Inside this conventionally structured biopic resides an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. William Wilberforce was the parliamentary spokesman for a group of radicalised young Evangelists (and Quakers), who despised the money politics and corruption of late 18th Century UK politics and who fought for many reformist policies, the most notable of which was the one this film annotates, the abolition of slavery, a process that took years of political skulduggery and the slow passage of find out more...

A group of abducted Africans break free from their shackles aboard a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, so setting the scene for a lengthy courtroom drama played out against a backdrop of 19th Century slavery. Matthew McConaughy is the noble young lawyer fighting for the slaves' freedom, while Anthony Hopkins is mesmerising as decrepit former President John Quincy Adams. Superb sets and an authentic atmosphere, and it's pretty gruesome at times too. Typically Spielberg-esque epic. find out more...

Immaculate costumes, a brilliant script and two star-crossed lovers in a battle of wits in this tale of the unconsummated romance between Thailand's reformist King Mongkut (Rama 4) and Anna Leonowens, his son's English tutor. All this set a backdrop of court intrigue against the still running Rama dynasty. Very good. find out more...

A landmark in the history of the cinema; it was ranked Number 1 in the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time in two polls (1998 and 2007) of more than 1,500 film industry movers and shakers and again by UK directors in a BFI poll. "Citizen Kane" narrates the rise and fall of a newspaper tycoon driven by a childhood obssession and is loosely based round the life of William Randolph Hurst, who tried to have it banned, but incorporates elements from the lives of other fat cats il find out more...

The story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a group of 1830s Dorset farm labourers who had the effrontery to form a Trade Union to fight against their wages being lowered and who got transported to Australia for their pains. find out more...

An impressive BBC adaptation of Dostoyevsky's tragic masterpiece, a profound analysis of redemption and a cerebral detective story of the soul. find out more...

A heavy epic about Etienne Lantier's determination to end the terrible working conditions of the miners in 19th Century France. Along the way he rouses them to strike and incurs the wrath of the powerful mine-owners who are determined to stop him. Depardieu is excellent, as usual, and this adaptation of Zola's novel looks superb. find out more...

Internationally acclaimed, but one of the biggest and most expensive box-office flops in movie history. As the rich cattle barons legally kill the poor immigrant farmers who have taken to illegal rustling to feed their starving families, the local law can only uneasily enforce what has become a mockery, or lapse into alcoholism. Moral compromise on a national scale is in question here and the US media hated this film. A portrayal of the problems faced by the first European immigrants in the Wyom find out more...

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A powerful adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's feisty and passionate love story, set across the social divides in the changing world of Victorian industrial society. Margaret Hale is one of literature's most original heroines, a southerner from a country vicarage newly settled in the industrial northern town of Milton. In the shock of her move, she misjudges charismatic cotton mill-owner John Thornton, whose strength of purpose and passion are a match for her own pride and wilfulness. When the wor find out more...