Eastern Promises

Cronenberg's London-set thriller stars Viggo Mortensen on career-best form as a Russian mobster whose only ambition is to pull himself up the mafia hierarchy, where status is marked with increasingly elaborate coded tattoos. Eastern Promises is gruesome, gripping, with a wonderfully eclectic cast (including Sinead Cusack and Vincent Cassel), and features a breathtaking fight in a steam bath that's surely destined for classic status. With his regular cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, Cronenberg turns London into a dark and rainswept netherworld, made all the more unsettling for being so clearly recognisable.

£5.99