For the first time in a generation, tailoring is big again. While streetwear has nudged menswear in the direction of hoodies and cargo trousers over the past few seasons, there are few things with more style clout than a well-proportioned suit. And at a time when men are free to wear anything from Tabi shoes to sparkly harnesses, at the very least, a good suit is consistent and yet rather surprising. If you’re looking for some tailored style inspiration, there are few places better to mine than the silver screen. So, from Mr Jack Nicholson’s gigantic peak lapels to Mr Al Pacino’s blood-stained blue suit, here are our celluloid tailoring favourites.

This is Mr Cary Grant in the 1959 American thriller North By Northwest, and there are numerous pockets of the internet dedicated to the suit he wears in it, full of forums fawning over how sharp the actor looks. It was made by Savile Row tailor Kilgour, which provided most of Mr Grant’s clothing for the film. It is a rather plain grey suit, but it proves the transformative power of bespoke tailoring. The film may have been called “the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures”, but let’s be honest, this suit’s one of the best bits.

If you thought smoking in bed was unsexy, you haven’t seen Breathless (À Bout de Souffle), the Mr Jean-Luc Godard Nouvelle Vague classic in which Mr Jean-Paul Belmondo and Ms Jean Seberg spend rather a lot of time doing just that. With Ms Seberg’s gamine good looks and Mr Belmondo’s rakishly striking oversized suit, they ooze mid-century cool.

What’s this? American Gigolo included in an article about the best on-screen tailoring? Predictable? Of course. Udeniable? Absolutely. Mr Richard Gere’s look is like a glass of whisky transmogrified into a woollen suit, and it fits in incredibly well with the surrounding bar. This is just one component of the giant Giorgio Armani machine that hums throughout the film, but it’s one of the best.

The neo-noir film Chinatown might star Mr Jack Nicholson as a private investigator, but the double-breasted suit, complete with humongous lapels, is far from stealthy. Exemplifying the 1930s suit (think big, square silhouettes), Mr Nicholson’s cream-coloured iteration comprises a long jacket and broader than broad shoulders that are exaggerated by those aforementioned lapels. A charisma-complementing look for the ages.

Truly timeless dressing doesn’t happen very often, and to chaps who lament how well men used to dress, Mr Marcello Mastroianni is a deity. The actor, pictured here in Mr Federico Fellini’s 1963 surrealist comedy 8½, rocks a classic black suit perhaps better than anyone has done before or since. On their own, a black jacket, trousers and tie paired with a white shirt might not be particularly revolutionary, but Mr Mastroianni proves that, sometimes, classic is best.

The Cuban-mafia-meets-Miami style in Scarface looks fantastic on the entire cast (who knew camp-collar shirts and ultraviolence looked so good together?), but it’s Mr Al Pacino’s Tony Montana who steals the show. Resplendent in his blood-stained, powder-blue 1980s suit, complete with arm sling – very warcore, Montana’s looks are a delightfully dissonant mix of flashy, sleazy and sophisticated.

The men featured in this story are not associated with and do not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown