Where once our movie choices were limited by physical availability, now we have apparently limitless uncurated digital content; the mind reels at its vastness. So sometimes we need a “gateway” film for directors, an entry point which might not necessarily be that film-maker’s most famous work – being, as it may be, unhelpfully commercial or atypical. For Nagisa Oshima, you might not want to start with the sexually explicit In the Realm of the Senses or the David Bowie vehicle Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence: it could be more fruitful to begin with his more indirectly disturbing Max Mon Amour. For Howard Hawks … where to begin? Red River is the classic western but perhaps the gorgeous comedy His Girl Friday will better smooth the path to the rest of his work. And yet often the most famous is the most direct path: for Satyajit Ray, Pather Panchali is the most seductive way in. We need the keynote films to bring in all the rest. Peter Bradshaw
