20th Century Flicks, Bristol

The classic anti-war film of the classic anti-war book. The story follows a group of naive young patriots from school in Germany through the horrors of WW1 and their gradual annihilation in the trenches. As the angry, bewildered boys witness death and mutilation all around them, all ideas about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life whi find out more...

APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)

Certification18 Our Rating

The greatest movie ever made? A soldier is sent into the Heart of Darkness to retrieve a commander gone AWOL in an insane reality of tin-pot power, paranoia and inglorious killing. The horror of war is stripped naked in a surreal twilight world. The crew nearly went mad making it, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack and Coppola flew so far beyond budget that the word 'bankrupt' was nearly redefined. See "Heart of Darkness"... find out more...

APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX (1979)

Certification18 Our Rating

The definitive 'Apocalypse Now' (as if the original wasn't pretty definitive) this has nearly an hour of extra footage fleshing out the surreal journey of our central protagonists and, though it brings the film to a whisker short of three and a half hours, much of it explains what happens to the eclectic characters we meet. The cut version of 'Apocalypse Now' stands as one of the most awesome films of modern cinema, anyone who has seen it will inevitably see it again, it's just that now you have find out more...

ARARAT (2002)

Certification15 Our Rating

Atom Egoyan has created a world within a world, shifting between the contemporary and, through the making of a film about the events, the tragic genocidal slaughter of the Armenians in turn of the 20th Century Turkey. Ararat is a thoughtful and thought provoking drama of the highest order. find out more...

ASSEMBLY (2007)

Certification15 Our Rating

A Chinese soldier's tale; Guzidi was a child of poverty who became a successful guerrilla soldier and then officer in the Liberation Army. After a fierce battle with the KMT Guzidi and his remaining 46 troops are sent to a front line defensive position, where they are abandoned by the main army corps to a fight to the death. After a heroic act in the Korean War Guzidi, riddled with guilt and loss of meaningful identity, fights a long battle to atone for the loss of his company by gaining recogni find out more...

BARRY LYNDON (1975)

CertificationPG Our Rating

Winner of four Oscars, this film is shot with the most beautifully scenic backgrounds and with great attention to costume detail. An Irish adventurer, Barry Lyndon, crosses Europe from woman to job, but in the end returns to Britain seeking a wealthy marriage. find out more...

BATTLE FOR HADITHA (2007)

Certification15 Our Rating

Nick Broomfield's docu-dramatisation of the massacre of twenty-four men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq, killed by US Marines in retaliation for the death of one of their number in a roadside bomb. Characteristically broad in its approach, following as it does with equal lack of judgement the soldiers, the Iraqi families and the insurgents. A traumatic, gripping and thoughtful re-enactment of events. find out more...

BEFORE THE RAIN (1994)

Certification15 Our Rating

An Oscar nominee and Golden Lion winner, this three part film starts with a monk escorting an Albanian girl through a gorgeous Macedonian setting, then moves to London, where an exile lives, and finally returns to a divided Balkan village where gun touting Macedonian and Albanian ethnics fan their mutual hatred. The human tragedy of war contrasts with a stunning landscape. Beautiful, moving, superb. find out more...

BIG WEDNESDAY (1978)

CertificationPG Our Rating

Set between 1962 and 1974 this traces the story of three buddies from adolescent surfing champs to post-Vietnam trauma. As the times change they find their youth is lost until one vital Wednesday in 1974 when there is a Big Swell and they hit the waves again, superb. find out more...