Rabbit Proof Fence is our film of the decade - see the great movies it beat to the number 1 spot.

Every year, the run-up to Halloween sees the month of October bloated with unremarkable yet strangely appealing horror films. 2009, it appears, is no exception.

In the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha, Terry Gilliam’s struggle to get his movie adaptation of Don Quixote off the ground was brought to the screen in all its honest glory. Unfortunately, even with the likes of Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort working on the project, Gilliam’s film was doomed never to see the light of day.

An image is a powerful thing. From the moment we are born, we are visual creatures and, since the beginning of time, mankind has reflected upon what he has seen around him. This gave birth to that most human form of conscious externalization: artistic expression. The ancient cave dwellers faithfully rendered their visual experiences onto the walls of their homes to be discovered by modern explorers thousands of years later. These dreamlike etchings lost none of their resonance because we too can understand the innate desire to recreate the experience of the everyday. And, as mankind developed an ever more complex consciousness, he developed ever more complex methods in which to pursue artistic activity. Those of us alive today can bear witness to incredible technological innovation in cinematography, cinema being the 20th century response to artistic expression. Cinema has become a powerful tool for addressing the myriad of issues that we face in our nascent century.

Or perhaps that should be six, given Antarctica’s apparent lethargy regarding a film industry of its own? This understandable anomaly aside, the places and importance film introduces in our daily lives – and on a global scale – is undeniable. The images projected on the big screen impact lives in numerous ways. They can be enriching, uplifting, depressing, transforming, even defining. Questions of how, why, and for whom the art form has this effect will have answers equally numerous, equally complex, and equally changeable. Yet the keys to both issues are held by the same men: the giants of filmmaking, to whom individuals and industry owe so much. So, to which of our continents’ active representatives are we most indebted?

This summer sees the revival of two of Hollywood’s biggest franchises. One is set in a future where mankind has put aside its differences and united in peace to explore the galaxy. The other also presents a future where the human race is united; unfortunately, in this case, to fight against a race of sentient machines trying to destroy us all. The two films may seem worlds apart, but Star Trek and Terminator Salvation share a good deal of common ground; they both re-introduce characters and stories many of us grew up with and loved, and they are both contenders for blockbuster of the year.

“All my life, I wanted to be famous,” explained Michael Peterson, aka Charles Bronson, to his captive onlookers at the start of Nicolas Winding Refn’s new biopic Bronson. And so begins the story of Britain’s most violent prisoner. The depiction of Bronson throughout the film is remarkably poignant and alludes to a figure entirely removed from society (both physically and metaphorically), but who has become an institutional-like landmark of Britain in himself; one whom audiences have occupied themselves with throughout his career as a celebrity prisoner.

There was hardly a thing not achieved by Benjamin Franklin in his lifetime: political theorist, scientist, inventor, statesman and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. He was also very well known for his discoveries in electricity. For example, he concluded that “vitreous” and “resinous” electricity were not different, but rather positive and negative, respectively.

“Afghanistan” is synonymous with war, former suppression under the Taliban and tragic conflict. This image, however, fails to present a vivid picture of the ordinary lives in Afghanistan and, in particular, fails to represent the lives of the women who live there today. Celebrating talented female directors around the globe, the recent Bird’s Eye View Film Festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts has enabled several films featuring this lesser-known Afghanistan to come to light.

Martin Sheen, the thudding beat of helicopter blades and the sound of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” springing to life. It is one of many iconic scenes in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979). The camera cranes over the landscape of Vietnam as civilians are fired at from American choppers. The sequence is at once gripping, beautiful and shocking.