Great black-and-white films

Ten films where black and white is a choice, not a limitation: shadow, contrast and texture do the work colour would do elsewhere.

The list crosses countries and genres on purpose, from noir to samurai epics to intimate drama.

It runs from the silent era, when faces and light carried everything, through the high point of studio black and white in the 1940s.

It ends with the 1950s and 1960s, when directors across the world used monochrome as a deliberate, modern style.