Even though colour in the cinema had became commonplace by the early 1950s, black and white films were still popular in the 1960s, with Psycho, The Apartment, Seconds, Dr Strangelove, Andrei Rublev, La Dolce Vita and 8½ being just a few fine examples. By the 1970s it had lost its popularity but it’s still been used since then to iconic effect in films including Eraserhead (1977), The Elephant Man (1980), Raging Bull (1980), Schindler’s List (1993), La Haine (1995), Pleasantville (1998) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000). And there’s been no shortage of them in the 21st century.

1. Cold War (Pawlikowski, 2018)
A turbulent post-war love story which takes us from Poland to Paris. See also the director’s earlier Ida (2014).

2. Embrace of the Serpent (Guerra, 2015)
Based loosely on the travel journals of South American explorers Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes, with an added dose of Herzog and Apocalypse Now to create a transcendent, spiritual cinematic experience.

3. The Saddest Music in the World (Maddin, 2003)
Experimental musical set in the 1930s in Winnipeg with Isabella Rossillini playing a baroness with glass legs filled with beer who organises a competition to find the world’s saddest music. Canadian cult auteur Guy Maddin has been making mad films for some time. Most of them are set in Winnipeg and have a silent-era feel to them. Try the six-minute short The Heart of the World for a taster.

4. The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009)
Children are being attacked in a German village in 1913 in Haneke’s disturbing and mysterious film.

5. Hard to be a God (German, 2013)
An extraordinary Bosch-like vision of medieval hell, all mud and guts. The synopsis ‘scientists are sent to the planet Arkanar to help a medieval civilization and to rescue intellectuals’ bears little resemblance to the actual film.

6. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Amirpour, 2014)
First ever black and white Iranian vampire western. Great eclectic soundtrack with echos of Morricone.

7. The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011)
Joyful homage to the silent era of cinema.

8. Bait (Jenkin, 2019)
Stunningly original Cornish drama exposing the tensions between Cornish locals and London second home owners.

9. November (Sarnet, 2017)
Weird and wonderful supernatural tale with lashings of humour.

10. The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019)
Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson ‘drunken and deranged’ as lighthouse keepers in the 19th century stuck on a remote island.

See also: The Painted Bird (2019), Nebraska (2013), Frances Ha (2012) and Control (2007). Roma (2018) and Mank (2020) are two black and white Netflix releases which I was somewhat underwhelmed by, despite or because of all their plaudits. Mank, a biographical film about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (played by Gary Oldman), focuses on the writing of Citizen Kane with Orson Welles. It’s a sumptuous-looking film but quite dense and hard going. Mank has just been nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture.