Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1

Essential, and the strangest decision the series made. Splitting the last book in two gave this half no school, no term structure, no Hogwarts and no climax, and the film commits to that completely: it is two and a half hours of three teenagers camping in forests while the war they should be fighting is lost somewhere else.

The commitment is what makes it good. There is a long middle section with almost no plot in it, where the three are cold, frightened, bickering and wearing an object that makes each of them worse, and the series has never otherwise had room to simply sit with its characters. The silent dance to a radio song in a tent is the most adult scene in the eight films.

The opening twenty minutes are the best action in the series: a chase above a motorway, the raid on the Ministry, and a wedding interrupted by a single silver light arriving over the marquee. The sense of a government falling is conveyed in about four shots.

The Tale of the Three Brothers, a three-minute animated sequence in shadow puppetry, is the best thing anyone made in this franchise and is worth the film on its own. It ends on a death and a grave, with nothing resolved. Have Part 2 to hand.