Reservoir Dogs (199) Dir: Quentin Tarantino

There are films and then there are great films.
Reservoir Dogs, a movie that came as a real wake up call to the stagnating crime thriller genre, as taut a movie as it is possible to conceive is as effective and gripping now as the day it first baited the Daily Mail and it's ilk upon release.
In case you have been trapped in an alternate dimension for the past 18 years, here's the plot:
A small group of criminals are hired by Joe Cabot, an old timer crook and his son Nice Guy Eddie to pull a heist on a diamond merchant. The plan is simple. Two on crowd control, one watching the door, two snatching the jewels. The gang are known only by their codenames, all colours. Things turn ugly when Mr. Blonde starts a shooting spree in the store, the gang forced to flee and head to their rendezvous point, an abandoned warehouse, at least those who survived the hail of bullets from the cops who seemed to be on the scene surprisingly quickly.
In the warehouse, those that remain try to piece together what really happened, as well as determine who ratted them out, whilst the whole time Mr. Orange is bleeding to death from a gun shot wound to the gut.
By turns stomach churning and laugh out loud funny - though only those with a taste for the macabre need apply - the combination of Tarantino's razor sharp scripting and seat of the pants direction draws you in, the tension ratcheted up by degrees until the final calamitous moments, showing a mastery of the directorial art that belied his status as a debutante behind the lens.
The lead actors give remarkably emotional and powerful performances, particularly Tim Roth and Harvey Kietel though, perhaps, the star turn here is Michael Madsen as the psychopathic Blonde.
In addition, Tarantino's selection of music is just about flawless, every tune chosen to add an extra dynamic to the scenes as they unfold and, notoriously, Wes 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' Craven is alleged to have left the cinema in disgust during the infamous 'ear-lop' scene as he felt the use of music was actually offensive, somehow downplaying the gravity of the events on screen.
Either that or he was simply green with envy that many moons had elapsed since last he had managed to sicken the audience so.
Intelligent, harrowing and genuinely nerve shredding, this is simply a masterpiece.