Film history

Darren Aronofsky's radical drug-addiction drama was highly acclaimed and angrily slated when it came out in 2000. Today, this Hubert Selby Jr adaptation is no less contentious.

When Midnight Cowboy came out 56 years ago this week, it instantly upended Hollywood's idea of a mainstream hit. In its Academy Award-winning year, the BBC spoke to one of its actors.

Decades before Tom Cruise was making audiences gasp, the Gallic star was getting up to even more hair-raising exploits on screen – sometimes with few safety measures.

Seventy years old this year, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques is a masterclass in macabre dread – and inspired Hitchcock's classic among others.

Fifty years after Monty Python and the Holy Grail redefined comedy, stars Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam look back on the freedoms – and limitations – that shaped the film.

New film Being Maria explores the life of Maria Schneider and her mistreatment in one of the most notorious, explicit scenes in cinema history.

In March 1944, 76 officers broke out of a German prisoner-of-war camp. In 1977, a key member of the escape team talked to the BBC about the mission, and the Hollywood film it inspired.

Stylish and experimental, Breathless heralded a new era of film-making when it was released 65 years ago. In 1964, its director told the BBC why he broke every rule he could.