Ann is 23 with two young children, married to her high school love and, though life is poor and her job soulless, she is comfortable in the knowledge that there is still plenty of time to fulfil her dreams. A medical check-up, however, causes Ann's presumptions to collapse around her, but rather than wallow in self pity she decides to set about doing all the things she'd wanted, whilst putting in place a world for those she loves that will last long after the little time that is left to her. My find out more...

It's not difficult to fall in love with the characters that Hirokazu Koreeda creates, nor the stunning world in which they live. Still, this is, for me, the most wonderful so far. The story is about four sisters living together and talking through the highs and lows of life, love and death. Time moves at the most staggeringly beautiful pace and wherever there is heartbreak there is solace in sisterhood. Family meals, late night conversation, the promise and charm of find out more...

Streep and MacLaine give riveting portrayals as the celebrity mother and daughter, who, more alike than they think, battle against both each other and the alcohol and drug induced haze of Hollywood. Supposedly based on the true-life traumas of actress Carrie Fisher and her mum Debbie Reynolds and adapted from Fisher's semi-autobiographical novel. 9 out of 9. find out more...

Sophie, a beautiful woman fought over by two obsessive men, is haunted by her horrific past as a survivor of Nazi concentration camps. Through vivid flashbacks we hear her story of survival, and the brutal choice she was forced to make. Brilliant. find out more...

Set in a small town in the Deep South, the Steel Magnolias of the title are six very different women who have a special friendship which spans age, status and social differences. Fine performances all round from the star-studded cast in this touching and witty human drama. find out more...

Spielberg's aclaimed adaptation of Alice Walker's novel of a poor black girl, raped and rejected by her father, separated from her beloved sister and given into a life of domestic servitude and virtual imprisonment to her farmer husband. A bleak tale of hope and eventual liberation warmly told. find out more...

The film opens with a heart rending scene when Julia loses her three-year-old daughter in New York's Central Park. Cut to the present day and a psychologically damaged Julia, having resisted all attempts to break through her isolation, comes across Louise, a troubled young woman with a chequered past. All Julia's psychic wounds painfully resurface, as does her irrational hope that Louise may be the daughter she lost so long ago. 'Girl in the Park' is an intelligent and powerfully performed psyc find out more...

In winter in the south of France, a young woman is found frozen in a ditch. She's unkempt, a vagabond. Through flashbacks and brief interviews, we trace her final weeks as she camps alone or falls in with various men and women, many of whom project their needs onto her or try to give her life direction. She squats in an old house smoking hash with a man, falls for a Tunisian laborer and works beside him pruning grape vines, stays with a couple shepherding goats, meet find out more...