Hot Fuzz (2007 Edgar Wright)

We needed cheering up, and this was the chap to do it. Looking back on it now we wouldn't have realised what a great cast it is (everyone's in it): Simon Pegg (reminding me frequently of Geoff, our favourite mechanic), Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent (always great in whatever type of film he is in), an unexpectedly funny Timothy Dalton, Billie Whitelaw, David Threlfall, Bill Bailey, Paddy Considine, Rafe Spall, Olivia Colman (who sparkles every scene she's in), Edward Woodward, David Bradley, Anne Reid, the indefatigable Kevin Eldon, Karl Johnson and Lucy Punch. Not to mention Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan and Martin Freeman. Talking of whom, Steven Merchant is in it as well.

Spall, Considine, Eldon, Colman, Pegg, Frost

The rapid fire editing - which is the main curse of a terrible show like Whitechapel - is brilliantly done and often pushes the story forward. I loved the jump cut between someone getting their head bashed in to Pegg collapsing on an armchair. Credit to Chris Dickens who brought that same aplomb to Wright's Spaced, and won an Oscar and BAFTA for Slumdog Millionaire, but who for some reason has not edited Wright's later features.

Jess Hall shot it.

I remember my parents saying they'd just seen one of the worst films ever! Super-efficient London cop is posted to small rural community and encounters derision and murder. It becomes a very funny knowing pastiche of buddy buddy cop action films.

This is the film that for years I could remember a scene where someone impersonates a thick character (Rory McCann) by saying "Yarghh" on the phone and I just could not remember where it was from. Many many very funny moments for example involving a swan, a model village (an inspired finale) and a living statue.