Victor Hugo's classic novel of a prisoner on the run gets a reworking by Josee Dayan in this 3 hour film version. The highlight of this film (other than the beautiful lack of overblown musical maladies) is the casting. Gerard Depardieu uses his ambiguous persona to great effect as Jean Valjean; the captivating Charlotte Gainsbourg as Fantine; an angelic Virginie Ledoyen as her orphaned daughter and the menacing urbanity of John Malkovich is excellently projected onto Valjean's nemesis Javert. As find out more...

Set against the backdrop of 19th century France, Les Misérables tells the story of broken dreams and unrequited love, passion, sacrifice and redemption; a timeless testament to the survival of the human spirit....but with over wrought songs. Ex-prisoner Jean Valjean, has been hunted for decades by the ruthless policeman Javert after he broke parole. When Valjean agrees to care for factory worker Fantine’s young daughter, Cosette, the lives of all involved change forever. Another find out more...

An umpteenth adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel, with Liam Neeson taking the lead as hard-done by hero Valjean, unjustly imprisoned for 20 years before making his escape, and living a virtuous life under an assumed identity, before it becomes apparent that his past will forever come back to haunt him. Uma Thurman plays the beautiful, impoverished Fantine, whom Valjean decides to save from a life of vice. A competent but somewhat sanitised reworking of the classic tale. find out more...

One of two classic Lean adaptations of Charles Dickens. From the opening shot of Oliver's mother struggling through the snow to reach the workhouse. The film brilliantly recreates the feeling of poverty-stricken Victorian England. Look out in particular for Alec Guinness' superb performance as Fagin. find out more...

Dickens' classic tale of the young orphan boy, picking a pocket or two and struggling to survive in the seedy underbelly of 19th Century London is gloriously brought to life by Polanski. Oliver is a visual feast without doubt; the only question is quite why a director like Polanski has remained so rigidly within the original framework of the book, particularly when David Lean did such an exemplary adaptation over half a century earlier. find out more...

Another adaptation of the classic novel sees our hero robbed of everything he holds dear by a jealous friend. Imprisoned, but finding in the dark hell a friend and teacher, Edmond Dantes sets about meticulously plotting his revenge. The Count Of Monte Cristo is a enjoyably old-fashioned swash buckling adventure that makes no attempt to do the book justice. find out more...

Alexandre Dumas' celebrated book recounts the adventures of Edmond Dantès, a fabulously wealthy 19th-century French aristocrat, whose charm and generosity hides an obsessive desire for revenge against those who betrayed him many years earlier. This French production has the distinction of being the first filmed version of the newly restored unabridged version of Dumas' classic, and is a lavish recreation of the epic novel. find out more...

'The Round Up' takes place within a detention camp in the remote Hungarian countryside, after the collapse of the 1848 revolution against Austrian domination. A formal variation on the main patterns of ritual power, director Jansco deliberately side-steps revolutionary heroics and focuses on the persecutions and de-humanizations, which always accompany conflict, and makes 'an almost abstract statement of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed'... there are only losers and survivors. find out more...