Escape from New York (1981)

It’s 1997 and Manhattan has been turned into a maximum-security prison because crime has risen by 400%. A convict named Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is recruited by Lee Van Cleef to rescue the US President (Donald Pleasence), who is trapped there by a gangland boss (Isaac Hayes). 

It’s an exciting romp, blending action-thriller and sci- fi. The “futuristic” sets are generally impressive and the pace never lets up. Script-wise it’s fairly underwhelming, but then you probably wouldn’t watch it for the dialogue. 

Ernest Borgnine plays an irritating cabbie, while Harry Dean Stanton plays an engineer nicknamed "Brain".

Director John Carpenter provides the music himself, and it’s pretty good.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Fifth time around for Sean Connery as James Bond.

Pros:

• The definitive Bond villain base, disguised within a volcano and featuring its own railway system and a lethal piraña pool.
• An exciting scene in which Bond pilots the autogyro “Little Nellie” and is attacked by four helicopters.
• Donald Pleasence is creepily convincing as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.

Cons:

• Plenty of racial stereotyping that culminates in a ludicrous scene in which Bond is made to be “Japanese”.
• Bond: “Why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?...Like Peking duck is different from Russian caviar. But I love them both.”
• A slightly tired feel. The Bond formula is well established already by this point and was possibly becoming a bit of a straitjacket.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)

Based on the classic novel by Erich Maria Remarque, this is a powerful WWI drama that sets out to show war as a pointless, futile, cruel waste of life. Richard Thomas (“John Boy” in The Waltons) is excellent as the innocent young man who enlists in the German army and quickly has any illusions about the glory of battle dashed by the brutal reality of the experience. This message is underscored again and again as his friends meet horrible deaths and then when he returns home on leave – only to find that not one person sees through the myths of heroism and nationalism that are killing hundreds of boys each day for mere inches of land.

There’s an especially affecting scene in which our hero has to spend the night lying in a trench with the Frenchman he has just stabbed. Realising how much they have in common he tries to help the man, but it’s too late. The scene is brilliantly drawn out in a way that I don’t think would happen if this was made now. 

The film evokes the constant noise of battle, but – despite a lot of maimed bodies – doesn’t quite go far enough to depict the soul-destroying filth, disease and degradation that these men would surely have suffered in their daily lives. That said, it’s one of the most profound anti-war films I’ve seen.

The Great Escape (1963)

A classic, of course, but it’s a stranger film than you might think. I don’t like the relentlessly chirpy, intrusive music, which often trivialises the drama and turns it into farce. The tone just feels wrong. There’s often gentle wit in the script, so the music didn’t need to “jolly it up”.

Steve McQueen is highly watchable and charismatic. It’s impossible to rate his acting because he doesn’t really act at all. He has very few lines. Mostly, he just looks good and gets the most glamorous part (motorcycle chase, escape expertise, nice clothes).

Far more engaging were the characters played by Donald Pleasance (who is losing his sight) and James Garner (who cares for him).

The cast is the very definition of “all-star”: an amazing list of A-list names including James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson and David McCallum.

Most of the time the Nazis seem too kindly. And it was unrealistic that there was never a hint of dissent between the officers in the camp.

All that aside, the escape is genuinely exciting. And the ending – not what you might expect – is fairly satisfying.