Donat is perfectly cast as the lovable teacher, in this classic British drama, reminiscing about his career and personal life over the decades, his rise from lowly Latin master to headmaster of a public school and the joys and tragedies which moulded his transformation. The film won a staggering seven Academy Awards. Hugely enjoyable. find out more...

When Nicholas Nickleby's father dies and leaves his family destitute, his uncle, the greedy moneylender, Ralph Nickleby, finds Nicholas a job teaching in a repulsive school in Yorkshire. Nicholas flees the school taking with him one of the persecuted boys, Smike, and they join a troop of actors. Nicholas then has to protect Smike, while trying to stop his Uncle Ralph taking advantage of his sister Kate, and later his sweetheart, Madeline Bray, whose father is in debtors' prison. For a director w find out more...

After the death of his financially replete father, Nicholas Nickleby and his family travel to London to seek assistance from his father's older brother Ralph. Taking an immediate dislike to his nephew, Ralph employs Nicholas under the sadistic Mr Wackford Squeers and his interminable wife, owners of a boys' school in northern England. In the meantime, Ralph seeks to use Nicholas's beautiful sister Kate as a ploy to influence his investors. Discourse forces Nicholas to flee the school with the cr 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...