It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

Luchino Visconti's masterpiece of a society in transition follows the declining fortunes of the family of Prince Salina, a wealthy Sicilian landowner, during the war of unification in the 1860s. Superbly photographed, evocatively scored and wonderfully performed, the new transfer, with restored sound and picture, allows 'The Leopard' to be experienced in all its original, uncut glory. A true classic. find out more...