Brazil [1985] by Terry Gilliam

The story of a daydreaming file-clerk battling the Orwellian "Ministry of Information" as he searches for the girl of his dreams echoes Gilliam's own much-publicised off-screen battle with the monolithic workings of MCA, specifically its president Sidney J Sheinberg, whom the director successfully fought for the right to final cut. Gilliam's finished film is notable for its uniquely claustrophobic atmosphere, like an inescapable fever dream somewhere between Kafka and Monty Python, and set within one of the most brilliantly realised dystopias in sci-fi cinema. In 2004, Total Film named Brazil the 20th-greatest British movie of all time. In 2005, Time film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel included Brazil in an unordered list of the 100 best films of all time. In 2006, Channel 4 voted Brazil one of the "50 Films to See Before You Die", shortly before its broadcast on FilmFour. The film also ranks at number 83 in Empire magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Films of All Time". Wired ranked Brazil at number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci-fi movies. Entertainment Weekly listed Brazil as the sixth-best science-fiction piece of media released since 1982. The magazine also ranked the film number 13 on its list of "The Top 50 Cult Films". The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction (Norman Garwood, Maggie Gray). In 2016, the Directors Guild of America ranked the film 70th on its list of The 80 Best-Directed Films since the Guild’s founding in 1936.