1560, Peru. In a beautiful poetic opening scene the conquistadors cross an Andes pass, situated between the peaks and the valleys, between conquered land and unexplored forests, between 'heaven' and 'earth', shrouded in mists, they make their way down a narrow path. Aguirre's meglomania grows as around him his comrades mutiny and die in his search for the lost city of El Dorado. Herzog's best film, an unforgetable tour de force. Made before the director himself gave in to meglomania on a later t find out more...

"I am dying in time to the splash of their oars - if arms as steady as these had embraced me in life...". This film is Jarman's vision of the life of the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573 - 1610). Caravaggio revisits periods of his tempestuous life in a series of deathbed flashbacks and prose-poem voice-overs, focusing particularly on the intense relationship between himself and a couple who model for him in Rome, Lena and Ranuccio. This sexual and violent love triangle eve find out more...

This classic piece of early silent cinema is noted not merely for its dramatic camerawork and cast of thousands but also for its contribution as a cinematic template, particularly in the genre of horror. Set in 16th Century Prague, a monstrous creature of Jewish myth is unleashed by a Rabbi to save his people from anti-Semitic legislation; unfortunately for all concerned The Golem's taste for destruction is not sated by the demands of his master, and so begins an unstoppable rampage. find out more...

A disturbing Danish film, reanacting witchcraft trials from the 15th and 16th on till the early 20th Century. Mixing scenes of reanactment, animation and illustrated slideshows to depict events of alleged real-life events and possessions, we are shown images of extreme cruelty which smack of the experimental edges of medical research. This must have been tantamount to the work of the devil when it first came out. Sick-minds they had back in 1922! The DVD has a choice of soundtracks, the best of find out more...

The movie that confirmed Kurosawa's greatest strength, his innovative handling of genre. It's set amid the civil wars of 16th Century Japan, and concerns samurai Mifune escorting a princess and two oafish peasants through enemy territory. Kurosawa's treatment is part traditional (the plotting, the concept, the use of Noh theatre music), part eclectic (there are reminiscences of John Ford Westerns), and part truly idiosyncratic (the Shakespearean contracts between clowns and heroes). find out more...

A masterpiece of Soviet Socialist Realism. In 1547, Ivan IV (1530-1584), archduke of Moscow, crowns himself Tsar of Russia and sets about reclaiming lost Russian territory. In scenes of his coronation, his wedding to Anastasia, his campaign against the Tartars in Kazan, his illness when all think he will die, recovery, campaigns in the Baltic and Crimea, self-imposed exile in Alexandrov, and the petition of Muscovites that he return, his enemies among the boyars threaten his success. Chief among find out more...

Ivan takes on the boyars in a battle for power in the second part of Eisenstein's projected trilogy. This was not released till 1958 as Stalin sensed its critical nature, especially its depictation of the secret police. Eisenstein's untimely death robbed us of the chance to see the final part. A Classic. find out more...

A beautifuly staged historical epic set in a sixteenth century Japanese civil war. find out more...

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