Cleopatra

Still the most expensive film ever made and famous for bringing Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton together in what was to become one of the world's most famous on-off-on relationships, Joseph L Mankiewicz's film almost defines the word 'epic'. Taylor plays Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, who uses both her political wiles and her body to first woo Julius Caesar then Marc Antony to protect and even expand her realm. As history tells us, she was to meet untimely end but it is in the sumptuous telling that the film is so successful, with sets more extravagant than seen before. Burton, Harrison and Taylor, none of whom were first choices all produced some of the best work of their careers and despite its epic length, it never flags.