A certified celluloid classic, a crowd-pleasing trilogy, and an original if less than definitive "history" of the cinema: there's something for everybody this week.
Thursday: Citizen Kane is the Ulysses of film: hugely influential, yet more talked about than seen. But its ubiquitous position atop the American Film Institute's list of all-time great movies remains deserved - nobody developed the language of cinema, and invented so many of the techniques we now take for granted in our fillums, as much as Orson Welles did in his astonishing debut. It's showing at BFI Southbank at 8.40pm, tickets £8.60 or £6.25 concessions.
Sunday: Fancy a spot of weekend masochism? The Rio in Dalston have taken the brave step of showing, in its entirety, Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinema (pictured). Made over ten years, this is, being Godard, no mere whimsical trawl the medium from Lumiere to Lucas, but a baffling montage of images and sounds, juxtaposed together into a mood-piece some four hours in length and eschewing clear meaning at every cut. Histoire(s) du Cinema is required viewing for the Godard completist but perhaps not the ideal film to watch on a first date. Tickets are £10/£8 concessions, and the show begins at 1pm.
Or... if you'd prefer an equally long, if not so obtuse, afternoon's worth of entertainment, then drop in to the Roxy where the Indiana Jones trilogy will be playing from 2pm. £3 cover charge gets you entry to the first three films. Any mention of the Crystal Skull is strictly verboten.
Monday: A fine Hitchcock double-bill graces the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square this evening. At 6.40pm, join a wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart as he investigates the odd goings-on out the back of his apartment in Rear Window. Then let Bernard Hermann's still-sinister score slide down your neck as a startled Janet Leigh is surprised in the shower by a certain Norman Bates: Psycho is on at 9.00pm.
Tuesday: Despite, or perhaps because of, it's strict theocratic government, Iran has produced some of the finest arthouse films over recent decades. Samira Makhmalbaf was barely 20 when she made Blackboards in 2000, yet this story of Kurdish teachers fleeing the Iran-Iraq war claimed awards at Cannes and other festivals. It's on at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, at 6pm. Tickets are £7.50, £6.50 concessions, and the tickets will also get you into Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame right afterward.
