The Story of Film: An Odyssey

Mark Cousins' series is now up to episode 3 of 15 on More4. You've only got 12 days left to catch Episode 1 on demand. Cousins' dry delivery takes a bit of getting used to, but the series is required watching for anyone who's interested in film.

What I've found fascinating is how radical much early cinema still looks: the horse-mounted shots from Abel Gance's Napoleon wouldn't look out of place in a modern film, and the stark framing and brutal closeups of Dreyer's Joan of Arc look much more recent than the 1920s. Yes, you could find out about all these films from books (including Cousins' own book on which the series is based) but seeing them makes so much difference.

The series has much more of an emphasis on world cinema (non-Hollywood and non-Western) than many film histories.