This is the middle story of Satyajit Ray's Bengali trilogy and, after Pather Panchali, we find Apu on the cusp of adulthood. The young lad moves with his family to Benares but with the death of his father, Apu's desire to continue his learning is affirmed and as his passion for knowledge grows so he and his mother find themselves drifting apart, especially as he wants to leave home and go to Calcutta to study. Aparajito is a beautifully drawn film and an immaculate observation of the characters find out more...

Donat is perfectly cast as the lovable teacher, in this classic British drama, reminiscing about his career and personal life over the decades, his rise from lowly Latin master to headmaster of a public school and the joys and tragedies which moulded his transformation. The film won a staggering seven Academy Awards. Hugely enjoyable. find out more...

The 1960s and tradition is teetering on the edge, a group of minor public school boys can't hack it any more and rebellion brews. Discovering a cache of automatic weapons, they revolt bloodily against the establishment around them, from the rooftop they engage in a firefight with the teachers and other students, who are armed with the Army Cadet training rifles. A classic of the English cinema... rise up all teens. find out more...

Schoolteacher John Scopes is placed under close arrest for advocating Darwin's theory of evolution to his pupils in violation of a stifling Tennessee law banning anything that 'denies the divine creation of man as taught by the Bible'. The case is taken up by a cynical newspaper-man who takes an interest when the champion of the Fundamentalists and three-time presidential candidate is named prosecutor. A fascinating and absorbing dramatisation of the famous 1925 'Monkey Trial'. find out more...

A young working-class lad in a grim Northern mining town has no more ambition than to follow his dad down the pit. However he finds an injured young kestrel, which he nurses back to health and trains, an event which opens up a once bleak landscape for him. It's grim up there..... find out more...

Despite not living to his 30th birthday, Jean Vigo is still considered one of the great masters of French cinema. He only made 4 films and all of them are contained here, beautifully restored and with plenty of extras, including a feature length documentary on the director. L'Atlante tells the story of two newly weds living on board a barge on the Seine, Zero de Conduite contains a satirical tale of student revolt, A Propos de Nice is a documentary about the French coastal town, and Taris cinegr find out more...

Truffaut's first feature, the melancholy and revealing portrait (semi-autobiographical) of an adolescent boy growing up in Paris. We see the intense, destructive family background followed by an escape from reform school. Beautifully perceptive performances make this one of Truffaut's finest works. find out more...

When Nicholas Nickleby's father dies and leaves his family destitute, his uncle, the greedy moneylender, Ralph Nickleby, finds Nicholas a job teaching in a repulsive school in Yorkshire. Nicholas flees the school taking with him one of the persecuted boys, Smike, and they join a troop of actors. Nicholas then has to protect Smike, while trying to stop his Uncle Ralph taking advantage of his sister Kate, and later his sweetheart, Madeline Bray, whose father is in debtors' prison. For a director w find out more...

One of two classic Lean adaptations of Charles Dickens. From the opening shot of Oliver's mother struggling through the snow to reach the workhouse. The film brilliantly recreates the feeling of poverty-stricken Victorian England. Look out in particular for Alec Guinness' superb performance as Fagin. find out more...

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...