The trouble with ‘favourite film’ discussions is that sometimes people are so keen to impress that they choose the film they’d like you to think is their favourite, rather than their actual favourite. I’ve never been one for ‘guilty pleasures’, or pretending I’m more cultured than I am, so you can rest assured that I never pretend to like things I don’t.

Well, apart from one time. At a workplace I frequented some years back I grew so tired of my colleagues’ pretentious discussion of the arts that I opened a ‘What is your favourite film’ discussion, purely so when it came to my turn I could pretend mine is The Railway Children.

Now, I do actually quite like The Railway Children. It’s perfect viewing when you’re feeling under the weather, for instance. But that’s not the point. I chose it merely to try and wind-up the snobs – and how successful I was. ‘What did you say?!’ shrieked one, ‘The Railway Children?!’ For weeks afterwards he kept approaching me in the corridor and saying ‘I just can’t get over the fact you like The Railway Children!’ before walking off, sighing in disgust. Haha, what an absolute knob he was.

Anyway, starting today, I’m going to countdown my actual top five films. At number five is Sergio Leone’s gangster film Once Upon A Time In America. At 229 minutes it is truly epic, a real investment for the viewer. Released in 1984, it follows the fortunes of some impoverished Brooklyn Jews who become involved in organised crime. It has a non-linear structure that flits between the 1920s, 30s and 60s.

Just some of the things I love about this film: the way it so successfully combines violence and tenderness, friendship and betrayal; the beautiful footage of New York, including the iconic scene near the Manhattan Bridge; the fact Robert De Niro is in it; the gloriously vile way Burt Young eats his pastrami sandwich and talks about sex; the breathtaking soundtrack of Ennio Morricone; the raucous humour; the hypnotic, slower-than-snail’s-pace the story is told at.

I’m pleased to learn that the film – which has been released in a number of different versions and lengths over the years – is going to be released in its full, 269 minutes form later this year. I look forward to seeing the previously-deleted scenes.

Here is the trailer for the current version. The overall film is nowhere near as violent as this trailer suggests.

I’ll post about number four next Friday. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear about your favourite films and your thoughts – if any – on Once Upon A Time In America and other gangster flicks.