BBC Films
1) Judy
Description
Thirty years after rising to global stardom in The Wizard of Oz, showbiz legend Judy Garland arrives in London to perform a five-week sold-out run at The Talk of the Town. While preparing for the shows, Garland battles with management, reminisces with friends and adoring fans, and embarks on a whirlwind romance with soon-to-be fifth husband Mickey Deans, all while bravely struggling to overcome intensifying anxiety and physical decline.
Description
Sixty years after she fled Vienna during World War II, an elderly Jewish woman, Maria Altmann, starts her journey to retrieve family possessions seized by the Nazis, among them Klimt's famous painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Together with her inexperienced but plucky young lawyer Randy Schoenberg, she embarks upon a major battle which takes them all the way to the heart of the Austrian establishment and the U.S. Supreme Court.
3) Iris
Description
Adapted from the memoirs of literary critic John Bayley, the film recounts his courtship of and long marriage to British novelist Iris Murdoch. The scenario tacks back and forth from the young Iris--ready to seduce one and all with her coy command of words and sex appeal--to the elder Iris--slowly giving way to the cruel erasure of Alzheimer's.
Description
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...
Description
A New York socialite who dreams of becoming a great opera singer. While the voice she hears in her head is beautiful, to everyone else it is hilariously awful. Her husband and biggest fan, St. Clair Bayfield is determined to protect his beloved Florence from the truth. But when Florence stages a huge concert at Carnegie Hall, he faces his greatest challenge to make sure her performance is a rousing success.
Description
Jane Campion returns to the kind of mythic frontier landscape--pulsating with both freedom and menace--that she previously traversed in The Piano in order to plumb the masculine psyche in The Power of the Dog, set against the desolate plains of 1920s Montana and adapted by the filmmaker from Thomas Savage's novel. After a sensitive widow and her enigmatic, fiercely loving son move in with her gentle new husband, a tense battle of wills plays out between...
8) Philomena
Description
Judi Dench stars in the story of Philomena Lee, mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock and given up for adoption. Nearly 50 years later, Philomena meets Martin Sixsmith, a former BBC reporter looking for his next big story. Together, they embark on a journey to locate her long lost son. As the pieces of the puzzle come together, the unlikely travel companions form a comic and heartwarming friendship. Based on the 2009 investigative book by Martin...
9) Blood
Description
When a shocking murder is committed in their small town, the Fairburn brothers are detectives who will do whatever it takes to catch the killer and try to live-up to the reputation of their tough-as-nails ex-police chief father. But when a suspect's interrogation spins violently out of control, the brothers must deal with the consequences.
10) Victoria & Abdul
Description
The extraordinary true story of an unexpected friendship in the later years of Queen Victoria's remarkable rule. When Abdul Karim, a young clerk, travels from India to participate in the Queen's Golden Jubilee, he is surprised to find favor with the Queen herself. As the Queen questions the constrictions of her long-held position, the two forge an unlikely and devoted alliance with a loyalty to one another that her household and inner circle all attempt...
11) Stage beauty
Description
Welcome to the 17th century stage, where Ned Kynaston's performace of Desdemona in Shakespeare's 'Othello' brings the house down nightly. Ned is the "most beautiful woman on the London stage". That is, until the King renounces the royal edict that only men can play women on stage. Enter Maria, Ned's seemingly loyal dresser, who becomes an instant star, leaving Ned to suppress his ardent feminine traits and make a man of himself.