What is the most important film ever made? Not the best film ever made, that is an argument for another time, another place, and another bottle of wine, but the most important. The film that had the greatest influence. The film that changed cinema for the better. It’s a difficult question. There are many possible answers, there are probably just as many right answers as there are wrong. It’s also a rather subjective argument, maybe not as subjective as ‘the greatest film ever made’ but it’s right up there next to it. So in the kingdom of rightness where no one is wrong and all opinions are accepted, consider one film, Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City, the most important film ever made.

The Second World War signaled the end of the great modernist movement in both literature and film. A period where the cinematic greats of Lang, Chaplin, Bunuel…