20th Century Flicks, Bristol

Malik is the anti-hero of this somewhat mystical mini-epic of a movie. Just turned adult, illiterate, lacking a clear-cut ethnic identity, he finds himself doing 6 years in a prison run on the inside by a violent Corsican gang with the connivance of corrupt staff. With the guidance of the ghost of a now dead inmate Malik learns not just to read and write but to deal with the power politics of gangsterhood and it is his success at the latter that allows him to emerge from prison... There is a s find out more...

ALPHA DOG (2005)

Certification15 Our Rating

With the swimming pools, drugs, girls and parties come a bunch of spoilt young brats who seem to take their cues from 'American History X' and black inner city gangster movies. They tattoo themselves, build their bodies, call their girls bitches, sell drugs, fight and use guns. Violence, drugs, language, this movie has them in bucketloads, even sex raises its head. Plotwise; headcase Jake owes lots of drug money to drug lord's son John and John kidnaps Jake's younger brother as a hostage. Kid br find out more...

ASSEMBLY (2007)

Certification15 Our Rating

A Chinese soldier's tale; Guzidi was a child of poverty who became a successful guerrilla soldier and then officer in the Liberation Army. After a fierce battle with the KMT Guzidi and his remaining 46 troops are sent to a front line defensive position, where they are abandoned by the main army corps to a fight to the death. After a heroic act in the Korean War Guzidi, riddled with guilt and loss of meaningful identity, fights a long battle to atone for the loss of his company by gaining recogni find out more...

BADLANDS (1974)

Certification18 Our Rating

He was 25-years-old, combed his hair like James Dean. She took music lessons and could twirl a baton, she was 15. For a while they lived together in a tree house then in 1959, she watched while he killed a lot of people. A tale of two dumb kids going nowhere who achieved infamy in the US Midwest. The original to films like Natural Born Killers and True Romance. Sheen, Spacek and Malick debut in this impressive cult classic Brilliant - watch it! find out more...

BROTHER (AKA BRAT) (1997)

Certification18 Our Rating

Directionless demobbed Danila drifts to St Petersberg on the heels of his elder brother, a hitman for the local mafia, to whom he becomes apprenticed. No mug with a gun Danila drifts between the dossers who live on the edge of society, the drug consuming youngsters on the rock scene, a woman he sleeps with and the hoodlums he works for. Brother is a gritty urban thriller and an acute observation of the grim reality that faces many young Russians in a nation ill at ease with capitalism. find out more...

BROTHERHOOD (2004)

Certification15 Our Rating

Two brothers, in itself a metaphor, get drafted into the Korean Civil War. The more macho elder one is determined to become a hero in order to win his bookish brother a ticket back to mum and this leads both to him turning into a monster and a serious split between the two. Against the bitter backdrop of a violent war many loyalties are called into question, to brother, family, friend, nation, ideology, nationality and to fellow soldiers, and many are betrayed. This is an awesome, if emotionally find out more...

BUS 174 (2002)

Certification15 Our Rating

This documentary details the tragic events in Rio de Janeiro on June 12th 2000 when an armed young man, Sandro do Nascimento, desperately boards a bus and threatens to kill the passengers. A sympathetic, even-handed treatment of a disturbing and genuinely upsetting tale. Consisting of interviews with relatives of survivors and friends and family of Sandro himself, with extensive footage from Brazilian TV broadcasters, many of whom filmed the terrible event in its totality... Heavy stuff. find out more...

CITY OF GOD (2002)

Certification18 Our Rating

The 'City of God' is a slum town within the confines of Rio De Janeiro and a place of such casual and seemingly infinite brutality that no one but its residents ever venture within its borders. Rocket is one young man who has made a conscious decision to escape his 'home town' and it is through his eyes that we view this mesmerizing vision of a society where violence and the ruthlessness to use it have run amok. 'City Of God' is a truly awesome film, a heart pounding journey, with relentless pac find out more...

COME AND SEE (1985)

Certification15 Our Rating

Elem Klimov's powerful, mesmerising and dynamic award winning feature has been deservedly hailed as one of the greatest war films ever produced. find out more...

EASTERN PROMISES (2007)

Certification18 Our Rating

When London based mid-wife Anna witnesses the death during childbirth of a young teenage mother, she resolves to find the baby's relatives. Unfortunately for all involved this unwittingly leads her into the brutal, merciless world of an Eastern European mafia, ruled with cold-hearted charm and pseudo-benevolence by restauranter Semyon, but it is the mysterious and lethal driver Nikolai, a man who will become either her saviour or her nemesis, who tantalises Anna with information. After their pre find out more...