BBC Films
21) The happy prince
Description
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 lays 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....
23) Woman in gold
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.
24) The aftermath
Description
In postwar Germany in 1946, Rachael Morgan arrives in the ruins of Hamburg in the bitter winter, to be reunited with her husband Lewis, a British colonel charged with rebuilding the shattered city. But as they set off for their new home, Rachael is stunned to discover that Lewis has made an unexpected decision: They will be sharing the grand house with its previous owners, a German widower and his troubled daughter. In this charged atmosphere, enmity...
25) On Chesil Beach
Author
Formats
Description
By Ian McEwan from his bestselling novel, the drama centers on a young couple of drastically different backgrounds in the summer of 1962. Following the pair through their idyllic courtship, the film explores sex and the societal pressure that can accompany physical intimacy, leading to an awkward and fateful wedding night. The film stars Saoirse Ronan, Billy Howle, Anne-Marie Duff, Adrian Scarborough, Emily Watson, and Samuel West.
26) Monsoon
Description
"Kit ... returns to Ho Chi Minh City for the first time since he was six years old when his family fled the country in the aftermath of the Vietnam-American War. There he meets Lee, his estranged second sousin [i.e., cousin], Linh, a young Vietnamese student, and arranges an online date that turns into something more with Lewis ... an American clothing designer. Struggling to make sense of himself in a city he's no longer familiar with, he embarks...
Description
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.
29) The souvenir
Description
A shy but ambitious film student begins to find her voice as an artist while navigating a turbulent courtship with a charismatic but untrustworthy man. She defies her protective mother and concerned friends as she slips deeper and deeper into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship that comes dangerously close to destroying her dreams.
30) Match point
Description
Former tennis pro Chris Wilton stumbles into good fortune when Chloe Hewett, the daughter of a wealthy businessman and the sister of one of his tennis students, falls in love with him. But when Chris meets Nola, a much deeper passion is stirred. His desire isn't deterred even after he discovers that Nola is already dating Chloe's brother. But when their affair threatens Chris's increasingly cozy lifestyle, Chris begins to consider a drastic solution....
Description
Based on the literary classic by Thomas Hardy about Bathsheba Everdene who is an independent woman who attracts three different suitors: a sheep farmer; a dashing soldier; and a prosperous, older bachelor. This timeless story of Bathsheba's passions explores the nature of relationships, love and resilience.
32) Glorious 39
Description
In this tense WWII-era thriller, Anne, a young woman from a political family, stumbles upon sinister evidence relating to a secret Nazi conspiracy plot and ends up caught in a deadly web of lies and betrayal.
33) Eastern promises
Description
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...
34) 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
It's 1957, and Hollywood horror director James Whale's heyday as the director of "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein" and "The invisible man" is long behind him. Retired and a semi-recluse, he lives his days accompanied only by images from his past. When his dour housekeeper Hannah hires handsome young gardener Clayton Boone, the gay director and the simple yardman develop an unlikely friendship.
37) In the loop
Description
"The US President and UK Prime Minister fancy a war. But not everyone agrees that war is a good thing. The US General Miller doesn't think so and neither does the British Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster. But, after Simon accidentally backs military action on TV, he suddenly has a lot of friends in Washington, DC. If Simon can get in with the right DC people, if his entourage of one can sleep with the right intern, and...
38) A little chaos
Description
A romantic drama following Sabine, a strong-willed and talented landscape designer, who is selected to build one of the main gardens at King Louis XIV's new palace at Versailles. In her new position of power, she challenges gender and class barriers while also becoming professionally and romantically entangled with the court's renowned landscape artist Andre Le Notre.
39) Broken
Formats
Description
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...