Castaway flicks

If you could only watch eight films, what would they be? Would you choose the ones you watch most often, or the ones you find artistically the best, or the ones which have the most personal meaning? Which would you throw into the life raft when you get wrecked on the desert island?

This book is one answer to that question: a subjective but rational choice to take one each of the first eight genres that came to mind. If I can only have one spy movie until rescue comes, what would be my ultimate example and why? Some acknowledged classics and a couple you might never have heard of before, a few tangents of film history and the business of storytelling – one person’s survival kit for the times you need a really special movie to cheer you up or make you cry