Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2008)

Dealing with Britain's self-styled 'most notorious prisoner' and made with his approval, this can only go one of two ways: it either glorifies or stabs in the back. It does go the first route, but Refn is a more subtle director when he's working with a genre he grasps than you might expect from that reduction. Valhalla Rising was a mistake, but understandable after the gruelling work that must have gone into the Pusher trilogy.
And, as with picking Mads Mikkelsen as the centre of those films, this is a director who understands the value of a proper actor. Tom Hardy is possibly nearly as mad as the institutionalised serial offender he plays, and therefore ideal for the part. Commitment screams out loud with every scene. You at once feel for his dumb recalcitrance in the face of a system that just wants to throw away the key, and are also glad that he's safely tucked away with his alternating preening and headbutting, like an impotent and therefore more comic version of the protagonist of the superficially similar Chopper.

7/10