10 Visual Movie Masterpieces You've Probably Never Seen

2. The Conformist

A film about an unprincipled man's attempt to fit into a fascist society by agreeing to assassinate his former professor hardly sounds like a premise for a sumptuous-looking film, but it is The Conformist's aesthetic beauty which makes the central character seem all the more ugly. Directed by Bernardo Bertalucci and photographed by Vittorio Storaro - who later went on to work on Apocalypse Now - The Conformist is widely considered one of the most influential films of the 1970s, providing a blueprint for a new wave of cinema, particularly the New Hollywood masters who were hugely influenced by art house and international movies. Each frame of The Conformist oozes style, its model-like actors lit with expressionistic shadows, followed by a camera which constantly reconstructs the space around them. Movies rarely look this sexy.