“If there’s one thing this last week has taught me, it’s better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.” A young unknown by the name of Quentin Tarantino sold his script for True Romance for the union set minimum of $50.000 and saw his ‘lovers on the run’ pic make it fairly intact (except for the ending) to the big screen.

“How can we be happy behind the backs of people who trust us?” Martin Scorsese mentioned in an interview that The Age of Innocence is his “most violent film”. Quite a statement as this seemingly tepid period drama is sandwiched between his splatter-filled gangster classics Goodfellas and Casino. But the “violence” here is the unspoken, the willfully ignored and the quietly yearned for.

“Life, uhm… finds a way.” This must be the first film we watched more than twice in cinemas upon its release and with the barrage of mediocre-to-atrocious sequels seemingly hellbent on destroying our Spielberg-induced sense of wonder, it’s vital to experience this blockbuster masterpiece once again.

“You ready?! Here come the pain!” Brian De Palma’s wryly melancholic and visually dazzling Spanish Harlem gangster epic boasts a fantastic cast of character actors with Sean Penn, John Leguizamo, Penelope Ann Miller, Luis Guzman and a delightfully accented Viggo Mortensen, led of course by the big man himself.

“I loved you in Wall Street!” Spoof comedies were all the rage back in the early ’90s but none topped Topper Harley’s second adventure taking the absolute piss out of the Rambo franchise and a slew of other movies, contemporary pop culture, and then ‘Murica’s Enemy #1 Saddam.

“I didn’t kill my wife!” “I don’t care!” As a genre, the mid-budget, well made and solidly acted action-thriller anchored by a big star and a seasoned supporting cast has all but disappeared from the current Hollywood slate, and that’s a damn shame. The Fugitive was – and still is – one of the best in the genre.

“Vengeance blackens the soul, Bruce. I’ve always feared that you would become that which you fought against.” In the golden age of animated series Batman reigned supreme. Its stunning 50’s inspired noir aesthetic, the emotional depth of the writing, and the exceptional voice acting by (amongst others) the sadly departed Kevin Conroy, who provided a layered and palpably conflicted quality to Bruce Wayne and his alter ego.

“Destiny is something we’ve invented because we can’t stand the fact that everything that happens is accidental.” The late ’80s and early ’90s were the romantic comedy apex and the endearing trifecta of Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Nora Ephron produced one of the genre’s very best.

“I lost my job. Well, actually I didn’t lose it, it lost me. I am over-educated, under-skilled. Maybe it’s the other way around, I forget. But I’m obsolete. I’m not economically viable.” Since its release and thirty additional years of “unprecedented” economic – and climate related events, the sentiments, motivations and subsequent actions explored in Falling Down have only become more understandable, if never acceptable.