Whit Stillman’s masterpiece explores the impossibly bookish lives of a group of young Manhattan socialites during party season as they talk their way through topics large and small. A glorious pre-internet film for an increasingly post-literate world.

James Marriott is a Times columnist, author and broadcaster. His new book out in May is called The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society. Manhattan is his favourite film.

One of the last great films of the twentieth century anticipates the century to come with vicious scapegoating, lunatic censorship and war with Canada. It’s just like being in 2026 – only a lot funnier.

Beeban Kidron was an award-winning filmmaker (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) and is now one of Britain’s leading campaigners against the power of big technology companies and on behalf of the rights of children. In our previous Regent Street Cinema season she was our guide to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Carol Reed’s classic film noir, with a screenplay by Graham Greene, is set in post-war Vienna and unravels a complex web of false identities and fake loyalties, of corruption and betrayal. A vision of Europe’s future – haunted by Europe’s past.

Misha Glenny is a journalist and broadcaster who has written widely about Central European politics and history and about international crime networks. His books include McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld. In 2026 he became the new host of BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time.

George Clooney’s take on McCarthyism and journalistic ethics tells the story of Edward Murrow and his attempt to marshal the power of television on the side of truth. A nostalgic vision of a world long gone – or a necessary reminder of what’s still worth fighting for?

Helen Lewis is a writer, broadcaster and prolific journalist whose work has appeared everywhere from The Atlantic to Private Eye. Her most recent book is The Genius Myth: The Curious History of a Dangerous Idea. Last year she was our guide to another film about television: Network.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s haunting 2005 novel of the lives and loves of human clones became an equally haunting and unsettling film five years later. How should we imagine a world in which some people exist to provide body parts for others? In what ways is this our world?

Adam Rutherford is a geneticist and science communicator who has written and broadcast widely about genetic engineering and the human future. He is a regular host of BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week and President of the British Humanist Association.