Nobody wants a painfully slow death: do you want to watch one, even if it's set against the crumbling beauty of Venice? Visconti's '71 adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel is a classic no one dares question, but its study of ageing composer Dirk Bogarde falling in unrequited love with a golden, fey young boy is stately and overwrought, and so enamoured of itself it forgets the audience. Perilously sluggish.

The greatest chase thriller about a melon farmer ever! Charles Bronson is the melon man, prevented from gathering his crop when he's handcuffed to mafia hitman Al Lettieri. Escaping, Bronson wants to turn the killer over to the cops so that he can harvest his melons, but soon the hoods are after him. Directed in pulpy style by Richard Fleischer from an Elmore Leonard script. Bronson's melons look lovely.

The hugely popular crime series continues to thrive, with William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger and team solving heinous murders by looking very intensely through microscopes at bloodied strands of fibre while beautifully back-lit. That one trick's wearing a little thin, but the crash-bang camerawork, designer violence and Vegas vistas keep it shinily seductive.

Capturing the ramshackle chaos and converse musical tautness of new millennium Fall, this professionally filmed gig in Blackburn from September 2002 is a connoisseur's delight of old faves ("Mr Pharmacist") and recent classics ("Two Librans"). A great fan souvenir, blighted only by Mark E Smith's foolish decision to allow some leery Mancoid guest singer to ruin "Big New Prinz".

The great French director Jean-Pierre Melville understood American movies better than the majority of Hollywood, and devoted himself to a remarkable series of terse tough-guy thrillers which claimed the term "noir" back for France. Shot on the streets of Paris dressed to look like Manhattan, this spare, razor-sharp 1962 affair has Jean-Paul Belmondo looking great as the doomed stool-pigeon at the centre of a web of deceit.

Yikes—if you haven't seen this in a while, prepare to be disappointed. By '83, the Pythons' pioneering madcap humour had descended into reliance on pointless shock tactics. It may be bold, but it's not funny. Their guide to life and death—intelligent, sure, but self-congratulatory—includes copious vomiting, bleeding, organ removal and bouncing Benny Hill Show breasts. Not their best.

It's been eight years since The Day Today transferred from its original home on Radio 4 to BBC2, positioning the show's arch mischief makers Chris Morris, Steve Coogan and Armando lannucci at the vanguard of a new wave of comedians.

David Gedge tunes his guitar. David Gedge drives to the garage. David Gedge buys a Ginster's sausage roll. That's about the sum of this inadvisable fly-on-the-wall tour documentary following Cinerama, Gedge's post-Wedding Present cinematic grunge-pop ensemble. A shame, since they're a good band with great songs (only last year they got a No 1 in John Peel's Festive 50), but as a visual accompaniment this is utterly depressing.

Like the preppy cousin of City Of God, this handsome crime flick from JoséHenrique Fonseca is set in Rio De Janeiro, but in the suburbs, where good-looking gringos kill out of curiosity rather than necessity. Unfortunately, it's also a world of paper-thin characters prone to morbid musings, and shot through with a non-descript pop-promo aesthetic.

Dazzlingly confident '96 debut from The Royal Tenenbaums' Wes Anderson which follows the misadventures of an eccentric gang of wannabe Texan mobsters. It immediately established the Anderson template: deadpan delivery, solid colours, Owen and Luke Wilson, strong musical soundtrack, immaculately cluttered production design, leisurely pace, iconic costumes, and an eerie sense of timelessness.