A wonderful tale revolving round the atheistic female mathematician, philosopher and all-round genius Hypatia, the lover she spurned and the slave who adored her; Roman authority is collapsing, the end is nigh and the Talibanesque Christians are preparing to both sack and burn the great library at Alexandria, destroying the collective scientific work of centuries, setting back science and maths a millennium, and massacre thousands (including, of course, the Jews). This is an ambitious and swe find out more...

Brad Pitt adopts a dodgy accent to portray up-himself Austrian Heinrich Harrer. Accompanied by David Thewlis, the self-obsessed climber makes an attempt on the Himalayas, gets captured and incarcerated in a British POW camp, escapes, then sets off on an odyssey through sweeping plains and air-brushed sunsets, finally ending up in Tibet. Befriended by a young Dalai Lama, Harrer is eventually able to wallow in the smug self-satisfaction of a man who's "found himself". It all looks very pretty, but find out more...

In Persia in the 11th Century, a surgeon's apprentice disguises himself as a Jew to study at a school that does not admit Christians.

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