BBC Films
1) Persuasion
Summary
Anne Elliot will do anything to get Captain Wentworth now that he is interested in Louisa Musgrove.
2) My old lady
Summary
When Mathias Gold arrives at the sumptuous Parisian apartment he inherited from his father, he's surprised that the property comes with two stubborn live-in tenants who are not required to leave according to an ancient French real estate law. Unable to sell the place, Mathias moves in with the feisty Englishwoman Mathilde and her daughter, Chloe. But as Mathias and Chloe draw increasingly closer, Mathilde unveils a complex labyrinth of secrets that...
Summary
A powerful story of love, war and remembrance, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain, which has become the classic testimony of that war from a womanb2ss point of view. A searing journey from youthful hopes and dreams to the edge of despair and back again, a film about young love, the futility of war and how to make sense of the darkest times.
Summary
Poland, World War II. Innocent and naive 8-year-old Bruno is bored and restless in his new home. Ignoring his mother, he sets off on an adventure in the woods. He comes across a high fence which separates him from the people he can see through it. Soon he meets a young boy in striped pajamas, and a surprising friendship develops.
5) Stan & Ollie
Summary
One of the world's great comedy teams set out on a variety hall tour of Britain in 1953. Diminished by age and with their golden era as the kings of Hollywood comedy now behind them, they face an uncertain future. As the charm and beauty of their performances shine through, they re-connect with their adoring fans. The tour becomes a hit, but Stan and Ollie can't quite shake the specter of Laurel and Hardy's past.
6) Jane Eyre
Summary
When orphaned governess Jane Eyre arrives at imposing Thornfield Hall, she's intrigued by her brooding, wealthy employer, Rochester. His dark moods and the strange occurrences in the house lead her to discover a terrible secret that he had hoped to hide from her forever.
Series
Criterion collection volume 1178
Summary
Master of social discomfort Ruben Östlund trains his unsparing lens on the world of wealth, beauty, and privilege in this audacious, Palme d₂Or, winning satire of our status-obsessed culture. A model-influencer couple get a ticket to the luxe life when they are invited aboard an all-expenses-paid cruise alongside a coterie of the rich and ghoulish, but an act of fate turns their Insta-perfect world upside down. Pushing each provocative set piece...
9) Billy Elliot
Summary
Eleven-year-old Billy does not like the brutal boxing lessons at school, so he falls for the girls' ballet lessons instead. His family doesn't approve, so he must train in secret.
10) Eastern promises
Summary
Russian-born Nikolai Luzhin is a driver for one of London's most notorious organized crime families of Eastern European origin. The family itself is part of the Vory V Zakone criminal brotherhood. Semyon heads the syndicate and is the proprietor of a plush Trans-Siberian restaurant. But his friendliness at the restaurant masks a cold and brutal core. Fortunes are tested by Semyon's volatile son and enforcer, Kirill. But Nikolai's carefully maintained...
11) The lost king
Summary
In 2012, the remains of King Richard III were discovered beneath a car park in Leicester. For Philippa Langley, this was the culmination of years of obsessive research despite the doubts of her friends, family, experts, and academics.
Summary
Anne Boleyn is a doe-eyed vixen who is ordered by her power-hungry uncle to bewitch King Henry VIII. Her shy sister Mary has always been in Anne's shadow. Anne is prettier, more accomplished, and desired by many men. So when the King picks Mary as his mistress, Anne turns on her sister and schemes to become not only the King's consort, but his new queen. Though the Boleyn girls' mother points out that her 'daughters are being traded like cattle for...
13) As you like it
Summary
Rosalind is the daughter of banished Duke Senior and is being raised at the court of Duke Frederick, with her cousin Celia. She falls in love with a young man named Orlando, but she is banished by Duke Frederick, who threatens death if she comes near the court again. Celia goes with Rosalind. Disguised as the boy Ganymede, Rosalind enters the forest of Arden. Upon their arrival in the forest, they happen upon Orlando and his manservant, who are fleeing...
Summary
In the summer of 1956, 23-year-old Colin Clark, determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, the film that famously united Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. When his diary account was published, one week was missing. This is the story of that week: an idyll in which he escorted a Monroe desperate to get away from Hollywood hangers-on and the pressures of work.
15) The happy prince
Summary
The Happy Prince tells the untold story of the last days of Oscar Wilde. Though his last days were tragic, Wilde reflects on his life with humor at a distance. As he lies on his deathbed in Paris, memories of his life come to him in flashes. He recounts his fame in London and how he fell from grace in the same city. He looks back at his past lovers including his wife, his affair with a lord, and the love of someone who tried saving him in the end....
16) Fish tank
Series
Criterion collection volume 553
Summary
15-year old Mia is a foul-mouthed, belligerent teen living on an Essex estate [public housing] with her mother Joanne and precocious little sister Tyler. She has been excluded from school and is awaiting admission to a referrals unit, spending her days aimlessly. Her only escape--besides smoking, drinking an occasional swiped bottle of booze, and fist fighting with the neighbor girls--is hip-hop dancing, which she practices in an abandoned apartment...
17) Enchanted April
Summary
London, the 1920s. Lottie and Rose are two married women who share the misery of empty marriages and decide to rent an Italian castle for the spring to get away. In order to save money, they advertise for two other women to join them. Mrs. Fisher is an elderly widow is struggling with a lonely and regimented existence. She jumps at the chance to join the vacation. Lady Caroline Dester is a gorgeous flapper who has been grabbed one too many times and...
18) The nest
Summary
Rory, an ambitious entrepreneur, and former commodities broker persuades his American wife, Allison, and their children to leave the comforts of suburban America and return to his native England during the '80s. Sensing an opportunity, Rory rejoins his former firm and leases a centuries-old country manor, with grounds for Allison's horses and plans to build a stable. Soon the promise of a lucrative new beginning starts to unravel, the couple has to...
Summary
Barbara is a cynical schoolteacher who is close to retirement. Her only means of taking the edge off her desperate loneliness is writing in her journal. Sheba is a younger, attractive woman, who joins the faculty as an art teacher. Barbara watches her from afar and has nothing but caustic things to say in her diary. Barbara finds herself reaching out to Sheba. Sheba responds by inviting her to dinner at her house to meet Sheba's lecturer husband and...
20) Broken
Series
Formats
Summary
Skunk is an 11 year-old girl who lives a carefree life with her father, on a cul-de-sac in a very much middle-class neighborhood in Britain. At the beginning of the movie Skunk sees Rick, a young man living across the street, getting violently beaten up by yet another neighbor, Mr. Oswald. We later learn that one of Oswald's daughters, in order to save face, told her dad that Rick raped her, following which Oswalt in a rage pummels Rick. Skunk is...