What first time viewings did you love in April?

9/10

Once Upon a Time in America (1984/Sergio Leone) - the length and the fact that lashings of violence tend to be a turn-off for me had put me off watching this for years, but in the end it exceeded all my expectations.  Absolutely beautiful to look at, riveting for four whole hours - and Morricone contributes what has to be one of the most breathtaking movie scores ever.

8/10

Nights of Cabiria (1957/Federico Fellini)

7/10

Exotica (1994/Atom Egoyan)
Black Bread (2010/Agusti Villaronga)
Pitfall (1962/Hiroshi Teshigahara)
The Impostor (2012/Bart Layton)
The Thin Blue Line (1988/Errol Morris)
A Brief History of Time (1991/Errol Morris)
The Past (2013/Asghar Farhadi)
Unfaithfully Yours (1948/Preston Sturges)

6/10

Owning Mahowny (2003/Richard Kwietniowski)
Kung-Fu Master! (1988/Agnes Varda)
I Don't Want to Go Back Alone (2010/short/Daniel Ribeiro)
Everything Will Be OK (2006/short/Don Hertzfeld)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010/Banksy)
Straight Time (1978/Ulu Grosbard)
The Homecoming (1973/Peter Hall)
Life on a String (1991/Kaige Chen)
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991/Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper & Eleanor Coppola) - George Hickenlooper has to be one of my favourite names ever.
Fat City (1972/John Huston)
The Great Beauty (2013/Paolo Sorrentino)
The Last Time I Saw Richard (2014/short/Nicholas Verso)
Swimmer (2012/short/Lynne Ramsay)
1984 (1984/Michael Radford) - having recently read the book and seen a very impressive stage adaptation, I finally got around to watching this.  The atmosphere is suitably gloomy, it's exceptionally well shot and designed and Richard Burton is marvellous in his final film.  John Hurt, while always watchable, is somewhat miscast, however.
The Blue Dahlia (1946/George Marshall)
The Damned United (2009/Tom Hooper)
Streetwise (1984/Martin Bell)
Chimes at Midnight (1965/Orson Welles)

5/10

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006/Ming-ling Tsai)
Why Does God Hate Me? (2011/short/Joel Ashton McCarthy)
Proof (1991/Jocelyn Moorehouse)
The Mission (1986/Roland Joffe) - rambles to little consequence.  Gorgeous, though - and another masterpiece from Morricone.
Carmen Jones (1954/Otto Preminger)
Punch-Drunk Love (2002/Paul Thomas Anderson)

4/10

Mother (1996/Albert Brooks) - I tend to love Brooks' films but this was a letdown.
The Razor's Edge (1946/Edmund Goulding)
Ready Player One (2018/Steven Spielberg)
Curse of the Cat People (1944/Robert Wise & Gunther von Frisch)
The Horse Thief (1986/Zhuangzhuang Tan)