25 Greatest Warner Bros Movies Ever

Along with the likes of Paramount, 20th Century Fox and Disney, "Warner Bros" exists in a special band of super-brands that dominate Hollywood, representing as big a presence and personality in film-making as individual directors and actors. Over the course almost 100 years of releasing films, the studio has made a phenomenal amount of money as well as carving out several indelible trenches into the collected cultural consciousness, with superheroes, regular heroes and beautiful stories defining that new landscape.

With the studio releasing a new set of home releases under the Iconic Moments Collection celebrating the best films and moments in its illustrious history, now is the perfect time to consider the truly great marks the studio has made on the big screen.

From Batman to The Exorcist, these are the greatest ever Warner Bros releases (discounting retroactive acquisitions). And please be assured: Police Academy: Mission To Moscow JUST missed out.

If the best indicator of great, complete animations is universal appeal and emotional heft, The Iron Giant deserves to be considered up there with the best that Disney, Pixar and Studio Ghibli ever managed.

It's your typical coming of age story: boy meets big alien robot, boy befriends big alien robot, the government gets wind and tries to kill the big alien robot... It's classic stuff. And the film's success comes down to Brad Bird's knack for story-telling, for gut-punching emotional impact and for hugely charming characters.

He took Ted Hughes' poem, stripped away the original idea of Pete Townsend to do it as a musical and kept a tight story with a very simple, very compelling central message. The animation is lovely (particularly on the robot), and Vin Diesel proved years before Groot that there's an intangible depth of emotion to his gravelly tones that's just right for heart-breaking monsters.