Don Quixote

Thus far, Grigori Kozintsev’s 1957 Russian version of Cervantes’s novel remains the definitive cinematic take, and, frankly, it’s hard to imagine that either of the legendary unfinished projects by Orson Welles or Terry Gilliam could have matched this serious, witty, heartfelt and incredibly moving translation. A plea for hope, justice and the preservation of innocence in a cynical, unimaginative world, Kozintsev’s film must have seemed entirely at odds with the increasingly repressive Soviet system under which it was made.

Nikolai Cherkasov makes for a sympathetic, fragile Quixote, while Yuri Tolubeyev is the perfect Sancho Panza: goofy, lovable, wise and enduringly loyal. Shot in the Crimea – which doubles surprisingly well for seventeenth-century Spain – the Leone-esque widescreen compositions are breathtaking: indeed, the final landscape shot may be one of the most beautiful in cinema.