Before They Were Famous
This collection gathers the early roles of some of the most famous stars of film and TV before they hit the big time and became household names. From bright young stars in comedy to astounding breakthrough performances and memorable direction, they each offer a thrilling glimpse of what was to come.
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The Man Who Haunted Himself
Conservative executive Harold Pelham (a harrowing and atypical performance by Roger Moore) is involved in a car accident and declared momentarily dead. When he's eventually released from the hospital, Pelham discovers that an exact double of him has recently been seen in places that he's never be...
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Soapbox Derby
A young Michael Crawford stars as the leader of the Battersea Bats, a fresh-faced gang that's determined to best deadly rivals the Victorias in the upcoming soapbox derby.
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Boy and Bicycle
Ridley Scott’s first film – featuring his younger brother, the late Tony Scott, as a schoolboy playing truant for the day to meander around Hartlepool on his bicycle – is a far cry from the director’s Hollywood blockbusters, a lyrical and highly personal evocation of the early sixties North East.
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Loving Memory
The debut feature by future Hollywood star director Tony Scott is a dark, surreal piece about a couple who accidentally kill a young man while out driving their car. Taking him home, the woman treats the boy as if he were her own - and as if he were still alive. She finds happiness by talking to ...
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Terminus
In his first cinema film, made at British Transport Films, John Schlesinger presents a day in the life of Waterloo Rail Station. Now a staple television format, this observational look at the workings of one of London’s key railway hubs was considered innovative in 1961, winning it awards at Veni...
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Herostratus
When a young poet (Michael Gothard, the brilliant character actor who excelled in films such as The Devils and The Valley Obscured by Clouds) hires a marketing company to turn his suicide into a mass-media spectacle, he finds that his subversive intentions are quickly diluted into a reactionary g...
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Friendship's Death
Friendship (Tilda Swinton) has been sent to Earth on a peace mission. Heading for MIT, she inadvertently lands in Amman, Jordan during the 1970 ‘Black September’ war and is ushered to safety by journalist Sullivan (Bill Paterson). Holed up in a hotel as the conflict rages outside, the pair enter ...
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Play Me Something
Tilda Swinton stars in a playful and ingenious cine-essay from art critic John Berger (Ways of Seeing) and author/filmmaker Timothy Neat.
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Amelia and the Angel
In this charming early short from British cinema maverick Ken Russell, a young girl, cast as an angel in the school play, is distraught when her brother steals and damages her treasured wings. Pocket money in hand, Amelia traverses London on the hunt for a new pair in time for the play. Mercedes ...
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Johnny on the Run
A superb early work by illustrious British director Lewis Gilbert (Alfie, You Only Live Twice) which follows orphaned Polish refugee Janek, who runs into trouble in the shape of two scheming thieves.
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The Gold Diggers
The ground-breaking first feature from the director of Orlando and The Tango Lesson, The Gold Diggers is a key film of early '80s feminist cinema. Made with an all-woman crew, featuring stunning photography by Babette Magolte and a score by Lindsay Cooper it embraces a radical and experimental na...
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One of the Missing
A soldier, out on reconnaissance in the American Civil War, finds himself trapped - buried alive and alone under the rubble of a fallen wall - deep in enemy territory. Unable to move, he is overcome by a mad terror as he hallucinates and awaits his almost certain death. This potent short, based o...
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Momma Don't Allow
This lively Free Cinema short captures a night out at the Wood Green Jazz Club, where teenagers jive to trad jazz. Funded by the BFI Experimental Film Fund, it was filmed over the course of nine Saturdays by Karel Reisz, then programmer of the National Film Theatre, and a young BBC television dir...
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At Last the 1948 Show volume 1
Before Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Goodies there was At Last the 1948 Show, the ground-breaking comedy sketch series starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman, and Aimi MacDonald. This compendium features the first ever episode (discovered many years later in...
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At Last the 1948 Show volume 2
Before Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Goodies there was At Last the 1948 Show, the ground-breaking comedy sketch series starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman, and Aimi MacDonald. Highlights of this package include brilliant a solo turn from Brooke-Taylor as ...
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At Last the 1948 Show volume 3
Before Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Goodies there was At Last the 1948 Show, the ground-breaking comedy sketch series starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman, and Aimi MacDonald. The first two episodes of series two are unfortunately lost, reconstructed here...
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At Last the 1948 Show volume 4
Before Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Goodies there was At Last the 1948 Show, the ground-breaking comedy sketch series starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman, and Aimi MacDonald. In the final episodes, the troupe really come into their own, delivering future...
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Do Not Adjust Your Set volume 1
Innovative and influential, and originally envisaged as children’s show, Do Not Adjust Your Set was a madcap early-evening comedy sketch show that quickly acquired a cult following with Swinging Sixties adults, who rushed home from work to see it. Written by and starring Michael Palin, Terry Jone...
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Do Not Adjust Your Set volume 2
Innovative and influential, and originally envisaged as children’s show, Do Not Adjust Your Set was a madcap early-evening comedy sketch show that quickly acquired a cult following with Swinging Sixties adults, who rushed home from work to see it. Written by and starring Michael Palin, Terry Jone...
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Do Not Adjust Your Set volume 3
Innovative and influential, and originally envisaged as children’s show, Do Not Adjust Your Set was a madcap early-evening comedy sketch show that quickly acquired a cult following with Swinging Sixties adults, who rushed home from work to see it. Written by and starring Michael Palin, Terry Jone...
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Do Not Adjust Your Set volume 4
Innovative and influential, and originally envisaged as children’s show, Do Not Adjust Your Set was a madcap early-evening comedy sketch show that quickly acquired a cult following with Swinging Sixties adults, who rushed home from work to see it. Written by and starring Michael Palin, Terry Jone...
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Amores perros
Gael García Bernal stars in the savagely brilliant debut feature from double-Oscar-winning director Alejandro González Inárritu (Birdman, The Revenant). Intertwining three intense storylines on the theme of animalistic desires, it follows the respective fates of a young man caught up in the worl...
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Chambermaid Lynn
An intense examination of desire that will take you to the edge, The Chambermaid Lynn follows a woman (Krieps) recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital. Employed by a plush hotel, she also has to care for her ailing and cantankerous mother. However, what really stokes Lynn’s fire is her ...
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Beast
While celebrating her birthday, Moll drifts away from the party and finds herself eye-to-piercing-blue-eye with Pascal, a local poacher and police suspect. The attraction between these two damaged souls is immediate and palpable, and the film captures both the euphoric flush of first love and the...