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PRIDE OF MANCHESTER SELF ISOLATION CINEMA CLUB |
★★★★½ Movies |
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Join here for the best movies on Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, Sky Cinema, Apple TV and more, recommended every day |
Previous movies, listed below |
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SPIRITED AWAY |
An Oscar-winning captivating fantasy from Hayao Miyazaki's legendary Studio Ghibli that sets a new benchmark for animation. A beautifully drawn and wonderfully composed work of art which takes us on a rocket-fuelled flight of fancy, it's available in the Japanese original with subtitles, or, if you really want, dubbed with American voices. |
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MANGROVE |
Both a gripping courtroom drama and a beautifully directed 1960's Notting Hill period piece, the first film in British director Steve McQueen's 2020 "Small Axe" series tells the true story of Frank Crichlow, a Trinidadian restaurateur who was racially harassed and bullied by the Metropolitan Police, and the resulting Mangrove Nine’s landmark Old Bailey trial,. |
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CAROL |
A stunning masterpiece from 2015 and one of the most beautiful love stories ever told, front-loaded with atmospheric mood and poignant tendernessy. A ravishing tour de force, this superb flawless adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel "The Price of Salt" doesn’t put a foot wrong, with Cate Blanchett & Rooney Mara beautifully portraying a lesbian romance in 1950s New York. |
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MOONLIGHT |
Combining style and subtlety, Mahershala Ali & Naomie Harris star in Barry Jenkins genre-defying, "La La Land" Oscar-winning 2016 film about a black gay man’s journey from a deprived childhood through rage and towards self-realisation. |
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SOME LIKE IT HOT |
Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon star in Billy Wilder's crackling cross-dressing 1959 gangster comedy, which is without doubt one of the greatest comedies ever and is still hilarious after all these years. (Black & White). |
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SAVING PRIVATE RYAN |
Loosely inspired by the real-life case of a soldier recalled to the US from the Normandy campaign, this powerful and brutal war film from 1998, which has an immaculate performance from Tom Hanks, garnered 11 Oscar nominations and won five, including Steven Spielberg's second for Best Director. Devastating and essential viewing. |
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BAND OF BROTHERS |
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Spielberg & Hanks reunited for this 10 part 2001 TV drama about the US Airborne's division. |
THE PACIFIC |
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Spielberg & Hanks 10 part 2010 drama about the Second World War's second war. |
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BLADE RUNNER |
A masterpiece of dystopian science fiction on film, Harrison Ford & Rutger Hauer stars in Ridley Scott's violent visual eye-popper from 1982 - arguably the most famous and influential science fiction film ever made. Set among the lowlife in a warren of Los Angeles streets in the murky acid rain future of 2019, it's a a combination of 1940s film noir and futuristic detective thriller. |
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BLADE RUNNER 2049 |
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Harrison Ford’s performance, alongside Ryan Gosling, in Denis Villeneuve’s shrewdly calculated 2017 sequel is among his best. |
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PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE |
A ravishing historical French romance, Céline Sciamma’s sumptuous, quietly radical 18th century love story is a superbly elegant, enigmatic drama set in Brittany, where an Italian noblewoman engages what a ladies’ companion for her beautiful daughter, requesting she paint her portrait, to be sent to a Milanese nobleman in the hope of a betrothal (French with subtitles). |
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FOR SAMA |
Absolutely essential viewing, this profoundly moving Oscar-nominated multi-award winning documentary is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of the Syrian war which must be seen to be believed. |
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THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS |
Orson Welles's exquisitely beautiful 1942 follow-up to "Citizen Kane" is one of cinema's flawed masterpieces. Telling the compelling story of the decline of a wealthy aristocratic family in the face of sprawling industrialisation, whilst he doesn't appear, he provides an eloquent voiceover. 40 minutes shorter than he planned, RKO viciously cut the original whilst he was out of the country. (Black & White). |
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THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS |
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Lavish, cable-TV remake with Madeleine Stowe & Bruce Greenwood. |
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THE LAVENDER HILL MOB |
A mild-mannered bank agent discovers he has a devious criminal mind and decides to steal a million in gold bullion in this superb and subtle Ealing comedy that is a crime-film spoof helped by a peerless script and a great team of actors including Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James, James Fox and a young Audrey Hepburn. (Black & White) |
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THE APARTMENT |
Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine are brilliant in Billy Wilder's 1960 light romantic comedy as two essentially good souls trapped in a tangle of office politics. (Black & White) |
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BACK TO THE FUTURE |
Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd star in Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale's iconic 1985 time travel popcorn classic which pokes fun at the 1950s with easy wit and flair. |
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BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II |
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The 1989 sequel audaciously takes place during its own first film. |
BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III |
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The clever 1990 wrapping-up of the adventures doubles as a Western comedy. |
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THE LADY VANISHES |
Margaret Lockwood & Michael Redgrave star in Alfred Hitchcock's sublime 1938 comedy thriller which brings together the ingredients of mystery, comedy and suspense with sublime ease on a train in continental Europe, where a rich young socialite believes an elderly lady seems to have disappeared. (Black & White). |
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NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH |
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Basil Lockwood & Naunton Wayne reprised their roles and Margaret Lockwood returned for a similar comedy thriller in 1940, directed by Carol Reed. (Black & White). |
CROOK'S TOUR |
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Basil Lockwood & Naunton Wayne reprised their roles once again in 1941. (Black & White). |
MILLIONS LIKE US |
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The last run out for Charters & Caldicott in this 1943 wartime drama. (Black & White). |
THE LADY VANISHES |
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Cybill Shepherd, Elliot Gould and Angela Lansbury star in this slick remake. |
THE LADY VANISHES |
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BBC TV movie version starring Charles Aitken, Keeley Hawes & Stephanie Cole. |
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UNCUT GEMS |
Benny & Josh Safdie deliver an incredibly tense thriller which has seen Adam Sandler made an unlikely favourite for next year's Oscar. With his debts mounting and angry collectors closing in, a fast-talking New York City jeweler risks everything in hope of staying afloat and alive. |
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MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL |
One of the most original, hilarious and visually striking comedies ever made, the first feature-length film from Monty Python in 1975 brilliantly debunks the Dark Ages and King Arthur's legends of chivalry with more than enough killer lines, sight gags and inspired absurdity to qualify as a medieval-on-your-ass laff-riot. |
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HEREDITARY |
Not for the faint of heart. A painful sense of impending dread fills every frame of Ari Aster’s searing cinematic debut. A grieving American family is haunted by disturbing occurrences in this raw horror masterpiece from 2018 that deserves to be mentioned in the same frantic breath as the genre’s greats. One of the most singularly terrifying, singularly disturbing horror films in years. |
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BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN |
Beautifully composed and wonderfully acted by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, this multi-Oscar winner from 2005 tells the story of two cowboys who fall for each other in the 1960s, continuing their forbidden and secretive relationship years later. |
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THE MATRIX |
Thematically complex, yet intelligent, super-smart science-fiction adventure from 1999, set across two dimensions, in which Keanu Reeves stars as a reclusive computer hacker who may be able to save the world from the evils of cyberspace slavery. Cast a veil over the overwrought sequels. |
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THE MATRIX RELOADED |
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The second chapter in the trilogy was never likely to match the impact of the first and suffers from stilted dialogue, cheesy scripting and a surprisingly plodding pace. |
THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS |
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A bit rubbish. It's like a 129-minute deleted-scene extra from the first two movies. |
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LA HAINE |
Mathieu Kassovitz’s agitprop French masterpiece from 1995 in which three friends meet the morning after a riot sparked by the injury in police custody of a young man from their Parisian neighbourhood. (Black & White. Subtitles). |
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UMBERTO D |
Frequently mentioned on lists of masterpieces of modern cinema, Vittorio De Sica's 1952 sublime humanist and poignant observational study of an ageing civil servant (and his dog) ostracised by the society he'd so faithfully served after falling into poverty. A masterpiece of Italian neorealism. (Black & White + Subtitles). |
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UN HOMME ET SON CHIEN |
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1998 French remake "Man and His Dog", starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. |
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ROMA |
Beautiful in every way, Alfonso Cuarón's multi-Oscar winning 2018 semi-autobiographical drama which follows a year in the life of a middle-class family's maid in the Roma district of Mexico City in the early 1970s. It’s not hyperbolic to rate it among the most beautiful photography ever committed to screen. (Black & White + Subtitles). |
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PHANTOM THREAD |
In what could be his final film role, Daniel Day-Lewis is a perfect fit as a celebrated dress designer set in 1950s London. A swooning, masochistic love story which is jaw-dropping on more levels than it’s possible to count. |
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FINDING NEMO |
Australia's Great Barrier Reef provides a stunning starting point for Pixar's 2003 aquatic fable, an hilarious, exciting and endlessly inventive rainbow-hued delight, overflowing with innovation and vitality. A pleasure for grown-ups as well as kids. |
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FINDING DORY |
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As magical as the original, the 2016 sequel is a dazzling and technically impressive return to form for Pixar that delivers a similar high to without feeling like a retread. |
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THE DEER HUNTER |
Michael Cimoni's multiple Oscar-winning widescreen, minor-key symphony to the innocent working class men who were packed off to Vietnam to become cannon fodder. Robert DeNiro stars alongside Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep (in her debut), and her off screen lover John Cazale, in his last screen appearance, |
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SPRINGSTEEN ON BROADWAY |
This excellent recording of his 2018 solo Broadway theatre show, sees Bruce Springsteen deliver 2½ spellbinding hours of stories, reimagined hits and a dissection of his own legend, with at least half the show seeing the 70 year old New Jersey singer talking with humour, honesty and gut-punch emotion. |
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LA HAINE |
Chucking a Molotov cocktail through the sedate window-front of modern French cinema, Mathieu Kassovitz’s celebrated 1995 anti-police story of inequality in a Paris banlieue gets a timely rerelease in the Black Lives Matter era. One of the most blisteringly effective pieces of urban cinema ever made, it is an unmissable response to an unending emergency (Black & White. Subtitles). |
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THE GREAT ESCAPE |
One of the all-time great World War II movies, from 1963. Based on a true story, Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence & James Coburn, attempt to escape a German Prisoner of War camp. |
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THE GREAT ESCAPE II |
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"The Untold Story": Christopher Reeve, Ian McShane, and Donald Pleasance star in this historically more accuate 1998 two part made-for-TV sequel. |
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AMERICAN BEAUTY |
Sam Mendes's astonishing 1999 debut, a sublime Oscar Best Picture winning black comedy about midlife crises, starring a brilliant, edgy, almost psychotic Kevin Spacey alongside his disloyal, despairing wife, Annette Bening, as a bored couple in suburban America. |
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THE FLORIDA PROJECT |
Beautiful, vibrant, heartfelt and hilarious, Willem Dafoe gives a performance of quiet excellence and integrity in this 2017 story of kids growing up in the social housing and poverty which surrounds the tourist destination of Disney World - which makes it sound heavy, but it's not. |
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A ROOM WITH A VIEW |
With stunning cast and scenery, including Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Daniel Day-Lewis, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, and Denholm Elliot this 1985 multi-Oscar winning adaptation of E.M. Forster's classic is the most adorable of all the Merchant-Ivory productions. |
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A ROOM WITH A VIEW |
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Elaine Cassidy, Laurence Fox, Rafe and Tim Spall star in this ITV remake. |
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WELCOME TO CHECHNYA |
"The Gay Purge" is a must-watch horrific and violent, sad and gruelling ground-breaking documentary filmed from August 2017 to early 2019 by David France. It is the first of its kind to use deep fake technology to protect the identity of gay people and their supporters in the Russian republic, where they are at risk of state-sactioned abduction and torture. |
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THE RED SHOES |
Powell & Pressburger's 1948 technicolor masterpiece, a film of haunting beauty, incorporates echoes of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about a young ballerina who must choose between her art and true love. A visual delight, it blurs the barriers between theatre, cinema and ballet. |
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THE FIREBIRD |
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Hasse Ekman's 1952 Swedish/Italian homage to "The Red Shoes" (Eldfågeln). |
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THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE |
Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury and Janet Leigh star in this 1962 dazzling spy thriller about Communist brainwashing and the American political system of power and privilege. (Black & White). |
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THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE |
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Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber & Meryl Streep star in this Gulf War remake. |
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CAT PEOPLE |
Hugely influential thriller from 1942, the first in the wondrous series of B movies in which Val Lewton elaborated his principle of horrors imagined rather than seen. Simone Simon stars as a frigid Serbian girl unable to consummate her marriage, because she is afraid, by doing so, she will transform into a panther. (Black & White). |
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THE SEVENTH VICTIM |
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Val Lewton's 1943 loosely related film sees Tom Conway reprise his role. (Black & White). |
THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE |
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Inspired by a Robert Louis Stevenson poem, the fantasy, rather than horror, 1944 sequel to "Cat People" acts more a study of child psychology as a friendless child befriends an aging, reclusive actress and her father's dead first wife (Simone Simon). (Black & White). |
NIGHT TIDE |
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Dennis Hopper stars in Curtis Harrington's 1961 "Cat People" homage |
THE CAT CREATURE |
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Curtis Harrington pays homage to the two Lewton films in this 1973 TV movie which also stars Kent Smith from the 1940's films |
CAT PEOPLE |
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Paul Schrader's 1982 remake with Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell. |
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THE SHINING |
Stanley Kubrick's superb 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel starring Jack Nicholson & Shelley Duvall as a family invited to look after a remote mountain hotel when it's closed for winter is a haunted house story that manages to traverse a complex world of incipient madness, spectral murder and supernatural visions... that makes you jump." |
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DOCTOR SLEEP |
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Ewan McGregor stars in the 2019 adaptation of Stephen King's sequel. |
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THE IRISHMAN |
Martin Scorsese returns with one of his best films ever, reuniting Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci & Al Pacino in a superbly acted, thrillingly shot epic based on Charles Brandt’s book about Mob foot soldier Frank Sheeran, "I Heard You Paint Houses" |
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SHIRKERS |
A true-life horror story for indie filmmakers, this multi-award winning documentary about Singapore's only hipsters making one of its only independent films in the early 90s, tells the tale of a a charismatic older man who promised to help – until he vanished with the finished reels. |
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COLD WAR |
Love, politics and creative obsessions collide in Pawel Pawlikowski's sad and often unutterably beautiful Cannes-winning and Oscar nominated 2018 masterpiece set in Poland during the late 1940s, a country in ruins, still ravaged by the effects of having not one, but two of the most brutal armies in modern history fighting their way across it. (Black & White + Subtitles). |
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THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD |
One of the great sci-fi classics, Howard Hawks brought an added chill to this 1951 tale of terror at the North Pole with a gradual build-up of tension, as a lonely group of scientists discover a flying saucer. (Black & White) |
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THE THING |
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John Carpenter's iconic version, is one of his finest moments. |
THE THING |
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Effectively a sloppy prequel to the 1982 version. |
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OSSESSIONE |
Luchino Visconti's kick started Italian neorealism in 1943 with this pivotal work in Italian film history which transposed James M. Cain's melodramatic tale of sexual obsession and murder, 'The Postman Always Rings Twice', to fascist Italy. (Black & White. Subtitles) |
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LE DERNIER TOURNANT |
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An earlier 1939 French version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (Black & White). |
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE |
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Lana Turner & John Garfield star in the definitive interpretation of the novel. (Black & White). |
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE |
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Jack Nicholson & Jessica Lange are compelling in this 1980's remake. |
SZENVEDELY (PASSION) |
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Fehér György's 1998 Hungarian version (Black & White). |
JERICHOW |
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Christian Petzold's 2008 German language version (subtitles). |
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THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD |
Peter Jackson's 2018 impeccable First World War documentary is breathtaking; a colour revivification of the Imperial War Museum’s 100 year old black & white archive footage, brought to extraordinary life thanks to 21st-century technology, which puts you right in amongst the men in the trenches. |
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THE DARK KNIGHT |
Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman return in the 2008 second instalment of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, a landmark among comic-book adaptations which reinvented the superhero genre, and takes the story up to his primal confrontation with the Joker - played tremendously by the late Heath Ledger, who won a posthumous Oscar. You don't need to have seen the first movie to enjoy this middle segment, however it helps paint a fuller picture of the character. |
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BATMAN BEGINS |
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Cillian Murphy is superb as the chilling Scarecrow in this bold and brilliant 2005 superhero movie, which rebooted the Batman franchise. |
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES |
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Tom Hardy & Anne Hathaway star in this satisfying 2012 conclusion to Nolan's trilogy. |
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THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT |
The infallible comic Alec Guinness gives a remarkable performance in the only Ealing comedy to truly bare its teeth. The 1951 Oscar-nominated story follows a single-minded chemist who has been fired from six textile mills for blowing their budgets on an intricate machine which threatens the prosperity of Lancashire. (Black & White). |
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THE EXORCIST |
Unbelievably scary when it first came out in 1973 and essential viewing for anyone who loves cinema. If you can endure it... the Oscar-winning adaptation of William Peter Blatty's bestselling horror novel about the demonic possession of a young girl broke all box office records. |
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THE EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC |
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Famously disastrous 1977 follow-up. |
THE EXORCIST III |
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William Peter Blatty stepped up to direct in 1990, adapting his own follow-up book, 'Legion'. |
REPOSSESSED |
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'The Exorcist' got the 'Airplane!' treatment in 1990, with Linda Blair & Leslie Nielsen. |
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING |
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A 2004 botch job of mistimed scare scenes, and computer-generated hyenas. |
DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST |
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The 2005 prequel was only marginally better than the 2004 offering. |
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WITCHFINDER GENERAL |
Michael Reeves 1968 cult masterpiece which, despite being an accurate piece of British historical film-making - telling the story of Matthew Hopkins, a freelance lawyer who interrogated, convicted and executed 230 "witches" between 1644 and 1646 - was condemned on first release as extremely bloody and sadistic. Described as a horror, but more of a historic biopic. |
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INSIDE OUT |
Another Pixar classic from 2015 that winks at the adult audience whilst being immediately accessible to very young audiences. This dazzlingly imaginative adventure is set inside the brain of an ice-hockey-obsessed 11-year-old tomboy. It is terrifically funny and smart: a high-concept animated family comedy that may remind older viewers of a certain Woody Allen film. |
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BEAUTY AND THE BEAST |
At the pole position of many people's Disney film list is the 1991 Best Picture Oscar-nominated cartoon version of the classic French fairytale about mademoiselle Belle who sacrifices her freedom for her father's when he is imprisoned by an sinister castle-dwelling beast. |
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LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE |
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Jean Cocteau's 1946 sumptuous retelling of the famous fairytale set the standards in fantasy film making for all others to follow. |
THE SCARLET FLOWER |
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1952 Russian animation of Sergei Aksakov's classic adaptation. |
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST |
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Edward L. Cahn's so-so werewolf rendition of the oft-filmed classic fairy tale. |
PANNA A NETVOR |
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Juraj Herz's 1978 Czech language gothic rendition version (English subtitles). |
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST |
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Emma Watson stars as a doll-like figure in Disney’s live-action remake, which features an outbreak of starry cameos and the world’s briefest gay reveal. |
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LOCAL HERO |
Bill Forsyth's charming and humorous, entertaining, low-key, feel-good gem from 1983, which tells a loving, funny, understated tale of a small gorgeous Scottish coastal village and its encounter with a giant Texas oil company. Starring Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson & Fulton Mackay and boasting a famous soundtrack from Mark Knopfler. |
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A HARD DAY'S NIGHT |
Part musical bonanza, part laugh-out-loud farce, part satirical social document, The Beatles star in this invigorating and funny 1964 film which offers both a perfect showcase for the Fab Four and an intriguing snapshot of fast-changing, early-1960s British society. |
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GRIZZLY MAN |
Forget "Tiger King". It has nothing on Werner Herzog's 2005 documentary, which really needs to be seen to be believed. Part punk wildlife doc, part diary of a twisted soul, part cautionary tale, it tells the tale of the strange life (and death) of the Timothy Treadwell, a man who spent every summer for the last 13 years of his life living in the wild, amongst grizzly bears. |
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AN EASY GIRL |
A sun-drenched masterpiece from 2019 with a subtle sting in its tail, "Un Fille Facile" is a coming of age story about a working-class 16-year-old in Cannes who gets swept up into the Chanel and champagne world of her sensual, fast-living 22-year-old cousin (played superbly by Zahia Dehar - infamous for her role in the underage prostitution scandal with Franck Ribéry and Karim Benzema). [American dubbed or original French with English subtitles]. |
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THE LIGHTHOUSE |
Totally unexpected and hilarious, mastering the dangerous mix of horror and comedy, Robert Pattinson & Willem Dafoe produce a rare excitement in butting heads and trading difficult, complex 1890's period dialogue with such mastery and flair in this scary and captivatingly beautiful, sensory, claustrophobic thriller set in a remote New England lighthouse.. (Black & White). |
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MANCHESTER BY THE SEA |
Set in Manchester, Massachusetts, rather than our hometown, Kenneth Lonergan's 2016 drama about a depressed uncle who is asked to take care of his teenage nephew after his own brother dies, won an Oscar for Casey Affleck and a nomination for Michelle Williams. |
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THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING |
Rudyard Kipling's imperialist 19th-century swashbuckling adventure, from 1975, stars Sean Connery and Michael Caine as the veteran army squaddies who trick a remote mountain tribe in Afghanistan into believing they are Gods. |
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THE ROAD TO EL DORADO |
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DreamWorks 2000 animation is based on the same story and the 1940's "Road To" films. |
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12 YEARS A SLAVE |
Steve McQueen’s lacerating 2014 Oscar-winning masterpiece is arguably the best ever American film about slavery. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch and Paul Giamatti depict the true horrific experiences of Solomon Northup, the free man kidnapped and sold into slavery, as told in his 1853 memoirs. |
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WOMEN MAKE FILM |
"A New Road Movie Through Cinema". No one interested in cinema will want to miss Mark Cousins’ expertly assembled mammoth study of female directors, and no one could possibly watch it without learning something. Taking in 13 decades and five continents, over 40 chapters, 14 hours, 5 films (or 4 Blu-Ray Discs) it is a guided tour of movies as told by female filmmakers. |
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GRAVITY |
Sandra Bullock stars as a talented medical engineer making her first space-shuttle mission under the command of veteran astronaut George Clooney in Alfonso Cuarón's brilliantly tense and involving seven Oscar winning blockbuster from 2013. |
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NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN |
The Coen brothers returned to peak form with a vengeance with this 2008 Oscar Best Picture winning complex, violent, poetic, gripping, and blackly funny, utterly riveting thriller, starring Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin & Tommy Lee Jones. Set in Texas in 1980, it's the ultimate cat and mouse chase after a drug deal gone wrong. |
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RESERVOIR DOGS |
Quentin Tarantino's perfect debut movie about a heist gone wrong and its extraordinarily bloody aftermath, remains as shocking, perversely funny, and stylish as upon original release in 1992. |
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THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES |
Hard to overpraise, undoubtedly one of the finest and most satisfying achievements in cinema, this melodramatic study of the problems facing America's service personnel when they returned home from World War II, was the first film to win eight Oscars in 1946 with Harold Russell becoming the first actor to win two Oscars for the same performance. (Black & White). |
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CUBA AND THE CAMERAMAN |
Jon Apert's vibrant, unprecedented 2017 documentary compiles 45 years of footage shot for numerous earlier projects including some up-close-and-personal encounters with Fidel Castro, juxtaposed with the lifes of regular Cubans. |
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AMAZING GRACE |
A permanent starting point when considering the greatest concert films of all time, this belated 2018 release of Aretha Franklin's spellbinding 1972 performances, in front of a baptist church audience and filmed by Sydney Pollack, which led to the biggest selling live gospel album of all time. |
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WALL•E |
Pixar's beautiful, masterly, inspired enchanting animated tale about a lonely robot, delivers a powerful ecological message. For large parts, this is pretty much the greatest film they’ve made; an epic animated arthouse sci-fi meets Woody Allen. |
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THE INCREDIBLES |
Pixar's all-conqueringly funny and blastingly energised family comedy from 2004 which centres on a family of superheroes, now living incognito in the suburbs, who find themselves squeezing back into their old costumes when duty calls and they are required to secretly fight crime. |
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THE INCREDIBLES 2 |
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The smart, beautiful, fun family 2018 sequel continues to develop the themes of the original while also staking new territory. |
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PATHS OF GLORY |
Stanley Kubrick's 1957 black-and-white First World War corrupted masterpiece, starring Kirk Douglas, is loosely based on the true story of French soldiers who were executed for 'cowardice' after their companies failed in a suicidal mission to take an enemy stronghold. |
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ROCKS |
"Suffragette" director Sarah Gavron's 2020 coming of age drama about a young teenage girl who finds herself struggling to take care of herself and her younger brother on an East London estate with no money, after being abandoned by their single mother, is actually a pleasure to watch. |
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IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK |
Barry Jenkins' seductive Oscar-winning 2019 adaptation of James Baldwin’s hypnotic 1970's love story, which is set amidst the societal dishonesties that worked to constrain African-Americans in the 1960s. |
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SHOPLIFTERS |
The Palme d’Or winner at Cannes 2018, this satisfying and devastating engrossing gem from Japanese maestro Hirokazu Kore-eda has something distinctly Dickensian about its tale of a couple who frequently resort to shoplifting to feed their family. (Japanese with subtitles). |
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A FISH CALLED WANDA |
Flawless teamwork between American stars Jamie Lee Curtis & Kevin Kline and British Monty Python veterans John Cleese & Michael Palin make this hilarious tale of criminal incompetence and transatlantic eccentricity, from 1988, easily John Cleese's finest achievement since"'Fawlty Towers." |
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DUNKIRK |
Christopher Nolan's 2018 breathtaking historical opus is not a war film in the truest sense, as it tells the story of Operation Dynamo, the massive 1940 evacuation of the Dunkirk beaches, which saw 338,226 retreating allied soldiers rescued by some 800 commandeered boats. |
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DUNKIRK |
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The 1958 Ealing film of the same name is a stirring blend of newsreel footage, personal sacrifice and an all-star cast of the finest British actors of its time, including John Mills, Richard Attenborough and Bernard Lee. (Black & White). |
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LEVIATHAN |
Arguably visionary Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev's finest film, this bleak but compassionate, satirically incendiary drama about the pyramid structure of Russian corruption, follows the legal battle between a homeowner and the mayor of a remote town who wants to buy the land on which his house is built. It is frustrating, funny, heartbreaking and quite magnificently shot throughout. (Subtitles). |
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THE PRINCESS BRIDE |
Filmed in the Peak District, Rob Reiner's 1987 warm and silly fairytale, is a giddy delight for all the family with a rich vein of humour that adults will enjoy. A satire on fairytales written by William Goldman, the author of the original novel, a princess, a pirate, a drunk and a giant have the adventure of a lifetime in this delightful fantasy. |
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SPARTACUS |
One of the greatest Hollywood epics from 1960, with an unbelievable cast, incredible cinematography and plenty of quotable scenes - all of which earned it four Oscars. Stanley Kubrick directs Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, and Tony Curtis in this highly influential Roman slave gladiator revolt story. |
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YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN |
Starring Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Madeleine Kahn & Gene Hackman, this loopy 1974 send-up of Universal's classic monster heyday is one of director Mel Brooks's best comedies, and it's also one of the genre's most thorough and successful fright film parodies. |
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FRANKENSTEIN |
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Shocking in its day and still a genuinely creepy experience, director James Whale's 1931 classic adptation of Mary Shelley's novel is the most influential genre movie ever made. |
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN |
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Widely regarded as one of the greatest sequels in cinematic history, James Whale's 1935 film sculpts every nuance of self-parody, social satire, horror, humour, wit and whimsy. |
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HOWARDS END |
Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter star in this gorgeous 1992 Oscar-winning Merchant Ivory adaptation of EM Forster’s 1910 classic novel, which conjures up the lost world of early 20th-century Edwardian Britain. One of the finest conversions of a novel to cinema. |
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A LIFE ON OUR PLANET |
The most important film of 2020, this terrifying documentary looks back over the career of 93-year-old naturist David Attenborough – but at its heart is a short, sharp, shocking lesson; his 'witness statement'. It is a personal film – and political, too. There is emotion and urgency in that familiar soothing voice. Should be made mandatory viewing for all. |
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