Wildly unusual costume tale of a Kabuki female impersonator who avenges his parents' suicides by courting (in female guise) their tormentors. His elaborate revenge is superbly choreographed by director Ichikawa, and the central performance of Hasegawa (in TWO roles!) is beyond remarkable. find out more...

Charu lives a lonely and idle life in 1870s India. Although her husband devotes more time to his newspaper than to their marriage, he sees her loneliness and asks his brother-in-law, Umapeda, a would-be writer, to keep her company. At this point Bhupati's cousin, Amal, visits and spends a long vacation and, after several months, Charu and Amal's feelings for each other move beyond friendship and toward tragedy. A classic piece of early drama from the great Satyajit Ray. 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...

At the peak of her international career, Maria Enders is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago. But back then she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She departs with her assistant to rehearse in Sils Maria; a remote region of the Alps. A young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal is to take find out more...

Winner of the Best Actress award at Cannes, 1967, and possibly the prettiest film of the sixties. A high-ranking Swedish soldier sacrifices his wife, career and social standing for the love of a young circus girl, but their idyllic liaison is soon tainted by the realities of life. Romantic tragedy. 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...

An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in turn of the century Vienna, a soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening, later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman and on and on spins on the gay carousel of life. Elegantly constructed and witty fantasy about the vagaries of romantic attraction. Sumptuous sets and sparkling dialogue accompany the characters and, find out more...

This masterpiece is understandably on many people's all time favourite list. The lives of six Parisians are intertwined against the backdrop of the early-19th Century popular theatre and underworld, with the film a multi-layered meditation on the nature of performance. Flawlessly executed and cast. find out more...

Leone's superb all-encompassing epic portraying the death of the mythical 'Wild West'. A superb cast, the collaborations of Bertolucci and Argento, and Morricone's brilliantly atmospheric score all add to the incredible style and weight of Leone's creation. A true cinematic masterpiece! A candidate for greatest movie ever made, if you haven't... then you must. find out more...

After Renoir's reluctant addition of a couple of titles to satisfy the producers desire to expand to feature length, this masterpiece was finally released in 1946. On an idyllic country picnic, a young girl briefly leaves her family and fiance and succumbs to an all-too-brief romance. The careful reconstruction of period (around 1860) is enhanced by a typically touching generosity towards the characters and an aching, poignant sense of love lost, but never forgotten. And, as always in Renoir, find out more...