Films about the Passion are, in ways literal and metaphorical, excruciating. Whether it’s the sanitised biblical epics of old Hollywood (The Greatest Story Ever Told), the brutal gorefest of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, or last year’s sincere but savourless Risen, cinema has struggled to make the Easter story live. But there is a film that rises to the challenge of one man’s personal Calvary. It even has a Crucifixion scene, albeit of a victim found nailed to the floor rather than hoisted on a cross.

First released in the Thatcherite dawn of 1980, The Long Good Friday not only sniffs the new spirit of entrepreneurial gangsterism, it actually foretells a resurrection: the sleeping ruins of London’s Docklands would become the glittering citadel we know today. Alive to its potential is Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), an East End villain who plans to build a real-estate empire along the Thames. He seems to be sitting pretty with his sharp-witted moll (Helen Mirren) and his loyal firm. Strutting barrel-chested and pugnacious upon his yacht he presents an eerie foreglimpse of wheeler-dealer hubris.