Suspiria (1977) Director: Dario Argento Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci
If you have a list like this, it's almost impossible not to have an Italian horror movie on there. And it has to be one by Dario Argento, the grand old master of OTT gore and shrieking soundtracks. And if it's gotta be Dario, then it has to be Suspiria, his most unsettling, disturbing and finest film, in which a young American girl enrols at a dancing school in Rome, only to find it's a front for a… witches coven! Best bit? When a blind man gets senselessly butchered. By his own guide dog. Down, boy!
The Wild Bunch (1969) Director: Sam Peckinpah Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson
When, in 1993, Sam Peckinpah's gloriously gory Western was resubmitted to the MPAA ratings board, the movie went up from an R to an NC-17. As such, with its sense of cowboys operating at the turn of the century, The Wild Bunch should have been the last ever Western, as it took the sense of debunking Western mythology and intense violence to levels that have never been surpassed. The climactic shootout boasts 239 guns, 90,000 rounds of ammo (more than in the Mexican revolution) and 3,642 edits, and is justly hailed as a masterpiece of adult-orientated action - without it, John Woo would not have a career.
