(1956, UK)

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Despite having made some well-regarded amateur features, it was the short Sunday in the Park that provided Schlesinger's watershed moment. Shot and edited while he was still a touring stage actor, it proved such an effective showpiece that it won him the BBC contract that launched his professional career.

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(1961, UK)

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Developed from the day-in-the-life home movies he made as a schoolboy, Schlesinger's breakthrough midlength film was shot entirely on location at Waterloo station. Mixing documentary footage with staged incidents, the memorable result would win its director the first of his many BAFTAs, for Best Short Film.

(1962, UK)

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Schlesinger's first studio feature also marked the first of his four collaborations with actor Alan Bates. In an adaptation of Stan Barstow's debut novel, Bates plays the luckless Vic Brown, one of the British New Wave's numerous & 'angry young men' - but in this case, one upstaged by his mother-in-law (Thora Hird).

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Starring Alan Bates, June Ritchie

(1965, UK)

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Schlesinger's international breakthrough came via an Oscar-winning screenplay by Frederic Raphael, while Julie Christie claimed Best Actress with one of her greatest performances. Whilst ably supported by Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey, it was Roland Curram's gay character who gave hints of things to come.

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(1967, UK)

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Savaged by the critics on its original release, this epic Thomas Hardy adaptation - produced at the height of the Swinging Sixties - would soon have the last laugh. Ranked the 79th greatest British film by the BFI, its scope and grandeur provided the earliest proof of Schlesinger's ability to adapt himself to any genre.

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Starring Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Alan Bates, Peter Finch

(1971, UK)

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The runaway success of Midnight Cowboy gave Schlesinger the freedom to make any film he wanted; the result was his greatest masterpiece.  Penelope Gilliatt's melancholy drama of a polyamorous relationship is told with unrivalled depth and understanding for its characters, not least Peter Finch's gay Jewish doctor.

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Starring Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson, Murray Head

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Winner of 5 BAFTAs for Best Film, Best Director (John Schlesinger), Best Actor (Peter Finch), Best Actress (Glenda Jackson) and Best Editing (Richard Marden)

(1975, US)

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Fresh off his two greatest critical successes, Schlesinger found it almost impossible to get his next film off the ground at all. Rarely seen and perennially misunderstood, his bitterly savage exposé of the darkest facets of Hollywood's golden era would leave its mark on everything from Barton Fink to Babylon.

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Starring Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, William Atherton

(1976, US)

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A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.

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Starring Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider

(1979, US)

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Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Gere and Rachel Roberts shine in Colin Welland's ensemble Second World War tale of American GIs billeted in a small Lancashire town. Schlesinger's insightful drama lays bare the bittersweet stories behind the once-familiar saying that the Yanks were 'overpaid, oversexed and over here'.

(1983, UK)

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His reputation in tatters (again), Schlesinger turned his focus back to his television roots, making his first BBC production in over two decades. The result, with its sparkling Alan Bennett script based on Coral Browne's 1950s Soviet encounter with an exiled 'Cambridge spy' (Alan Bates), was a miniature masterpiece.

(1985, US)

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Pursuing his interest in espionage, Schlesinger returned to America for this tale of two very different real-life spies: a pair of rich kids who get in over their heads, selling CIA intel to the KGB. Timothy Hutton stars as the principled traitor, but babyfaced Sean Penn nabs the spotlight as the world's least secret agent.

(1987, US/UK/Canada)

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Schlesinger's teenage experiments with the cinematic grotesque finally came to fruition in his most explicit foray into mainstream horror.  Martin Sheen plays a traumatised police psychiatrist tracking down the occultists behind a series of unspeakable crimes, all committed in the pursuit of unimaginable rewards.

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Starring Martin Sheen, Helen Shaver, Harley Cross

(1990, US)

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Schlesinger's return to thrillers provided one of his most enduring late successes, with its initially mixed reception firmly settling into cult classic status. Melanie Griffith stars as one of a pair of loved-up yuppie landlords whose San Francisco dream renter (Michael Keaton) turns out to be the tenant from hell.

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Starring Melanie Griffith, Michael Keaton, Matthew Modine

(1991, UK)

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Schlesinger directed Alan Bennett's companion piece to An Englishman Abroad with no less aplomb than its acclaimed predecessor. James Fox stars as another of the 'Cambridge spies', hiding in plain sight as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures - until he has an unexpected encounter with his employer (Prunella Scales).

(1993, Germany/UK)

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Despite being brought in as a late directorial replacement, Schlesinger made The Innocent his own, recasting and reworking Ian McEwan's adaptation of his own novel as a mix of his favourite genres, resulting in a pleasingly Hitchcockian spy thriller. Its central set piece of bloodless butchery remains one of his finest.

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Starring Anthony Hopkins, Isabella Rossellini