Two works from the father of narrative cinema. In "Broken Blossoms" (1919); a Chinaman arrives in London to teach the locals the ideals of Buddhism but finds them most unreceptive and, instead, opens a shop which becomes the refuge for a xenophobic boxer's abused daughter. Lillian Gish is brilliant and Griffith poetic. "Abraham Lincoln", (1930), was Griffith's first talkie and is a straightforward biopic from childhood to his premature assassination. find out more...

Hazel Woods is a beautiful young country girl, living in the hills on the Anglo-Welsh border, whose heart and soul are at one with the country around, she's raised a fox and communes with nature, but her happy and innocent existence is under threat from the local fox-hunting and handsome cad of a squire, who is obsessed with having her, and is a spirit completely at odds with her own kind nature. It's him or the incredibly boring, but well-meaning vicar, that she will chose. Gone To Earth was or find out more...

Barny is a young widow, she is also a militant communist and atheist who one day enters a church, and randomly picks a priest to taunt. Leon Morin is a Catholic priest: he is also young, handsome and unconventional in his religious approach. The two begin a platonic relationship, but soon Barny's admiration for Morin turns to desire and he becomes the object of her romantic obsession... find out more...

Among the lavish sets one can detect a plot in which one of Nero's Roman commanders falls in love with a Christian girl and they both get thrown to the lions. Ustinov barks, foams at the mouth, sets fire to the eternal city, and steals the show. Rivetting acting in one of the last great cinema epics.

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Set in Shanghai during the Chinese Revolution, the storyline explores the relationship between a missionary, Megan, and a Chinese warlord, General Yen. It's refreshing to see Capra tackling something more alien to him than the struggles of idealistic American men and he seems to have taken a healthy interest in a culture that at the time was still shrouded in mystery and secrecy. The style of the film is infused with the Orient, from its zen-like mise en scene to the director's inclusion of c find out more...

Newly restored to its original splendour, this is a definitive Hollywood epic that charts the intrigues surrounding the Imperial throne, held by Marcus Aurelius and coveted by the corrupt Commodus, that led to the Romans' downfall at the hands of the Barbarians. Superbly portrayed, a cast of thousands, spectacular battle scenes, while La Loren provides the passion. Stunning sets and a stirring score.

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Sierra Leone 1942; Trevor Howard gives perhaps his best performance as the humane deputy police commissioner in debt to a local trader and being blackmailed for having an affair outside his failed marriage. In the book, riddled with guilt, he kills himself, one of the deepest sins of his Catholic faith, but in the film his death is accidental. Nevertheless this tale of torment is an atmospheric and noteworthy adaptation of one of Greene's works and a superbly acted depictation of religious and m find out more...

This is it, the movie that kicked it all off, the first commercially released full length (with synchronized dialogue) talkie... although that's not the only reason to watch this musical story of a Jewish man breaking with his traditionalist father in order to pursue a career as a Jazz singer. 'The Jazz Singer' later became a template for other musical biopics and highly influenced the direction talkies would take. One of the most notable features of the film is the unusual use of 'blackface', find out more...

Franklin J. Schaffnerâ's ambitious costume drama set in 11th-century, stars Charlton Heston as Chrysagon de la Cruex, a Norman knight assigned to a remote garrison on the fringe of Europe. Weary of war and increasingly lonely, the Christian knight becomes enthralled with Bronwyn, a pagan beauty who seems remote from the barbarism of his own creed. The opening scenes, with their hauntingly atmospheric photography lend a sense of foreboding (think the original Wicker Man) to proceedings, find out more...