Winner of a Foreign Language Oscar, this modern classic is fierce, cool, grim and utterly absorbing. Exploring the bleak reality of what lay beyond Check Point Charlie, The Lives of Others offers towering performances from Martina Gedeck and Sebastian Koch, but it is Ulrich Mühe, as the anti-hero Stasi man Wiesler, who is utterly outstanding.

If you haven’t seen this, you must. And even if you have, seize the rare opportunity to see it again, on the big screen.