It is fair to state that Bergman’s career defining films came in the mid-1950’s with Smiles of a Summer Night in 1955, and both The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberry’s in 1957. Before this point there were a few other notable films of his in the early 50’s Sawdust and Tinsel in 1953 for example, but before this point his work is far less known. Examples include two excellently crafted relationship drama’s Summer Interlude released in 1951 and To Joy released in 1950, but further back still and we reach the first decade of Bergman’s film productions - the 1940’s.

American Director Peter Hyams has a fairly ghastly track record, after being given the unenviable task of directing 2010, the follow-up to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, he went on to make uninspired and sometimes downright awful Actioners like Timecop in 1994, Sudden Death in 1995, The Relic in 1997, End of Days in 1999, and The Musketeer in 2001. Other lesser known works in between have never made a massive splash in the box office or in critical circles.

With 30,000 Euros, great skill, artistry, and an indomitable spirit; British director Peter Strickland embarked on a four-year journey to Romania and Hungary to create his feature film debut. Fighting against a constant shortage of finance, as well as the language and cultural barrier, he eventually succeeded in creating his film Kalalin Varga, which debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2009 where it was awarded the Silver Bear.

Tom Clancy is one of the most high-profile literary figures in the US, an author that most people are familiar with regardless of whether or not they may actually have read one of his best-selling novels. Noted for the exhaustive breadth of his books’ technical prowess and militaristic know-how, he is to the political thriller what John Grisham is to the courtroom drama; they both deal in gripping stories of dramatic and sensational content but rarely tip the balance into ludicrous extremes.

Often the topic of genre is neglected in relation to the works of Poland’s greatest director, probably because the majority of Kieslowski’s films are difficult to categorise. From his first feature film The Scar to his last Three Colours Red, there is no one film that fits any particular genre except the broader categorisation of these films as “dramas” which is unhelpful in such matters as that term includes the widest range of films possible.

Before The Wire, before The Shield, before CSI and all of it’s mutant offspring, even slightly before NYPD Blue came Barry Levinson and Paul Attanasio’s Homicide: Life on the Street based on the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets a real life account of twelve months spent by the author David Simon along side the Baltimore homicide unit.

A supplementary list to the Left Field Cinema Top Twenty Films of the Decade article. This list is of the fifty greatest films I’ve seen during the past ten years, it took a while to compile and will doubtlessly change again in the near future as I watch more films produced in the 2000’s. Many of these films you will have seen reviewed on this website or the podcast over the past two years and those which have not yet been reviewed here will be in the not so distant future.

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.

Introduction: As the decade has now come to a close, cinephiles everywhere have been compiling their best films lists and Left Field Cinema is not immune from the temptation to summarise and rank the greatest works of film from the past ten years.

There are certain films which an individual encounters during their life which are instantly recognisable as flawed but for some reason we’re willing to forgive their faults and not let them deter our enjoyment of the viewing experience. Often these films are connected to our earlier life, a childhood or teenage favourite which as we grow older is exposed as a fractured and faulty work of fiction which we were incapable of discerning in years past.