Shosho is a maid in a swanky night-spot when she's spotted dancing by the club's rakish proprietor, Valentine Wilbur. Soon Shosho has usurped Mabel as the star dancer and object of Valentine's affections, setting the scene for a dramatic denouement. A tenderly restored work, with a new musical score by Neil Brand, and a truly hypnotic early screen goddess in the form of Anna May Wong. find out more...

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

The first of Eisenstein's classic series of films. The story of a revolt in a factory and its murderous suppression contains all the elements that went into his later films - the crowd masses, the mosaic of detail, the caricatures, faces of love, breathless montage and ferocious images of cruelty. find out more...

German folklore pervades this romantic tale of a man deciding to murder his wife and then changing his mind, in the end spending an enjoyable day with her. Dreamlike lyricism underlies the moral fable, achieving images of undeniable emotion and beauty. A silent, perhaps THE silent classic. find out more...

A more intimate and low key affair than much of Murnau's other work. Using the technique of film within film, Murnau gives a contemporaneous setting to the classic Molière play. A devious housekeeper sets about persuading her master to re-direct his sizable inheritance away from his loving grandson and instead bequeath his wealth elsewhere. But the lad charms his way into the household disguised as a travelling projectionist and plays Tartuffe in the hope that his Grandfather will see the light. find out more...

A tragi-comic tale from a master of early cinema, FW Murnau.The experienced doorman at the Atlantic Hotel is proud of his position, his responsibilities and his uniform. One busy night he has to take a short rest after lugging a heavy suitcase in from the rain and, unfortunately, his manager comes by during the short time he is not performing his duties. The next day, when the doorman arrives for work, he learns that he has been replaced as doorman and been re-assigned to the purely menial posit find out more...

Hitchcock's third feature is basically a variation on the Jack the Ripper story adapted from a novel by Anne Belloc Lowndes. A serial killer is on the loose in London, singling out blonde haired chorus girls and, as the hunt for him hots up, a stranger turns up seeking lodgings at the Bunter family's house. Mysterious he certainly is, but is he the murderer? Menacingly effective camera work, but lighter in tone than his later thrillers. Especially interesting is the way the younger Hitchcock is find out more...

One of the earliest Hitchcock films. 'The Ring' follows Jack, a prize fighting champion, who, after having been beaten by Bob Corby, finds himself sparring with the victor over his new wife, an increasingly tense situation that results in an emotional and brutal climax as the two men once again face each other in the ring. find out more...

Jean Genet's only film (later disowned by Genet), Un chant d'amour (1950) was banned from public exhibition in France upon its initial release, and has won only sporadic screenings since, often in censored form. It is semi-pornographic, featuring full-frontal male nudes playing with their hard-ons, and fetishistic close-ups of sweaty feet, armpits and thighs. Tough watching it is but its influence can be found in most of the more stylised examples of gay culture everywhere, from perfume adverts 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...