The Italian adventurer and libertine Giovanni Jacopo Casanova lived from 1725 to 1798, but in this six-part series Dennis Potter attempted to find a contemporary relevance through his central themes of sex and religion. He commented that Casanova "was concerned with religious and sexual freedom, and these are the things we have to address ourselves to now." Casanova was imprisoned in Venice in 1755, and Potter used that event as a central device, constantly inter-cutting to contrast Casanova's a find out more...

Huppert is stunning in perhaps her finest role as the eponymous Mme Bovary, a slave to her repressive bourgeois 19th Century existence, who, married to a chump, becomes notorious through her pursuit of love, excitement and liberation. Claude Chabrol's sumptuous, moving adaptation of Flaubert's classic novel sticks accurately to the story line. find out more...

Seminal vampire film, the first to be based upon the Bram Stoker tale. An estate agent's clerk from Bremen embarks on a journey to Orlock's castle, where a client of his resides. On arrival, the full horror of the inhabitants confront him. Wonderful imagery and direction. Imitated but never equalled. find out more...

In the dying days of the Austro-Hapsburg Empire, Ukranian Jew Alfred Redl ruthlessly rises from a poverty stricken background to become a high-ranking member of the Imperial Austrian Military. But when Redl is sent to spy on the Russian Empire, he is compromised by his secret double life as a homosexual. As the world perches on the brink of war, Redl finds himself trapped in a web of deception and the mask he has worn all these years is finally peeled off. Adapted from John Osborne's play 'A Pa find out more...

A truly remarkable adaptation of Woolf's novel. Tilda Swanton is enthralling as the androgenous and ageless Orlando seeking love in a 400 year odyssey; from the finery of Elizabeth the First's court, through the Civil War, the early colonial period, the literary salons of 1750, by which time Orlando is a woman, the Victorian era of property, and finally to the present day. Potter's direction adds a marvellous period feel. Superb, this is a magical story . 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...

Ran, Kurosawa's last great epic, is a Jidaigeki (Japanese period drama) depicting the fall of Hidetora Ichimonj, an ageing Sengoku-era warlord who abdicates as ruler in favor of his three sons. His kingdom slowly disintegrates as the sons struggle for power, murdering rivals and laying waste to the land, and Hidetora goes insane after watching his retainers slaughtered in an epic massacre, the centrepiece of the film. As the kingdom crumbles and rival warlords move in for the kill, the Ichimonji find out more...

The film version of Kurt Vonnegut Jr's famous anti-war sci-fi novel. Slipping back and forth along his own life line a suburban optometrist experiences the fire bombing of Dresden and captivity on the planet Trafalmardore. A powerful and seemingly unfilmable book that turned out to be a great movie. find out more...

A film by Tim Burton...that name alone should be incentive enough to watch this, but to all you doubters let me tell you a little story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin. 'Once upon a time'......Based on the short classic by Washington Irving, set in 1799, the tale is of an axe-wielding headless horseman who careers through the sinister moonlit night gruesomely dispatching various members of the small community of Sleepy Hollow. A young, eccentric, policeman, Ichabod Crane (Depp) find out more...

Sumptuous adaptation of Edith Wharton's period drama set in the NY high society of the 1880s. Day Lewis plays the gentleman set to be married to May in the wedding of the year, but increasingly fascinated by the beautiful Countess Olenska. Decor reflects and oppresses characters, posture, gesture, glance and witty ironic narration convey not only individual psychology but the ideals of an entire etiquette-obsessed elite. Tragedy awaits. Awesome; one of the best period adaptations ever made, both find out more...