UK
As BBC Two premieres its lavish new drama set in the sumptuous surroundings of Versailles, Lucy Worsley and Helen Castor tell the real-life stories behind one of the world’s grandest buildings. They reveal the colourful world of sex, drama and intrigue that Louis XIV and his courtiers inhabited. Lucy untangles Louis’s complex world of court etiquette, fashion and feasting, while Helen delves into the archives and unpicks the Machiavellian world of court politics that Louis created. We meet the people behind the on-screen characters and discover what drove Louis to glorify his reign on a scale unmatched by any previous monarch, examine the tension between Louis and his brother Philippe, a battle hero and overt homosexual, and they meet the coterie of women who competed for Louis’s attention. We see that Louis was ruthless in his pursuit of glory and succeeded in defeating his enemies. In his record-breaking 72-year reign, France became renowned for its culture and sophistication.
Stephen Frears directs this biographical drama focusing on controversial British playwright Joe Orton, revealed in flashback after his murder by lover Kenneth Halliwell. Born in 1933 in Leicester, in the English Midlands, John ‘Joe’ Orton moves to London in 1951, to study at RADA, and enjoys an openly gay relationship with Halliwell in their famous Islington flat in the 1960s. However, when Orton achieves spectacular success with such plays as ‘What the Butler Saw’ and ‘Loot’, Halliwell begins to feel alienated and the pair’s future looks increasingly uncertain.
In this true story told through flashbacks, Christy Brown is born with crippling cerebral palsy into a poor, working-class Irish family. Able only to control movement in his left foot and to speak in guttural sounds, he is mistakenly believed to be retarded for the first ten years of his life.
Bus driver Stan Butler agrees to marry Suzy, much to the anguish of Mum, her son-in-law, Arthur, and daughter Olive. How, they wonder, will they ever manage without Stan’s money coming in? Then Arthur is sacked, and Stan agrees to delay the wedding. Meanwhile, he hits on an idea: Arthur should learn to drive a bus. Somehow he does just that, and even gets a job. Stan then blackmails the Depot Manager into giving him the job of driver on the new money-making Special Tours Bus. A great idea …if only the inspector hadn’t taken Stan on his trial run to the Windsor Safari Park
Due to a female passenger falling out of her top whilst running for the bus Stan is distracted and crashes the bus resulting in the depot managers car being written off. As a result Stan, Jack and Blakey are fired. Stan and Jack soon get new jobs as a bus crew at a Pontins holiday resort but discover that Blakey has also gotten a job there as the chief security guard.
Stan gets a little annoyed when his Mum and Sister keep buying expensive items on hire purchase, but the money he earns for overtime working as a bus driver means that he can afford it… just! His job is secure, as bus drivers are hard to come by, and his overtime prospects are good, until the bus company decide to revoke a long standing rule and employ women bus drivers. Aghast at the thought of
A small time thief from Belfast, Gerry Conlon, is falsely implicated in the IRA bombing of a pub that kills several people while he is in London. He and his four friends are coerced by British police into confessing their guilt. Gerry’s father and other relatives in London are also implicated in the crime. He spends fifteen years in prison with his father trying to prove his innocence.
A pastor preoccupied with writing the perfect sermon fails to realize that his wife is having an affair and his children are up to no good.
Dr. Dempsey is an American scientist who has become a skeptic. He isn’t enthusiastic to be sent by his employer to Scotland to (dis)prove the existence of the Loch Ness monster. He finds the locals stubborn, ‘primitive’ and all but hospitable, not in the least because the Nessie legend is the only tourist attraction. He still gets romantically attracted by his independent inn-keeper Laura, and both her kid and his local assistant end up making him face a small family of Nessie-dinosaurs, but is this to be made public?
In the Eighteenth Century, in a small village in Ireland, Redmond Barry is a young farm boy in love with his cousin Nora Brady. When Nora engages to the British Captain John Quin, Barry challenges him for a duel of pistols. He wins and escapes to Dublin, but is robbed on the road. Without any other alternative, Barry joins the British Army to fight in the Seven Years War.
Michael Caine is Jack Carter, a small-time hood working in London. When word reaches him of his brothers death, he travels to Newcastle to attend the funeral. Refusing to accept the police report of suicide, Carter seeks out his brother’s friends and acquaintances to learn who murdered his sibling and why. Tough gangster film with grim humour.
After their production “Princess Ida” meets with less-than-stunning reviews, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan is strained to breaking. Their friends and associates attempt to get the two to work together again, which opens the way to “The Mikado,” one of the duo’s greatest successes.
Armed men hijack a New York City subway train, holding the passengers hostage in return for a ransom, and turning an ordinary day’s work for dispatcher Walter Garber into a face-off with the mastermind behind the crime.
Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.
When Elizabeth returns to her mother’s home after her marriage breaks up, she recreates her imaginary childhood friend, Fred, to escape from the trauma of losing her husband and her job. In between the chaos and mayhem that Fred creates, Elizabeth attempts to win back her husband and return to normality.
When a group of elite online gamers each receive a mysterious invitation to trial a state-of-the-art virtual reality video game, it’s a dream come true and impossible to resist. Arriving at the test site, the group step into hi-tech gear and prepare for a revolutionary, next-level gaming experience that brings modern warfare to life with frightening realism. At first it’s a unique and exhilarating experience. But what starts out like a dream encounter with cutting edge technology quickly takes a turn for the sinister. Once the group are attacked by enemy combatants, they soon realize this is no game after all. Make a mistake here and you pay with your life. Now these masters of the shoot ‘em up will have to fight for survival within a game gone bad, but this time it’s for real.
Panther is a semi-historic film about the origins of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The movie spans about 3 years (1966-68) of the Black Panther’s history in Oakland. Panther also uses historical footage (B/W) to emphasize some points.
Five people find themselves in a tomb. The Crypt keeper explains why they are there through a series of frightening stories. Based on the classic comic book.
The girls of St. Trinians are on the hunt for buried treasure after discovering headmistress Miss Fritton is related to a famous pirate.
A group of Anglican nuns, led by Sister Clodagh, are sent to a mountain in the Himalayas. The climate in the region is hostile and the nuns are housed in an odd old palace. They work to establish a school and a hospital, but slowly their focus shifts. Sister Ruth falls for a government worker, Mr. Dean, and begins to question her vow of celibacy. As Sister Ruth obsesses over Mr. Dean, Sister Clodagh becomes immersed in her own memories of love.
The “Memphis Belle” is a World War II bomber, piloted by a young crew on dangerous bombing raids into Europe. The crew only have to make one more bombing raid before they have finished their duty and can go home. In the briefing before their last flight, the crew discover that the target for the day is Dresden, a heavily-defended city that invariably causes many Allied casualties
Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus is helpless to save his family from Hades, vengeful god of the underworld. With nothing to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus and unleash hell on earth. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, Perseus and his warriors will only survive if Perseus accepts his power as a god, defies fate and creates his own destiny.
Bathsheba Everdine, a willful, flirtatious, young woman, unexpectedly inherits a large farm and becomes romantically involved with three widely divergent men.
Wake in Fright is the story of John Grant, a bonded teacher who arrives in the rough outback mining town of Bundanyabba planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney, but as one night stretches into several he plunges headlong into his own destruction.
Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he’s not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python’s signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian’s life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.
A young newspaper writer returns to her hometown in the English countryside, where her childhood home is being prepped for sale.
For three years after being forced from office, Nixon remained silent. But in summer 1977, the steely, cunning former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. Nixon surprised everyone in selecting Frost as his televised confessor, intending to easily outfox the breezy British showman and secure a place in the hearts and minds of Americans. Likewise, Frost’s team harboured doubts about their boss’s ability to hold his own. But as the cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits resulted.
In the future, Earth is overcrowded and the population relies on distant bases to be fed. In the Saturn 3 station, Major Adam and the scientist Alex, who is also his lover and has never been on Earth, have been researching hydroponics for three years in the base alone with their dog Sally. Meanwhile, the psychotic Captain Benson fails the mental test required to travel to Saturn 3 and kills his replacement, Captain James, taking his place in the mission of assembling and programming the Demi-God series robot Hector to replace one of the scientists in Saturn 3. On the arrival, the mentally disturbed Captain Benson becomes sexually obsessed for Alex. Then he uses an interface to link his brain to program Hector, but incapable to control his emotions, he transfers his homicidal tendency and insanity to Hector. Now Major Adam and Alex are trapped in the station with a dangerous psychopath robot.
In 140 AD, twenty years after the unexplained disappearance of the entire Ninth Legion in the mountains of Scotland, young centurion Marcus Aquila (Tatum) arrives from Rome to solve the mystery and restore the reputation of his father, the commander of the Ninth. Accompanied only by his British slave Esca (Bell), Marcus sets out across Hadrian’s Wall into the uncharted highlands of Caledonia – to confront its savage tribes, make peace with his father’s memory, and retrieve the lost legion’s golden emblem, the Eagle of the Ninth.
In 1971, a group of friends sail into a nuclear test zone, and their protest captures the world’s imagination. Using never before seen archive that brings their extraordinary world to life, How To Change The World is the story of the pioneers who founded Greenpeace and defined the modern green movement.
August 1944 two months after D-Day, the Allies are advancing across France. A team of British and American commandos are dropped behind enemy lines on a secret mission to ambush a German Officer and steal maps charting the location of the enemy artillery along the front line.
Two hitmen wake up in the back of a truck to discover they have been drugged and their employer brutally murdered. Their attempts to escape bring about a bloody confrontation with a shocking twist in the tale.
Thriller about an honest marshal in a corrupt mining colony on Io, Jupiter’s sunless third moon, who is determined to confront a violent drug ring even though it may cost him his life. After his wife angrily deserts him, he waits alone for the arrival of killers hired by the company to eliminate him. Futuristic remake of “High Noon”.
