A beautiful, witty depiction of a fantastic female poet. Terence Davies gives Dickinson the treatment she deserves, exploring how her personal life and character burst onto the page in the form of beautiful, lyric poetry. Wonderfully portrayed by Cynthia Nixon with a stellar supporting cast, it's a pure joy to watch. find out more...

Inside this conventionally structured biopic resides an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. William Wilberforce was the parliamentary spokesman for a group of radicalised young Evangelists (and Quakers), who despised the money politics and corruption of late 18th Century UK politics and who fought for many reformist policies, the most notable of which was the one this film annotates, the abolition of slavery, a process that took years of political skulduggery and the slow passage of find out more...

London, 1818; the young Romantic poet John Keats begins an unlikely three year romance with chic urbanite neighbour Fanny, an affair cut short by his premature illness and death. A superbly made interpretation of love and its rendition through poetry. find out more...

It has been customary to portray Byron as the archetypal Romantic hero with a big floaty cloak, eyeliner and an evil chuckleAn intelligent and perceptive film that concentrates on the highly comples witty, intelligent and charismatic writer rather than some . Jonny Lee Miller carries off Byron's personality with aplomb, making him smug and petulant while unavoidably charismatic and likable. Of course it's still all conjecture, but as far as Byron films go, there's nothing out there to touch this find out more...

The moving and superbly directed account of the life of the talented sculptor Camille Claudel and her tempestuous affair with the already famous Rodin, which lasted 15 years during which time she inspired some of his greatest works, but suffered with her own sanity. Depardieu and Adjani excel. find out more...

A landmark in the history of the cinema; it was ranked Number 1 in the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time in two polls (1998 and 2007) of more than 1,500 film industry movers and shakers and again by UK directors in a BFI poll. "Citizen Kane" narrates the rise and fall of a newspaper tycoon driven by a childhood obssession and is loosely based round the life of William Randolph Hurst, who tried to have it banned, but incorporates elements from the lives of other fat cats il find out more...

Abandoned by her father and brought up in an orphanage Gabrielle Chanel's early years were not easy ones, but her willful determination, intelligence and obvious gift would see her ultimately rise to iconic status within the world of 20th Century fashion. 'Coco Before Chanel' never glamorises her life, neither the way she looks nor the lovers she takes; a thoughtful understated observation of Chanel's life before fortune finally beckoned. Not a visually sumptuous film, as you might expect, but a find out more...

Saved from a group of drifters by Kim Byung-moon uncouth and self-taught painter Jang Seung-up offers a drawing as a means of thanks. Examining the picture, Kim realises Jang's extraordinary potential and becomes his mentor, encouraging him to pursue the life of an artist. find out more...

The BFI continues its successful strand of Archive Television releases with Ken Russell's classic documentary Elgar, which was first shown in 1962 as the 100th programme in the BBC's Monitor series. This partly dramatised account of the life of composer Sir Edward Elgar includes footage of Elgar at the Three Choirs Festival and a recording of the opening of Abbey Road Studios when 'Land Of Hope And Glory' was played. find out more...

Superb drama with a stunning performance from Judi Dench as Queen Victoria. Consumed with grief, after the death of Prince Albert, the arrival of John Brown, Albert's fiery former servant, shakes the Queen from her melancholy and gives her a new lease of life, but feathers are ruffled within the palace as a touching friendship develops tentatively between the two. As public feeling turns against the monarch, the pressure falls squarely on Brown's shoulders, turning the proud, strong Scotsman int find out more...