300 – 480 years before the birth of the luminary who spawned almost all societal conventions, a group of 300 Spartans slew an encroaching force of bloodthirsty Persians. What remains confusing is that these Hellenic guards of the elite speak with British accents. This, however, aids a much-needed cachet to an otherwise boorish medley of blood and togas.

Director: Zack Snyder
Release date: 9 March 2007
Cast: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, Vincent Regan, Tom Wisdom, David Wenham

Apocalypto – Say what you will about Mel Gibson but no one can deny his ability to direct a solid film. No film has ever covered the Mayan civilization like this with such epic scale and detail before. It’s so detailed that all the cast were unknowns to enhance in the movies believability and all the dialogue was in an ancient Mayan language. Everything about this movie shines and would take an extremely nitpicky person to find the chinks in its armor.

Director: Mel Gibson
Release date: 8 December 2005
Cast: Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez, Johntahtan Brewer, Morris Birdyellowhead

Batman Begins – The regenesis of the Batman, this movie uncovers the menial grunting and laboring behind the multi-billion dollar entity that is Batman. Bruce Wayne is almost too sleek and makes Bill Gates look like your local panhandler. He does everything with class – including abrogating villains bent on the obliteration of his beloved Gotham.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Release date: 15 June 2005
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Katie Holmes, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson

Blood Diamond – This 2006 film did wonders to open the doors to an ugly and emotionless industry. Fraught with corruption and unethical trading, the diamond industry is the root cause for civil wars and terror attacks in some parts of Africa. Children are raised to fight in those wars or end up working in the mines. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Danny Archer, an ex mercenary diamond smuggler who is on the hunt for a rare red diamond in Sierra Leone. Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a local, knows where this diamond is but insists Archer help him rescue his son and wife before he gets to know where the stone is being hidden. Blood Diamond is the type of film that changes the perspective on a glamorous, fancy and seemingly perfect world.

Director: Edward Zwick
Released: 8 December 2006
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly

The Bourne series – Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne, a secret agent with no memory, and no idea why all these other secret agents are trying to kill him. He kills enemy agents without compunction, stomps trained assassins as if they were ants and does so while retaining a disposition as staid as effigies. Jason Bourne is too cool.

Director: Doug Liman, Paul Greengrass
Released: 14 June 2002 – 23 July 2004 – 3 August 2007
Cast: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, David Strathairn, Brian Cox.

Braveheart – Although semi-recent anti-Semitic diatribes and public intoxication charges may be a knock against Mel Gibson, he can always use triumphs such as Braveheart as a crutch. Directed by Gibson, starring Gibson, Braveheart documents the Scottish insurrection against brutal English imperialism. Talk about this gem over chilled $10 pints of the dark stuff at the Scottish Embassy.

Director: Mel Gibson
Released: 24 May 1995
Cast: Leonardo Mel Gibson, James Robinson, Sean Lawlor, Sandy Nelson

Casino Royale – When it was decided that the 21st film in the Bond franchise would signal a reboot, there was a great deal of speculation as to the identity of the new 007. Daniel Craig, the little known star of mediocre London gangland flick Layer Cake, was picked. The new films drew on Sir Ian Fleming’s novels for inspiration – less saucy innuendo, more brooding and bare-handed neck snapping. Thankfully not all the formula changed as they still had the good sense to include a drop dead gorgeous double-agent in the form of Eva Green.

Director: Martin Campbell
Released: 17 November 2006
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench

The Dark Knight – Gentleman industrialist Bruce Wayne regales millionaires and associates by day and by night hunts down the most psychopathic villain Gotham has encountered in its fictional history. The role of the Joker fell to Heath Ledger, which would make The Dark Knight the most over-hyped film since Waterworld. However Ledger’s eerie performance as the maniacal Joker delivered on that hype, and made this movie.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Released: 18 July 2008
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman

Die Hard – There was a point when Bruce Willis was a charming comic actor – this was before Die Hard became revered as the king of action films. This was also before he was capitulated into the seductive grips of alcoholism and whoring. Yet it’s often that those twin vices – alcoholism and whoring – are the staples of any good industrialist’s life. Die Hard was exactly what the early nineties needed after a decade of metro-sexuality.

Director:John McTiernan
Released: 15 July 1988
Cast: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson

Enter the Dragon – Bruce Lee triggered the current Pan-Asian influx we witness on our city streets. When you order your seaweed salad to be washed down by blistering green tea, you have him to thank. Enter the Dragon was his magnum opus. Lee dressed well, and subscribed himself to a life of fitness and learning. We can only hope to follow in his barefooted steps. Enter the Dragon was less martial arts exploitation and more martial arts masterpiece.

Director: Robert Clouse
Release date: 19 August 1973
Cast: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Kien Shih

Fight Club – Chuck Palahunik has this unique ability to tap into the neuroses of modern man. In Fight Club, he deconstructs man’s confusion of manhood in an era of manscaping and bromances. Edward Norton and Brad Pitt disassemble the essence of the man into a fist pounding into a face for the sheer feeling of it.

Director: David Fincher
Release date: 15 October 1999
Cast: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf

Full Metal Jacket – We’ve all fantasized about mowing down the pesky executive with automatic gunfire. Although this isn’t exactly what transpires in Full Metal Jacket, something of a similar nature goes down. Full Metal Jacket brings the military dynamic to your high-rise condo. After watching this you’ll never be hurtful to an underachiever again.

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Released: 26 June 1987
Cast: Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Three malefactors scour the dessert in search of buried confederate gold. This “Italian epic spaghetti western” grossed 7 million on opening night, in 1967. An exorbitant sum of money. It also features Clint Eastwood in his virile prime. A film list for the refined bereft of this movie would be without a soul.

Director: Sergio Leone
Release date: 23 Decmber 1963
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Aldo Giuffre, Mario Brega

Gladiator – Ancient Rome was a barbaric place. It was also refined, as it set the groundwork for what was to become the culture envied by the world’s elite. Russell Crowe plays Maximus, a forsaken general of the Roman army in pursuit of revenge. He re-emerges in the city of Rome as a gladiator, and the plot takes a turn for the savage.

Director: Ridley Scott
Release date: 5 May 2000
Cast: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielson, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi

Hero – Hero embroils the shrewd Jet Li a in series of acrobatic conflicts with other martial artists in days of the Qin Dynasty. It is the highest grossing motion picture in Chinese film history, which gives it default standing on the DVD rack of all gents of rectitude.

Director: Zhang Yimou
Release date: 27 August 2004
Cast: Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Daoming, Donnie Yen

In Bruges – Bruges happens to be one of the oldest cities in Europe. That must mean it has played host to a great deal of chivalry, and of course refinement. In Bruges plants Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in this city as two hitmen waiting for an assignment as one suffers from a massive crisis of identity and the other weighs friendship against professionalism. It all goes to hell soon enough though with Colin Farrell right in the middle with the beautiful city of Bruges as a backdrop.

Director: Martin McDonagh
Released: 17 January 2008
Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clémence Poésy

The Indiana Jones Trilogy – The modern manual on how to be a swashbuckler, this is the seminal Harrison Ford series. Forget the latest movie, the original three are where it’s at. Ford was born to play rouges and scoundrels, and he’s at his best here. Indiana Jones is the new renaissance man that we should all aspire to be like. Gracious and intelligent while in the classroom, and courageous and fearless in the field.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Release date: 12 June 1981 – 23 May 1984 – 24 May 1989
Cast: Harrison Ford, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliot, Karen Elliot, Sean Connery

Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2 – Boasting a voluptuous cast of sword swinging, high kicking starlets, Kill Bill captivated our minds and quenched our desire for pseudo-martial arts exploitation in the 21st century. It created an ironclad fidelity between Tarantino and his subjects, and gave men of fine repute reasons to fraternize with the lesser earth dwellers at movie theaters.

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Release date: 16 April 2004 – 10 October 2003
Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Samuel L. Jackson, Gordon Liu, Lucy Liu, Sonny Chiba

King Kong – Peter Jackson’s vision of the giant ape is the new definitive vision of the story of the great beast. Jack Black does a turn as the manipulative director hungry for blood and willing to exploit the great gorilla to do so. The plot is familiar to all of us, and Jackson does an impressive job in interpreting this classic for an entirely new generation.

Director: Peter Jackson
Released: 14 December 2005
Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody

Lethal Weapon (series) – Now this is the Mel Gibson we all fell in love with. His character, Riggs, is a bat-shit crazy cop who doesn’t have a problem putting his life on the line to nab a crook. Paired up with Roger ‘I’m getting too old for this shit’ Murtough (Danny Glover), they set the bar for buddy-cop movies for years. The suicidal cop-with-nothing-to-lose, the villain with diplomatic immunity, the silent foreign enforcer – while Lethal Weapon may not have originated some of these tropes, they perfected them.

Director: Richard Donner
Released: 6 March 1987 – 7 July 1989 – 15 May 1992 – 10 July 1998
Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock, Jet Li

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels – A group of proletarian goons decide to play some cards and end up a half million pounds in debt to a some bourgeoisie goons. The bourgeoisie goons give Lock, Stock its kingly appeal, a good showing of arbitrary gunfire and pre-Snatch style narrative from Guy Ritchie.

Director: Guy Ritchie
Released: 5 March 1999
Cast: Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Jason Statham

Predator – How can one extract sophistication from a movie about extraterrestrial bloodlust? It’s actually rather elementary: Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bulking former Mr. Universe duels an unrelenting beast from another planet in a movie, which retooled the sci-fi template and gave us some brilliant Arnie quotes for the ages.

Director: John McTiernan
Released: 12 June 1987
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elpidia Carraro, Kevin Peter Hall, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura

Pulp Fiction – Tarantino has a breadwinner with Pulp Fiction. Not only does its sexy cast and score draw the lettered, its grinding mayhem and twists attract those of lesser social standing. Amidst a cornucopia of others who attempt to replicate its absurdity to disaffect, Pulp Fiction is a timeless film.

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Release date: 14 October 1994
Cast: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer,
Eric Stoltz, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Uma Thurman

Resevoir Dogs – Quentin Tarantino may be the king of gore, guts and… well, more gore, but his debut film Reservoir Dogs falls on the lower end of the F***ed-Up-Tarantino-Flick spectrum. The film follows a group of gangsters in the aftermath of a diamond heist gone wrong. What ensues is a great deal of gun pointing, one tortured cop, the hunt for a rat, and a great deal of tough-guy banter.

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Released: 23 October 1992
Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi and Quentin Tarantino.

The Rocky series – Sly Stallone punched out an enclave in the hearts of those who took in Rocky. Stallone’s boxing epic reshaped the way the average underdog thought. The refined gentleman took boxing lessons after this film, while boxers themselves took a cue from Rocky’s rope-a-dope technique. The box-set of all six films – tagged with a rather outrageous price makes a fine stocking stuffer.

Director: John G. Avildsen, Sylvester Stallone,
Released: 3 December 1976 – 15 June 1979 – 28 May 1982 – 27 November 1985 – 16 November 1990 – 20 December 2006
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Mr. T, Dolph Lundgren

Shaft – For many, Shaft is the definitive blaxploitation film. Richard Roundtree plays the black private detective who tears through 1970s New York City to find a missing girl. With a leather trenchcoat instead of a tux, and the streets of Harlem instead of London, John Shaft is a brutal, black Bond. Helping him along the way is a slick soundtrack with contributions by Isaac Hayes.

Director: Gordon Parks
Release date: 2 July 1971
Cast: Richard Roundtree, Christopher St. John, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi

Sin City – A culmination of Mike Miller’s disfigured child, Sin City is the noir graphic novel brilliantly rendered to screen. Mickey Rourke – once a chivalrous heartthrob – partakes in the bedlam, smashing pixilated skulls with ardor. Frank Miller opens up the heart of a city and shows us the brutal underbelly that we can’t help but stare at. The cast of deadly femme-fatales gives the distinguished an excuse to own this cult-classic.

Director: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino (guest director)
Released: 17 January 2008
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Michael Madsen, Jamie King, Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Rosario Dawson

Terminator 2: Judgment Day – The cyborg that was sent to hunt down Sarah Connor has returned to protect her son from another cyborg with excessive bloodlust. The smooth and anemic-looking Edward Furlong plays John Connor. Arnold Schwarzenegger is nominal star of the cast. Even the noble must consecrate a day or two to mindless sci-fi trite.

Director: James Cameron
Released: 3 July 1991
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick

The Usual Suspects – The police discovery of a destroyed boat precipitates an investigation into the multifarious world of five criminals, with a seemingly crippled man as their sole witness to the tumult. The mastermind behind it all is purportedly the enigmatic Kesyer Söze. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”

Director: Bryan Singer
Released: 16 August 1995
Cast: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak

Training Day – A naive police officer (Ethan Hawke) gets introduced to the realities of being a Narcotics Detective in Los Angeles. Denzel Washington sways from his usual gentlemanly constitution and takes on the role of a corrupt, backstabbing cop who acts with impunity wherever he goes. It’s true; King Kong doesn’t have shit on him.

Director: Antoine Fuqua
Release Date: 5 October 2001
Cast: Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Tom Berenger

True Romance – This unconventional love story, written by Quentin Tarantino, finds Christian Slater (Clarence) and Rosemary Arquette (Alabama) as two star-crossed lovers who happen to be on the run from a cocaine dealing pimp played by Gary Oldman in a dreadlocked wig. Brad Pitt’s brief cameo as a couch potato stoner is also worth the wait.

Director: Tony Scott
Release Date: 10 September 1993
Cast: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken

Yojimbo – This is the seminal samurai movie. Toshiro Mifune plays the titular Yojimbo, a wandering Samurai hired as a bodyguard. When he arrives in a small town torn apart by gang war, he plays both sides against each other to bring peace to the villagers and so he might be left alone. This film was so influential, that Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone would remake it as A Fistful of Dollars.

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Release date: 25 April 1961
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai