10 astonishing black and white movies you have to see

A black and white film that takes place entirely in one room may not immediately sound thrilling. But Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men is utterly engaging from the first minute to the last. Twelve New York jurors passionately argue whether or not a teenager should be found guilty of killing his father. As the heat in the room (literally) increases, tensions mount and prejudices begin to show. The dialogue is snappy and relentless, the acting is perfect and the sense of claustrophobia is almost unbearable.

No horror film made eighty years ago has any right to be quite this disturbing. Dead of Night is unsettling to say the least, even now. A man arrives at a creepy English country house, meeting a group of strangers he feels he has seen somewhere before, but quite can’t place when. Each guest then reveals their own story with a supernatural twist. While all the tales hang together and ramp up the sense of something being very wrong, it’s the final ‘Ventriloquist’s dummy’ sequence that features a pant-soiling ending that would fully unnerve audiences here in 2024, let alone during World War Two, when let's face it things were scary enough.

A true epic, this Herculean Japanese effort was at the time the most expensive movie ever made in the country, but went on to influence films from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings to the James Bond series to The Matrix. An action-packed account of desperate farmers hiring a squad of Samurai fighters to fend off thieves intent on stealing their crops, it’s a three-and-a-half-hour lesson in storytelling, movie making and male bonding that genuinely rewards the time invested in seeing it.

Although Frank Capra’s classic starring James “Jimmy” Stewart has become something of a Christmas cliche, the reality is this tale of a suicidal man despairing at a world seemingly valuing money over morals couldn’t be more relevant today. It’s a much darker narrative than you’d imagine. It's a Wonderful Life takes Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and plunges it into a world of alcoholism, death, sleaze and war. Fear not, though. The tear-jerking, greetings card-worthy ending will have you reaching for the tissues and a loved one full of turkey to squeeze.

Diminutive waddle-walking pioneer Charlie Chaplin may be instantly recognisable, even to younger folk today, but most people have never actually seen any of his movies. While later in his career he went on to star in classics like the Hitler-skewing (and brave choice) The Great Dictator, it was his incredible silent work that made him a worldwide icon. The Kid encapsulates why, as Chaplin packs laughs, tears, special effects and action into this heartbreaking story of a penniless vagrant who finds an abandoned baby and raises it as his own.

Polish-born American screenwriter and director Billy Wilder is not the household name he should be - despite having helmed movies as influential and highly-regarded as Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment. The latter makes this list, mainly for its writing, which is as sharp and snappy as any movie made this century. The chaotic, exasperated performance of Jack Lemmon - the office clerk who allows his bosses to conduct extra-marital affairs in his home in a vain attempt to get promoted - is also unforgettable.

Long, long before Bruce Willis's shocking fate was revealed at the end of The Sixth Sense, there was a movie with a twist so surprising that a message before the final credits begged cinema goers not to reveal what they’d just seen. Another film directed by the peerless Billy Wilder, Witness for the Prosecution is primarily a courtroom drama involving a murder trial where not everything (or everyone) is as it seems, as an elderly lawyer recovering from a heart attack fights to clear his mysterious client’s name.

Link British director extraordinaire Alfred Hitchcock with a black and white movie and most will suggest his dead-mother-masterpiece Psycho - but in terms of quality, this film goes toe-to-toe with Norman Bates and his creepy hotel. Hitchcock gets his premise in early - two men meet for the first time on a train, each has someone they’d like to have ‘taken care of’ and the idea of swapping victims to avoid suspicion arises. We won’t give too much away, but you’ll be hooked within ten minutes as Sir Alfred brilliantly shows why he earned the nickname ‘master of suspense’.

So many things about Casablanca are now so entirely iconic, from the dialogue to the music to the acting to the cinematography, it's now almost impossible to have a first viewing without jumping up every few minutes and exclaiming “that’s where I know it from!” But in truth that won’t matter a jot as you find yourself transported to wartime Morocco, to Rick’s Cafe, to a story of double-crossing, secret papers, Nazi officials and, eventually, of having to sacrifice true love for the better of all concerned.

Another work of genius from Billy Wilder, who we make no apologies for including three times on this list. His movies are that good. This gripping LA noire features smooth-talking insurance salesman Fred McMurray, who concocts a fiendish plot with the frankly smoking-hot Barbara Stanwyck to bump off her wealthy husband so they can pocket the cash and be together forever. But his long-suffering coworker is a maestro at seeing through insurance fraud and deftly begins to unravel the deception.