Since pretty well every critic around the world agrees this is a masterpiece of children's cinema, its almost total failure at the box-office is pretty mystifying.

See it for yourself, though, and you will soon be caught up in its magical world.

Far more delightful and impactful than the 1939 version with Shirley Temple, this has Temple lookalike Liesel Matthews as the small daughter of a British Army captain whose exotic upbringing in colonial India is brought to a grinding halt by the arrival of World War One.

With her father posted away, Matthews finds herself billeted at the New York school of eagle-eyed Eleanor Bron, who is just dying to take the 'little princess' down a peg or two, and gets the chance when the girl's father is reported killed in action.

Matthews is miraculous as the irrepressible Sara; Bron at her steely best as the hateful headmistress. And the treatment finds a perfect balance of fantasy and realism.