"Two films about the brutality of seeing (about cinema?), one directed by France’s answer to Fritz Lang, the other by the British Vincente Minnelli. And on the Franju DVD, there’s a precious extra: the 1949 short documentary Blood of the Beasts, a film that dares to look death in the eyes."

"Two films about the brutality of seeing (about cinema?), one directed by France’s answer to Fritz Lang, the other by the British Vincente Minnelli. And on the Franju DVD, there’s a precious extra: the 1949 short documentary Blood of the Beasts, a film that dares to look death in the eyes."

"I’ve never been a huge fan of David Lean’s epics and think the modest British films he did in the 1940s are superior. I also wouldn’t have thought he had a glimmer of humor, but this film is witty, and the actors (even Charles Laughton) have been directed with insight."

"My favorite film of the past decade. A funny-sad tapestry of slummy British life and a portrait of a striver poking her way up through the concrete. Best dance sequences and best sound design and best use of Nas. See Michael Fassbender begin his reign as resident psychosexual nightmare heartthrob here."

"When Peeping Tom was released in 1960 it was savaged by critics who’d seen the film at a special press screening. Those British critics must have been outraged with Michael Powell, whom they had trusted as a director who would reinforce their British identity and value system. That trust must have been completely broken by this scathing indictment of voyeurism and extreme violence. There are many similarities between this and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, released the same year, and Hitchcock shrewdly avoided press screening his film after having seen Powell’s fate just a few months before. Powell’s career was over, with the exception of a few obscure projects, but the culture of slasher films was just beginning. And whether people realized it or not, this was ground zero. Critical reappraisal of Peeping Tom has secured the film where it belongs, in the category of crucially important cinema. Personally, I prefer Powell’s film to Hitchcock’s, but both should be regarded as examples of great horror cinema that demands critical thought and analysis."