool, who, following a tragic accident, is forced to reappraise and redefine his life. Iain Stott

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No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007)

USA

Short Story Collection
Author: Miranda July

Miranda July’s first collection of short stories, taking a bitter-sweet, idiosyncratic, and deeply humane look at those living on the edges of society, is an often funny, frequently insightful, and constantly moving minor masterpiece. Iain Stott

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Perfect Strangers (2001)

Recommended

UK

Television Mini-Series
Writer/Director: Stephen Poliakoff
Cinematographer: Cinders Forshaw
Composer: Adrian Johnston
Cast: Michael Gambon, Lindsay Duncan, Matthew Macfadyen, Claire Skinner, Toby Stephens, Jill Baker, Timothy Spall

Stephen Poliakoff’s (relatively) mildly disappointing if, nevertheless, entertaining mini-series, revolving around a family reunion at a swanky London hotel, is an unalloyed celebration of the joys of storytelling, but it is unfortunately marred by occasionally feeling like it has been dumbed down for a mass audience. Iain Stott

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Passport to Pimlico (1949)

Highly Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Director: Henry Cornelius
Writer: T.E.B. Clarke
Cinematographer: Lionel Banes
Composer: Georges Auric
Cast: Stanley Holloway, Betty Warren, Barbara Murray, Paul Dupuis, John Slater, Jane Hylton, Philip Stainton, Margaret Rutherford, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne

This charming Ealing comedy, a celebration of idiosyncrasy and an attack against bureaucracy, (two peculiarly British traits,) manages to be both whimsical and, antithetically, realistic in its depiction of the lives of ordinary people in post-war London, whilst also being thoroughly entertaining. Iain Stott

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Millions (2004)

Cautiously Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Frank Cottrell Boyce
Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle
Composer: John Murphy
Cast: Alex Etel, Lewis McGibbon, James Nesbitt, Daisy Donovan, Christopher Fulford, Pearce Quigley, Jane Hogarth

Boyle’s first foray into family entertainment, with its anti-greed message, (a most welcome antidote to the greed-is-good Hollywood films that are normally pushed onto our children), is an entertaining if mildly patronising effort that will charm the less world-weary and cynical amongst us. Iain Stott

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Morecambe Church Lads' Parade at Drill (1901)

Recommended

UK
Short Documentary
Producers: Sagar Mitchell, James Kenyon

A short documentary that fascinatingly captures the smiles, laughs, innocence, and imperfections of a group of young boys who have long since left this mortal coil. Iain.Stott

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Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

Recommended

Soviet Union
Feature Documentary
Original Title: Chelovek s kino-apparatom
Writer/Director: Dziga Vertov
Cinematographer: Mikhail Kaufman
Featuring: Mikhail Kaufman

A dazzling, lyrical, and rather abstract silent documentary depicting a day in the life of a city (or more precisely, the Soviet Union), Man with a Movie Camera manages to both dazzle the eye and challenge the intellect, whilst perhaps neglecting the soul. Iain Stott

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Keane (2004)

Highly Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Lodge Kerrigan
Cinematographer: John Foster
Cast: Damian Lewis, Abigail Breslin, Amy Ryan, Tina Holmes

A brave and unapologetic exploration of difficult subject matter, Kerrigan's Keane provides a spare, harrowing, and ultimately devastatingly moving portrayal of grief and/or mental illness – a difficult film, then, but a hugely rewarding one, none the less. Iain Stott

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Jake's Progress (1995)

Recommended

UK
Television Mini-Series
Director: Robin Lefevre
Writer: Alan Bleasdale
Cinematographer: Arthur Smith
Composers: Richard Harvey, Elvis Costello
Cast: Robert Lindsay, Julie Walters, Barclay Wright, David Ryall, Dorothy Tutin, Amanda Mealing, David Ross, Andrew Schofield, Samantha Beckinsale

For once, political commentary takes a back seat to a more focused examination of the human condition in this wickedly funny Alan Bleasdale mini-series, in which a typically brilliant Robert Lindsay, a foul-mouthedly excellent Julie Walters, and the truly incredible Barclay Wright guide us through some outlandish though generally credible family traumas. Iain Stott

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Interiors (1978)

Highly Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Writer/Director: Woody Allen
Cinematographer: Gordon Willis
Cast: Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E.G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, Sam Waterston

Allen’s much maligned first foray into straight drama, a moving examination of a wealthy artistic family and their complicated and troubled relationships, is something of a minor masterpiece – and, as an examination of existential angst, is about as effective as American cinema has produced. Iain Stott

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Be Big! (1931)

Not Recommended

USA
Short Film
Director: James Parrott
Writer: H.M. Walker
Cinematographer: Art Lloyd
Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Anita Garvin, Isabelle Keith

As he and Stan are about to leave for a weekend in Atlantic City with their wives, Ollie feigns illness so that they can attend a stag party thrown in their honour at the lodge, instead – and whilst the first part of the plan goes without a hitch, the seemingly simple task of putting on their lodge uniforms before they go out appears to be painfully beyond them, in this occasionally funny but generally tedious and horribly drawn-out Laurel and Hardy short. Iain Stott

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Monk: Season 1 (2002)

USA
Television Series
Creator: Andy Breckman
Cast: Tony Shalhoub, Bitty Schram, Ted Levine, Jason Gray-Stanford, Stanley Kamel

This first season of the addictive, funny, and terribly smart detective show, in which a brilliant Tony Shalhoub plays a former homicide detective with severe OCD, sets the scene for, but doesn’t quite reach the heights of, later seasons (due to a couple of rather silly episodes: annoyingly so as opposed to enjoyably so, as is often the case in later seasons.) Iain Stott

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Barcelona Plates (2000)

UK
Short Story Collection
Author: Alexei Sayle

Alexei Sayle’s first collection of short stories, written in a style that mirrors his angry, ranting, incredulous Liverpudlian persona, encompassing tales of life’s losers, oddballs, and outsiders, has, despite a number of forgettable stories, enough ideas, observations, surprises, and laughs to tickle the fancy of most readers. Iain Stott

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A Kestrel for a Knave (1968)

UK

Novel
Author: Barry Hines

An often funny, occasionally inspiring, and ultimately rather moving tale of a troubled young boy and his hawk, that vividly paints a picture of the boy’s environment, but leaves his thoughts, feelings, emotions, and motivations to the imagination of the reader. Iain Stott

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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet - The Special (2004)

UK
Television Series Christmas Special
Cast: Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Tim Healy, Kevin Whately, Christopher Fairbank, Noel Clarke, Branka Katic, Alexander Hanson, Pornchai Tipol

This final instalment of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet - a not-even-vaguely credible tale of a kidnapping by dispossessed Laosan villagers that is about as far from the show’s origins as it possibly could be, both geographically and artistically - is really rather disappointingly silly, if moderately entertaining. Iain.Stott

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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet: Series 4 (2004)

UK
Television Series
Cast: Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Tim Healy, Kevin Whately, Pat Roach, Christopher Fairbank, Noel Clarke, Sandra James-Young, Caroline Harker, Alexander Hanson, Josefina Gabrielle, Javier Alcina

This, the most visually striking of the four series, is a notable improvement on the third series; the plot, set in Cuba and which is seldom credible but always entertaining, involves Spies, Manchester United shirts, hamster roulette, ballerinas, and other assorted guff. Iain.Stott

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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet: Series 3 (2002)

UK
Television Series
Cast: Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Tim Healy, Kevin Whately, Pat Roach, Christopher Fairbank, Noel Clarke, Bill Nighy, Branka Katic, Dragan Micanovic, Michael Angelis, John Kazek, Gordon Tootoosis, Emily Bruni

This disappointing third series, lacking the social commentary and gallows humour of the first series, revolves around the taking down of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge and its re-erection on an Indian reservation in Arizona, but this potentially interesting premise is ruined by a feeling of dumbing down, and the production’s relentlessly quick pacing. Iain Stott

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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet: Series 2 (1986)

UK
Television Series
Cast: Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Tim Healy, Kevin Whately, Pat Roach, Gary Holton, Christopher Fairbank, Julia Tobin, Val McLane, Bill Paterson, Lesley Saint-John, Melanie Hill, Bryan Pringle, James Booth

Less desperate and political, and, perhaps most importantly, less credible than the first series, but just as, if not even more so, entertaining this time, with its plots dotted with gangsters, and prison breaks, and showdowns, and exotic locations. Iain Stott

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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet: Series 1 (1983)

UK

Television Series
Cast: Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Tim Healy, Kevin Whately, Pat Roach, Gary Holton, Christopher Fairbank, Michael Sheard, Peter Birch, Brigitte Kahn, Caroline Hutchison, Julia Tobin, Su Elliot, Michael Elphick

A masterful mixture of gallows humour and human drama; achingly funny and occasionally rather moving, it manages to quite brilliantly and devastatingly, and ironically considering it was set in Germany, paint a portrait of Thatcher’s 1982 Britain, warts‘n’all. Iain Stott

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Goodnight Sweetheart: Series 6 (1999)

UK
Television Series
Creators: Maurice Gran, Laurence Marks
Cast: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Elizabeth Carling, Emma Amos, Victor McGuire, Christopher Ettridge, David Benson

This final series of the entertaining time-travel sitcom - sillier, broader, and with more potential shark jumping moments than ever before - despite its numerous flaws, is just about as entertaining as ever, and manages to do that rarest of things - end satisfactorily (and, surprisingly, relatively credibly.) Iain Stott

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Goodnight Sweetheart: Series 5 (1998)

UK

Television Series
Creators: Maurice Gran, Laurence Marks
Cast: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Elizabeth Carling, Emma Amos, Victor McGuire, Christopher Ettridge, David Benson

As the plots become ever more outlandish, this thoroughly entertaining time-travel sitcom gives us its highest and its lowest moments, with Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking?, which takes place mostly in the form of dream sequences, being a particular highlight. Iain Stott

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Goodnight Sweetheart: Series 4 (1997)

UK

Television Series
Creators: Maurice Gran, Laurence Marks
Cast: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Elizabeth Carling, Emma Amos, Victor McGuire, Christopher Ettridge

Not only does this continually entertaining time-travel sitcom manage to survive a change of actress in two of the main roles, but these fundamental differences actually manage to revitalise the show by putting a new spin on elements that were starting to become a tad worn. Iain Stott

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Goodnight Sweetheart: Series 3 (1996)

UK

Television Series
Creators: Maurice Gran, Laurence Marks
Cast: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Dervla Kirwan, Michelle Holmes, Victor McGuire, Christopher Ettridge, Nimmy March

A couple of missteps aside, this cracking time-travel sitcom continues to entertain with a mixture of humour and pathos, whilst (mostly) avoiding political correctness. Iain Stott

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Goodnight Sweetheart: Series 2 (1995)

UK
Television Series
Creators: Maurice Gran, Laurence Marks
Cast: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Dervla Kirwan, Michelle Holmes, Victor McGuire, Christopher Ettridge

Time-traveller, Gary Sparrow, continues his thoroughly entertaining journeys between 1994 and 1941, with the gulf between his life in the present as a hopeless loser and his life in the past as an exciting and exotic figure becoming ever greater. Iain Stott

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Audley Range School, Blackburn (c 1904)

Cautiously Recommended

UK
Short Documentary
Producers: Sagar Mitchell, James Kenyon

A short documentary of mild curiosity value showing a group of Blackburn school children exercising gently. Iain.Stott

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28 Weeks Later (2007)

Recommended

UK/Spain
Feature Film
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writers: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Enrique López Lavigne, Jesús Olmo
Cinematographer: Enrique Chediak
Composer: John Murphy
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Catherine McCormack, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Idris Elba, Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton

Fresnadillo’s Romero-like sequel to 28 Days Later (2002), which follows the tentative repopulation of London by the US Army following the virus’s apparent death, combines political allegory with visceral thrills to produce a film just about worthy of its predecessor. Iain Stott

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Goodnight Sweetheart: Series 1 (1993)

UK

Television Series
Creators: Maurice Gran, Laurence Marks
Cast: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Dervla Kirwan, Michelle Holmes, Victor McGuire, Christopher Ettridge, David Ryall

Humour and pathos make agreeable bedfellows in the first series of this addictive sitcom about a time traveller who flits between 1993 and 1940, and between his wife and a potential new lover, and in doing so presents a moral ambiguity that is extremely rare in mainstream entertainment. Iain Stott

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Wilt (1976)

UK

Novel
Author: Tom Sharpe

A frequently hilarious and rather misanthropic farce that follows the misadventures of Henry Wilt, a deeply miserable liberal studies teacher, who, following an overly physical fantasy, is mistakenly arrested for the murder of his wife. Iain Stott

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Gavin & Stacey: Series 2 (2008)

UK

Television Series
Creators: James Corden, Ruth Jones
Cast: Mathew Horne, Joanna Page, James Corden, Ruth Jones, Rob Brydon, Alison Steadman, Larry Lamb, Melanie Walters

All does not run smooth for love’s young dream in this second series of the popular BBC sitcom, which continues to mix belly-laughs with more tender moments, as Gavin and Stacey struggle to adjust to married life. Iain Stott

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The Observer's The 100 Greatest Novels of all Time

1. Don Quixote (1605)
2. Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
3. Robinson Crusoe (1719)
4. Gulliver's Travels (1726)
5. Tom Jones (1749)
6. Clarissa (1748)
7. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1859-1867)
8. Dangerous Liaisons (1782)
9. Emma (1815)
10. Frankenstein (1818)
11. Nightmare Abbey (1818)
12. The Black Sheep (1842)
13. The Charterhouse of Parma (1839)
14. The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-1846)
15. Sybil (1845)
16. David Copperfield (1849-1850)
17. Wuthering Heights (1847)
18. Jane Eyre (1847)
19. Vanity Fair (1847-1848)
20. The Scarlet Letter (1850)
21. Moby-Dick (1851)
22. Madame Bovary (1856)
23. The Woman in White (1859)
24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland (1865)
25. Little Women (1868-1869)
26. The Way We Live Now (1875)
27. Anna Karenina (1877)
28. Daniel Deronda (1877)
29. The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
30. The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
31. Huckleberry Finn (1885)
32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
33. Three Men in a Boat (1889)
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
35. The Diary of a Nobody (1888-1889)
36. Jude the Obscure (1895)
37. The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
38. The Call of the Wild (1903)
39. Nostromo (1904)
40. The Wind in the Willows (1908)
41. Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927)
42. The Rainbow (1915)
43. The Good Soldier (1915)
44. The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
45. Ulysses (1922)
46. Mrs Dalloway (1925)
47. A Passage to India (1924)
48. The Great Gatsby (1925)
49. The Trial (1925)
50. Men without Women (1927)
51. Journey to the End of the Night (1932)
52. As I Lay Dying (1930)
53. Brave New World (1932)
54. Scoop (1938)
55. U.S.A. (1930-1936)
56. The Big Sleep (1939)
57. The Pursuit of Love (1945)
58. The Plague (1947)
59. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
60. Malone Dies (1951)
61. The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
62. Wise Blood (1952)
63. Charlotte’s Web (1952)
64. The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955)
65. Lucky Jim (1954)
66. Lord of the Flies (1954)
67. The Quiet American (1955)
68. On the Road (1957)
69. Lolita (1955)
70. The Tin Drum (1959)
71. Things Fall Apart (1959)
72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1962)
73. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
74. Catch-22 (1961)
75. Herzog (1964)
76. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1971)
78. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974)
79. Song of Solomon (1978)
80. The Bottle Factory Outing (1974)
81. The Executioner's Song (1980)
82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (1979)
83. A Bend in the River (1979)
84. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
85. Housekeeping (1980)
86. Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981)
87. The New York Trilogy (1987)
88. The BFG (1982)
89. The Periodic Table (1975)
90. Money (1984)
91. An Artist of the Floating World (1986)
92. Oscar And Lucinda (1988)
93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979)
94. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)
95. L.A. Confidential (1990)
96. Wise Children (1991)
97. Atonement (2002)
98. Northern Lights (1995)
99. American Pastoral (1997)
100. Austerlitz (2001)

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Time's All-Time 100 Novels

• The Adventures of Augie March (1953)
• All the King's Men (1946)
• American Pastoral (1997)
• An American Tragedy (1925)
• Animal Farm (1945)
• Appointment in Samarra (1934)
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970)
• The Assistant (1957)
• At Swim-Two-Birds (1938)
• Atonement (2002)
• Beloved (1987)
• The Berlin Stories (1946)
• The Big Sleep (1939)
• The Blind Assassin (2000)
• Blood Meridian (1985)
• Brideshead Revisited (1945)
• The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)
• A Dance to the Music of Time (1952-1975)
• Call It Sleep (1934)
• Catch-22 (1961)
• The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
• A Clockwork Orange (1962)
• The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967)
• The Corrections (2001)
• The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
• The Day of the Locust (1939)
• Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)
• A Death in the Family (1956)
• The Death of the Heart (1938)
• Deliverance (1970)
• Dog Soldiers (1974)
• Falconer (1977)
• The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969)
• Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)
• The Golden Notebook (1962)
• Gone with the Wind (1936)
• The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
• Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
• The Great Gatsby (1925)
• A Handful of Dust (1934)
• The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
• The Heart of the Matter (1948)
• Herzog (1964)
• A House for Mr Biswas (1961)
• Housekeeping (1980)
• I, Claudius (1934)
• Infinite Jest (1996)
• Invisible Man (1952)
• Light in August (1932)
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
• Lolita (1955)
• The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955)
• Lord of the Flies (1954)
• Loving (1945)
• Lucky Jim (1954)
• The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
• Midnight's Children (1980)
• Money (1984)
• The Moviegoer (1961)
• Mrs Dalloway (1925)
• Naked Lunch (1959)
• Native Son (1940)
• Neuromancer (1984)
• Never Let Me Go (2005)
• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
• On the Road (1957)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)
• The Painted Bird (1967)
• Pale Fire (1962)
• A Passage to India (1924)
• Play It as It Lays
• Portnoy's Complaint (1969)
• Possession: A Romance (1990)
• The Power and the Glory (1940)
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1962)
• Rabbit, Run (1960)
• Ragtime (1975)
• The Recognitions (1955)
• Red Harvest (1929)
• Revolutionary Road (1961)
• The Sheltering Sky (1949)
• Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
• Snow Crash (1992)
• The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)
• The Sound and the Fury (1929)
• The Sportswriter (1986)
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963)
• The Sun Also Rises (1926)
• Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
• Things Fall Apart (1959)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
• To the Lighthouse (1927)
• Tropic of Cancer (1934)
• Ubik (1969)
• Under the Net (1954)
• Under the Volcano (1947)
• Watchmen (1986-1987)
• White Noise (1985)
• White Teeth (2000)
• Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

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The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels

1. Ulysses (1922)
2. The Great Gatsby (1925)
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
4. Lolita (1955)
5. Brave New World (1932)
6. The Sound and the Fury (1929)
7. Catch-22 (1961)
8. Darkness at Noon (1940)
9. Sons and Lovers (1913)
10. The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
11. Under the Volcano (1947)
12. The Way of All Flesh (1903)
13. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
14. I, Claudius (1934)
15. To the Lighthouse (1927)
16. An American Tragedy (1925)
17. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
18. Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
19. Invisible Man (1952)
20. Native Son (1940)
21. Henderson the Rain King (1959)
22. Appointment in Samarra (1934)
23. U.S.A. (1930-1936)
24. Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
25. A Passage to India (1924)
26. The Wings of the Dove (1902)
27. The Ambassadors (1903)
28. Tender Is the Night (1934)
29. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy (1932-1935)
30. The Good Soldier (1915)
31. Animal Farm (1945)
32. The Golden Bowl (1904)
33. Sister Carrie (1900)
34. A Handful of Dust (1934)
35. As I Lay Dying (1930)
36. All the King's Men (1946)
37. The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)
38. Howards End (1910)
39. Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)
40. The Heart of the Matter (1948)
41. Lord of the Flies (1954)
42. Deliverance (1970)
43. A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975)
44. Point Counter Point (1928)
45. The Sun Also Rises (1926)
46. The Secret Agent (1907)
47. Nostromo (1904)
48. The Rainbow (1915)
49. Women in Love (1920)
50. Tropic of Cancer (1934)
51. The Naked and the Dead (1948)
52. Portnoy's Complaint (1969)
53. Pale Fire (1962)
54. Light in August (1932)
55. On the Road (1957)
56. The Maltese Falcon (1930)
57. Parade's End (1924-1928)
58. The Age of Innocence (1920)
59. Zuleika Dobson (1911)
60. The Moviegoer (1961)
61. Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)
62. From Here to Eternity (1951)
63. The Wapshot Chronicle (1957)
64. The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
65. A Clockwork Orange (1962)
66. Of Human Bondage (1915)
67. Heart of Darkness (1902)
68. Main Street (1920)
69. The House of Mirth (1905)
70. The Alexandria Quartet (1957-1960)
71. A High Wind in Jamaica (1929)
72. A House for Mr Biswas (1961)
73. The Day of the Locust (1939)
74. A Farewell to Arms (1929)
75. Scoop (1938)
76. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1962)
77. Finnegans Wake (1939)
78. Kim (1901)
79. A Room with a View (1908)
80. Brideshead Revisited (1945)
81. The Adventures of Augie March (1953)
82. Angle of Repose (1971)
83. A Bend in the River (1979)
84. The Death of the Heart (1938)
85. Lord Jim (1900)
86. Ragtime (1975)
87. The Old Wives' Tale (1908)
88. The Call of the Wild (1903)
89. Loving (1945)
90. Midnight's Children (1980)
91. Tobacco Road (1932)
92. Ironweed (1983)
93. The Magus (1965)
94. Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
95. Under the Net (1954)
96. Sophie's Choice (1979)
97. The Sheltering Sky (1949)
98. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
99. The Ginger Man (1955)
100. The Magnificent Ambersons (1918)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2000

1. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
3. A One and a Two... (2000)
4. Beau Travail (1999)
5. Almost Famous (2000)
6. Chicken Run (2000)
7. The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)
8. Traffic (2000)
9. Before Night Falls (2000)
10. You Can Count on Me (2000)
11. Sound and Fury (2000)
12. Paragraph 175 (2000)
13. Calle 54 (2000)
14. The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen (2000)
15. The Quince Tree Sun (1992)
16. One Day in September (1999)
17. The Filth and the Fury (2000)
18. George Washington (2000)
19. Blood Simple: The Director's Cut (2000)
20. I'm The One That I Want (2000)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2001

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
2. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
3. My Voyage to Italy (1999)
4. Apocalypse Now Redux (2001)
5. Gosford Park (2001)
6. Ghost World (2001)
7. Bande à Part (1964)
8. In the Bedroom (2001)
9. Under the Sand (2000)
10. Children Underground (2001)
11. The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition (2000)
12. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
13. In the Mood for Love (2000)
14. The Circle (2000)
15. Lantana (2001)
16. No Man's Land (2001)
17. Shrek (2001)
18. The Day I Became a Woman (2000)
19. Together (2000)
20. Fighter (2000)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2002

1. Spirited Away (2001)
2. Amadeus: Director's Cut (2002)
3. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)
4. Bloody Sunday (2002)
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
6. Time Out (2001)
7. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
8. I'm Going Home (2001)
9. Russian Ark (2002)
10. Talk to Her (2002)
11. The Pianist (2002)
12. About Schmidt (2002)
13. Domestic Violence (2001)
14. Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience (2002)
15. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
16. Cinema Paradiso: The Director's Cut (1990)
17. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)
18. Far from Heaven (2002)
19. The Quiet American (2002)
20. The Pinochet Case (2001)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2003

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
2. Belleville Rendez-Vous (2003)
3. American Splendor (2003)
4. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
5. Lost in Translation (2003)
6. Finding Nemo (2003)
7. The Fog of War (2003)
8. Marooned in Iraq (2002)
9. Être et Avoir (2002)
10. Ten (2002)
11. The Son (2002)
12. Sweet Sixteen (2002)
13. Love & Diane (2002)
14. The Last Letter (2002)
15. The Man Without a Past (2002)
16. Bus 174 (2002)
17. Mystic River (2003)
18. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002)
19. Raising Victor Vargas (2002)
20. The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2004

1. Sideways (2004)
2. Moolaadé (2004)
3. The Incredibles (2004)
4. Before Sunset (2004)
5. House of Flying Daggers (2004)
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
7. Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut (2004)
8. Maria Full of Grace (2004)
9. Tarnation (2003)
10. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
11. Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
12. Festival Express (2003)
13. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring (2003)
14. Since Otar Left (2003)
15. Uzak (2002)
16. Hero (2002)
17. Springtime in a Small Town (2002)
18. Osama (2003)
19. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
20. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2005

1. The Best of Youth (2003)
2. Capote (2005)
3. Nobody Knows (2004)
4. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
5. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
6. Murderball (2005)
7. Grizzly Man (2005)
8. Turtles Can Fly (2004)
9. The Intruder (2004)
10. Darwin's Nightmare (2004)
11. Kings & Queen (2004)
12. Corpse Bride (2005)
13. Hidden (2005)
14. The White Diamond (2004)
15. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
16. Duma (2005)
17. The Constant Gardener (2005)
18. Memories of Murder (2003)
19. Pride & Prejudice (2005)
20. The Squid and the Whale (2005)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2006

1. The Army in the Shadows (1969)
2. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
3. The Queen (2006)
4. United 93 (2006)
5. The Lives of Others (2006)
6. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
7. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
8. Overlord (1975)
9. The Child (2005)
10. Fateless (2005)
11. Deliver Us from Evil (2006)
12. Our Daily Bread (2005)
13. The Departed (2006)
14. Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film (2006)
15. Half Nelson (2006)
16. Street Fight (2005)
17. Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006)
18. Children of Men (2006)
19. 49 UP (2005)
20. The Death of Mister Lazarescu (2005)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2007

1. Ratatouille (2007)
2. Killer of Sheep (1977)
3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
4. There Will Be Blood (2007)
5. No Country for Old Men (2007)
6. Persepolis (2007)
7. No End in Sight (2007)
8. Once (2006)
9. Away from Her (2006)
10. This Is England (2006)
11. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
12. The Savages (2007)
13. Offside (2006)
14. Knocked Up (2007)
15. Atonement (2007)
16. The Host (2006)
17. In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)
18. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
19. The King of Kong (2007)
20. Election 2 (2006)

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Metacritic.com's Best-Reviewed Movies of 2008

1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)
2. WALL·E (2008)
3. The Class (2008)
4. Waltz with Bashir (2008)
5. Man on Wire (2008)
6. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
7. Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)
8. The Edge of Heaven (2007)
9. Alexandra (2007)
10. A Christmas Tale (2008)
11. My Winnipeg (2007)
12. Up the Yangtze (2007)
13. Milk (2008)
14. Momma's Man (2008)
15. Ballast (2008)
16. Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
17. Couscous (2007)
18. Chop Shop (2007)
19. Paranoid Park (2007)
20. U2 3D (2007)

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Sight & Sound's Top Ten Films of the Last 25 Years (2002)

1. Apocalypse Now (1979)
2. Raging Bull (1980)
3. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
4. Goodfellas (1990)
5. Blue Velvet (1986)
6. Do the Right Thing (1989)
7. Blade Runner (1982)
8. Chungking Express (1994)
9. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
10. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
    A One and a Two... (2000)

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Sight & Sound's Films of 2005

1. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
   A History of Violence (2005)
2. La Niña Santa (2004)
3. 2046 (2004)
4. The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)
   Last Days (2005)
   Moolaadé (2004)
   Tropical Malady (2004)
5. The Consequences of Love (2004)
   Mysterious Skin (2004)
6. The Aviator (2004)
   Batman Begins (2005)
   The Descent (2005)
   Downfall (2004)
   Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
   Head-On (2004)
   Hidden (2005)
   Innocence (2004)
   Sideways (2004)
   The Sun (2005)
   Three Times (2005)
   Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

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Sight & Sound's Films of 2006

1. Hidden (2005)
2. Volver (2006)
3. Red Road (2006)
4. Climates (2006)
   The Departed (2006)
   The New World (2005)
   Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
   United 93 (2006)
5. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
   Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
   The Queen (2006)
   The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)
   The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
6. Grizzly Man (2005)
7. Children of Men (2006)
   A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
   Little Children (2006)
   The Lives of Others (2006)
   Longing (2006)
   Marie Antoinette (2006)
   Still Life (2006)

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Sight & Sound's Films of 2007

1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)
2. Inland Empire (2006)
3. Zodiac (2007)
4. I'm Not There. (2007)
   The Lives of Others (2006)
5. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
   Eastern Promises (2007)
   No Country for Old Men (2007)
   Silent Light (2007)
   Syndromes and a Century (2006)
6. Control (2007)
7. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
   Don't Touch the Axe (2007)
   Lady Chatterley (2006)
   Once (2006)
   There Will Be Blood (2007)
8. Alexandra (2007)
   The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (2007)
   Paranoid Park (2007)
9. Black Book (2006)
   Into the Wild (2007)
   The Lighthouse (2006)
   Lust, Caution (2007)
   Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007)
   Secret Sunshine (2007)
   Still Life (2006)
   Superbad (2007)
   This Is England (2006)
   Yella (2007)

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Sight & Sound's Films of 2008

1. Hunger (2008)
2. There Will Be Blood (2007)
3. WALL•E (2008)
4. Gomorrah (2008)
5. A Christmas Tale (2008)
   The Class (2008)
6. Of Time and the City (2008)
7. Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
   Let the Right One In (2008)
8. The Dark Knight (2008)
   The Headless Woman (2008)
   In Bruges (2008)
   My Winnipeg (2007)
   Waltz with Bashir (2008)
9. Man on Wire (2008)
   Persepolis (2007)
   Rachel Getting Married (2008)
   Still Walking (2008)
   Summer Hours (2008)
   United Red Army (2007)
   The Wrestler (2008)
10. The Beaches of Agnès (2008)
    Che (2008)
    Le Genou d’Artémide (2008)
    Itinéraire de Jean Bricard (2008)
    Liverpool (2008)
    The Silence of Lorna (2008)
    Unrelated (2007)

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