All-Time Favourite Films (that wouldn't fit in any other season)

We’ve featured dozens of different themes at Magdalen Monday Movies over the last six years. But there are still some mind-bogglingly brilliant films that have wriggled through the net. Now it’s time to give those masterpieces their due. Welcome to the greatest movies we’ve never shown.

Some of these are famous classics. Some you may never even have heard of. But they’re all here because they’re unforgettable, soul-wrenching, unique or just utterly delightful.

Entry, we need hardly add, is completely free, and each screening comes complete with an introduction, a free bag of popcorn, and a mouth-watering preview of next week’s movie.

And if you would like to be pre-warned of potentially distressing material, we recommend the IMDb 'Parents Guide' section for each film, or DoestheDogDie.

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This term we also have a frankly incredible collection of special events as part of our Oxford Film Studies Network. Join us for…

• THE THIRD MAN WITH LIVE ZITHER. What? We did what? Yes. This is a world first: a screening of The Third Man with the music carefully removed and replaced with a live zither performance from one of the world’s few zither maestros.
• DESERT AISLAND MOVIES. Everyone's panicking about AI. Not us. Curator Peter Kessler has spent the summer building two Artificial Intelligences who know a lot about movies. They're called Ronald and Hélène, and they're ready to share which films they would take to a desert island, and why. Join us for an experimental, and potentially mind-bending, evening of robotic discovery.
• BECOMING AMERICAN: PHILADEPHIA'S STORY. A brand-new, feature-length documentary about the founding of the United States, seen through the lens of Philadelphia, and told by the city’s Indigenous people and Black community. We are thrilled to welcome the film’s presenter and creator, Oliver St. Clair Franklin, and executive producer Annie Connolly, who will take part in a Q&A after the screening.
• HALLOWE'EN SPECIAL. A great, classic horror film of the 1930s, or a masterpiece of queer cinema? This one’s both. It’s The Bride of Frankenstein.
• UKRAINIAN EVENING: SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS. Sergei Parajanov's visually stunning, hauntingly atmospheric (and hardly known in the UK) tragic romance. It will be presented and discussed by Olga Sydorushkina, film curator at the Ukrainian Institute in London.

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Here is our full programme for the term – with handy IMDB links if you want to dig a little deeper.

Monday 12 Oct, 7pm

• (Sidney Lumet, 1957)

Have we really been doing this for six years and never shown 12 Angry Men? Inexcusable. Henry Fonda stars in a milestone drama about a M**der trial, where the jurors don’t see eye to eye. It’s a foundational film about justice, prejudice and responsibility. But more than that, Lumet’s debut feature is shot almost entirely in one room, and features twelve acting performances that brought a new level of realism to cinema. It was one of Stephen Fry’s Desert Island Movies, and after you’ve seen it, I think it’ll be one of yours too.

Sunday 18 Oct 7pm - SPECIAL EVENT

• DESERT AISLAND MOVIES

A genuine first. Over the long, hot summer, I’ve created two distinct Artificial Intelligences who have the ability to converse with an interviewer, with each other, and with anyone in the audience. They will reveal their favourite films of all time, discussing how an artificial creation, who has never actually ‘seen’ anything in the conventional sense of the word, but who nevertheless has total awareness of all film history, can deal with the concept of preference . What will they choose? Join us to find out.

Monday 19 Oct, 7pm

• (Robert Stevenson, 1964)

Possibly Walt Disney’s greatest film, Mary Poppins is so much more than a strict nanny, a terrible cockney accent and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It’s a deeply moving manifesto about parenthood, creativity and the little sacrifices we need to make for our children. The older you get, the more you cry. Feed the birds, tuppence a bag.

Monday 26 Oct, 7.30pm (note later start time)

• (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962)

Masaki Kobayashi’s film about a samurai who wants to commit seppuku in the courtyard of a great lord’s palace is a riveting exploration of mortality, honour and class conflict. I only saw it for the first time a few years ago, and it completely stopped me in my tracks. Every moment is immaculately constructed. It’s timeless, impeccable, and hypnotic.

Saturday 31 Oct, 7pm - SPECIAL EVENT

• (James Whale, 1935)

Our Hallowe’en movies have become a spooky Oxford tradition, and this year is no exception with The Bride of Frankenstein. After Frankenstein (1931), the public were baying for more monsters. James Whale gave them something even better: an astonishingly rich, subversive work of art that completely transcends its genre. If you thought Rocky Horror was the apogee of queer horror, prepare to be amazed.

Sunday 1 Nov, 7pm -

• We’re thrilled to welcome back Olga Sydorushkina, film curator at the Ukrainian Institute in London. Olga will be screening and discussing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), a classic of Ukranian cinema by Sergei Parajanov about a tragic romance in 19th-century Hutsul culture.

Monday 2 Nov, 7pm

• (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939)

Ernst Lubitsch was the master of sophisticated comedy, and they don’t get any more beguiling than this perfect rom-com. Greta Garbo is a stern Russian official sent to the fleshpots of Paris on official business, but she finds herself attracted to a louche Frenchman who represents everything she is supposed to abhor. In 1939 this film was marketed with one phrase: ‘Garbo Laughs!’ That says it all.

Monday 9 Nov, 7pm

• (Sidney Lumet, 1976)

Our second Lumet film of the season is a movie that seems to get more relevant with every year that passes. When TV News anchorman Howard Beale is forced to retire, he delivers a fanatical tirade live on air that produces a spike in ratings. The resulting feeding frenzy is a media satire like no other. ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!’

Sunday 15 Nov, 7pm - SPECIAL EVENT

We’ve had some memorable events before. This might just be the most significant yet. It’s a world-first. Never done before. Anywhere. Using the latest audio technology, we have been able meticulously to uncouple and remove the entire musical soundtrack of the greatest British film of all time, The Third Man. That includes picking the music out even when it’s behind spoken dialogue. And we’ve found an expert zither player, Astrid Hoffmann, who will be flying over from Vienna to play live with the film. Part virtuoso performance, part film classic, this is an unmissable and genuinely ground-breaking cinematic experience.

Monday 16 Nov, 7pm

• (Jūzō Itami, 1985)

You may never have heard of Tampopo, but it’s a true gem. Ostensibly about a woman struggling to keep her ramen café going in Japan, it becomes a tongue-in-cheek, surreal and extremely funny paean to the importance of food in society, as she learns to create the perfect noodle. In fact it’s been described as a ‘noodle western’. This isn’t just about eating. It’s about culture, tradition, sex, and understanding one’s own place in the world. Afterwards you will be starving, so remember, Ramen Korner is just at the end of the street.

Saturday 21 Nov, 7pm - FILM STUDIES SPECIAL

Becoming American: Philadelphia’s Story is a remarkable, feature-length documentary that offers a fresh account of the founding of the United States, seen through the extraordinary social and political world of Philadelphia, America’s first capital. Alongside the familiar story of the Founding Fathers, this film recovers the experiences of the city’s Indigenous people, free Black community, enslaved Africans, immigrants and artisans — people whose lives and struggles helped shape the new nation and the meaning of its ideals.

This special screening will be followed by a conversation with the film’s presenter and creator, Oliver St. Clair Franklin, and executive producer Annie Connolly, exploring the making of the documentary, the histories it brings to light, and what they can tell us about America at the moment of its 250th anniversary.

Monday 30 Nov, 7pm

• (Basil Dearden, 1960)

When we showed Sexy Beast a couple of terms ago there was much discussion of this great, British crime flick from Basil Dearden, and I promised to show it in the future. Now is the time. The League of Gentlemen may not feature on any official ‘Best Of…’ lists, but, well, I just love it. A bunch of army veterans who’ve fallen on hard times decide to use their military skills and discipline to rob a bank. It was all going so well, until they bumped into dear old ‘Bunny’ Warren…

Monday 7 Dec, 7pm

• (Miloš Forman, 1975)

We finish with another absolute banger, and a career-defining performance from Jack Nicholson as McMurphy, a petty criminal who fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than Pr*son. This is the ultimate example of anti-establishment film-making that defined the great American film revolution of the 1970s, and Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched has to be one of the greatest movie monsters of all time. The perfect way to head off for Christmas.

Event venue

Magdalen College, High Street, Oxford, United Kingdom

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