Part 1 of Wajda's trilogy of wartime films, the hopeful one, is set in Wola, a working-class area of Warsaw in 1942, and deals with the graduation of a bunch of semi-delinquent street kids, through individual acts of defiance and courage, into a youth resistance group. The heroism is not simple, neither loyalties nor self-sacrifice are assured, but united they will be. find out more...

In a Catholic boarding school during the Nazi occupation of France, Julien Quietin, played by Gaspard Manesse as the character based around Malle, is no ordinary student, he is intelligent and different from the others. A new student arrives at the school one day and becomes a sort of intellectual rival to Julien, but, after some early hostilities, the boys begin to connect and eventually become good friends. Malle does not rely on overly dramatic sequences where not necessary as a way to build find out more...

During the German Occupation a young trainee railway guard at a remote country station desperately tries to lose his virginity. He finally succeeds with the station master's wife. Satiric, anti-heroic, humorous and balanced tragi-comedy. Generally considered the finest Czech new wave film. find out more...

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...

A carefully constructed epic telling the story of a rich young English boy whose privileged life is upturned by the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. Separated from his parents he is eventually captured and taken to Soo Chow confinement camp next to a captured Chinese airfield. As he and the other civilians are gradually starved, he turns from a child to an adolescent while learning the art of survival. When the war ends, the boy attempts to find his parents. Based on JG Ballard's autobiographical find out more...

1943; Hungary is one of the last nations to have its Jewish population rounded up and sent to the Nazi death and labour camps. This is the semi-autobiographical story of one 14-year-old boy and his tale of survival from deportation to Buchenwald and on through liberation and the culture shock of his return to Budapest. Told without resort to emotion we follow our hero and others cling on to what scraps of humanity that they can against the total horror surrounding them. Lajos Koltai's film ranks find out more...

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'Happiness' tracks the bittersweet transition as an innocent, simpler lifestyle slowly fades to the seduction of technology and progress in the village of Laya, nestled deep in the Himalayan mountainside of Bhutan. Told through the eyes of Peyangki; a captivating and dreamy nine year old boy, who is sent by his mother to study at the local monastery because she cannot afford to raise all six of her children. Beautiful, sad and... inevitable.

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John Boorman's semi-autobiographical story of London during the Blitz, as seen by the nine-year-old son of an ordinary suburban family. Air raid shelters, shrapnel, and GIs "stealing our women"; a clever blend of tragedy and irony make this a superb film, head and shoulders above average. find out more...

Cracking little comedy which captures perfectly those painful, prepubescent feelings we all remember so well. "QuackQuack" Duckworth has two passions in life - cricket and the cute girl in his class. Sadly, he stands little chance of success with either of them. You'll laugh till you cry! find out more...