A languid Oxford summer is the background to this self-assured treatment of Harold Pinter's screenplay. A calm veneer of civilization is laboriously peeled away after an undergraduate is killed in a car crash, setting the six central characters, (three men, two wives and a girl), at odds as they gradually tear each other to shreds. Superb performances and a disconcertingly urbane atmosphere. find out more...

The last in Pasolini's trilogy, after 'The Decameron' and 'The Canterbury Tales', is a series of interlinked tales from the ancient Middle Eastern classic. 'Arabian Nights' is a truly lush and lusty version of the original folk stories revolving around slaves, kings, demons, love, betrayal, loss and appeasement. find out more...

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko, played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine, who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern post-war Ginza district. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. A profoundly moving masterpiece. find out more...