English General Charles George Gordon, a devout Christian, is appointed military governor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by Prime Minister Gladstone. Ordered to evacuate Egyptians from the Sudan, General Gordon stays on to protect the people of Khartoum, who are under threat of being conquered by Mohammed Ahmed el Mahdi, "the Expected One," the head of the Muslim forces. An out-and-out action spectacle sealed with stunning cinematography. find out more...

Set in the Sino-Japanese war, Yasuzo Masumura's black-and-white anti-war film tells of an army nurse who sexually services an amputee and falls in love with a drug-addicted surgeon. This can't be recommended to the squeamish, but neither can its nuanced eroticism nor its passionate, unpredictable moral focus, be easily shaken off. Comparable with Altman's MASH, it suggests a less comic treatment of the same theme, how to preserve one's humanity in impossible circumstances, but its ethics are con find out more...

Richard's military skills have helped to put his older brother Edward on the throne of England, but jealousy and resentment cause Richard to seek the crown for himself, and he conceives a lengthy and carefully calculated plan using deception, manipulation, and outright murder to achieve his goal. His plotting soon has tumultuous consequences, both for himself and for England. find out more...

The third of Ford's ‘cavalry' films with Wayne as,the now Lieutenant Colonel, Kirby Yorke, a soldier in charge of putting down the rebellious Apaches, whose land the white man has recently half-inched. Unfortunately this involves crossing over into Mexico, in effect invading a foreign country, something which doesn't give the old imperialist half as many problems as his rather tortured home life. find out more...

'The Duke' stars in this magnificent John Ford Oscar winning Western. Several of the themes, for example the contrast between the beauty of the wild and the corruption of 'civilization', in Ford's later films are touched upon, as is his choice of the Monument Valley setting, which he made his own. A taut psychological study of the occupants of a stagecoach ending in an Indian attack. find out more...

Adapted from a Novokshenov novel this semi-ethnographic, semi-polemical epic follows a Mongol uprising against British occupiers not long after the communist revolution in Russia. When a young herdsman is captured by the British a twist of fate leads them to believe he is a descendant of Genghis Khan and, hoping that such a presence will pacify the people, he is dully installed as a puppet leader. This as you might expect turns out to be a terrible error of judgement on the part of the interlope find out more...

Supposedly a biography of Michelangelo, it is much more that of Pope Julius II, who, when not on the battlefield uniting Italy, nags Michelangelo, in an engaging and witty script, to speed up his painful work painting the Sistine Chapel, and wonders when he will finsh. The transformation of the chapel ceiling, which was originally dotted with stars, to an opulent statement of high renaissance is engrossing. find out more...

A disturbingly racist portrayal of the American Civil War, stunningly made, but unforgivably sympathetic to the KKK. This is an historic landmark of cinema, remarkable for its technical innovations if not its content. find out more...

A 1960s indictment of both war and 19th Century British imperialism which caricatures the aristocracy as blood-thirsty snobs and the workers as cap doffing morons, a blend that led to disaster. A well researched, thought provoking drama starring just about any British thespian who wanted a job. Included on the DVD is the 1912 silent version of the Charge of the Light Brigade, from the studio of Thomas Edison. find out more...

John Wayne grabs centre stage as the ruthless Colonel Marlowe in this powerful Civil War Western based on the Grierson Raid, when Union troops cut a swathe deep into the heart of the Confederacy to choke off vital supply lines. A thoughtful and compelling film on the futility of war from the master of the genre, John Ford. find out more...