One of the greatest British films, Carol Reed's classic very consciously emphasises its time and place - post-war Vienna - yet its resonant themes around loss of innocence and a fall from grace render it timeless. Joseph Cotten plays the writer searching the Austrian capital for his missing frien...

A sexually ambiguous Frenchman tours his native countryside with his naive American lover in pursuit of the ultimate thrill. From the moment they meet, brooding Chris (Pierre Perrier) and the beautiful Aurore (Lizzie Brocherè) fall instantly and passionately in love but it’s not long before their...

Addicted husband and wife team, Bob and Diane Hughes (Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch) and a younger couple of thieves resort to robbing drugstores to stay high. Still in spite of this tragic lifestyle, they share moments of compassion and humor. The foursomes skillfully skirt the law due to Bob's wits ...

Harry (Jared Leto), his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) and best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) are heroin addicts who will do anything for a fix. Darren Aronofsky's adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr's novel journeys into the abyss with them. Their devil-may-care attitude is reflected in the fil...

Dennis Price plays Louis, a young man snubbed by his aristocratic family as a result of his mother's marriage. When she's killed, Louis becomes determined to inherit the family title, and won't let anything or anyone stop him. With an unforgettable performance by Alec Guinness as all eight remain...

Luna Carmoon's feature debut is an intense and unusual drama, quite unlike anything else you might see this year, which announces a bold and visionary new talent in British cinema. Young Maria lives with her eccentric mother in a home full of love and rising piles of rubbish. Their small world fe...

Humber Humbert (Jeremy Irons) is working as a professor of French literature when he travels to a small New England town to take a up teaching post. Whilst searching for lodging he visits the home a single mother Charlotte, and her 14 year old daughter Dolores (Lolita). Upon seeing Dolores, Humbe...

Through a series of vignettes, a young man in his twenties known only as “Fuckhead” or FH for short (Billy Crudup), recounts the story of his life through the early 70’s, from meeting his love Michelle (Samantha Morton), to his descent into heroin addiction. Along the way he meets a quirky parade...

Moin Hussain's highly anticipated feature debut blends realist drama with a playful suggestion of otherworldly science-fiction. Adam works nightshifts at a motorway service station and lives a life of isolation feeling he doesn't belong. Upon hearing that his estranged father, Hassan, has died, h...

French cinema's arch provocateur, Catherine Breillat, investigates and attempts to understand what happens on a film shoot when scenes involving physical intimacy arise. How can something as intimate as the sexual act be captured on film? How can psychological and logical reality, along with the ...

Having grown up in small-town Slovenia, 23-year-old English student Alexandra moves to the capital, embracing all the excitement and anonymity the big city has to offer. She styles herself into a mid-level call girl, selling her soul in exchange for a view from above. But as her new life inside h...

Akira Kurosawa’s visually spectacular epic transplants Shakespeare’s King Lear from Celtic Britain to feudal Japan. In its epic scope and expert execution, Ran can be seen as a culmination of the great Japanese director’s filmmaking career; a late triumph which he planned and refined over several...

A gutsy tale of grace under pressure, Zulu celebrates true British grit in the hour of need. Stanley Baker and Michael Caine lead a depleted contingent of Welsh infantrymen in defending Rorke's Drift missionary station from the attack of 4,000 Zulu warriors. Released in the final months of the Br...

David Cronenberg's multi-award-winning psychological thriller exploring the bizarre lives of identical twins Elliot and Beverly, both played by Jeremy Irons. Both world-renowned gynaecologists, the twins share everything from their clinic to their women, until they meet Claire (Geneviève Bujold)....

Legendary Hollywood director Sidney Lumet’s final film is as blistering as any young director’s. In desperate need of money, brothers Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke rob a ‘mom and pop’ jewelry store – only it belongs to their own mom and pop. Murder and time-tripping editing ensue; and Al...

Claire (Kerry Fox) and Jay (Mark Rylance) meet on Wednesdays and make love. Without speaking, they share each other's bodies and desires. One day, Claire doesn't show, so Jay decides to find out more about his mysterious captivating lover. The only English-language film from acclaimed filmmaker P...

Adapted from Nicholas Monsarrat's acclaimed novel, The Cruel Sea follows a Corvette, the Compass Rose, and its crew as they fight German U-Boats in an attempt to protect convoys throughout World War 2. A stark, honest, and emotionally fueled portrayal of wartime, The Cruel Sea is unusual in its f...

Obeying the first rule – 'write what you know' - former youth worker turned filmmaker Henry Blake turns in an original, stylish debut feature which premiered at the 2019 BFI London Film Festival.

It exposes the urban-to-rural drugs system of the title, a network which exploits children to use as...

A productive collaboration with William Goldman as writer and Anthony Hopkins as actor results in an unusually small-canvas story - a thriller on the theme of the ventriloquist whose dummy becomes a lethal alter ego. Director Richard Attenborough described it as ‘A game of creating characters and...

When one of four teenage friends goes through a break-up, the gang decide the time is right for a Mediterranean holiday. Expecting the trip to be ripe for sexual escapades, the lads are sorely mistaken, and what instead results is them falling head-first into numerous crude and embarrassing antics.