Barry Ackroyd
In the 1940s, the Nicholas Brothers performed a dance routine so seminal it prefigured hip hop by three decades. Contemporary dancers Les Twins choreograph and perform their homage to the one and only duo.
Four undying warriors who've secretly protected humanity for centuries become targeted for their mysterious powers just as they discover a new immortal.
Forced into exile by the English after being crowned King of Scotland, legendary warrior Robert the Bruce fights to reclaim the throne.
The most dangerous former operative of the CIA is drawn out of hiding to uncover hidden truths about his past.
This unique interactive film puts you on set with Ken Loach in production on his latest film, I, Daniel Blake. Throwing us into life on location and during pre-production, it enables you to change the course of your viewing experience by selecting inserts in which Loach and some of his key collaborators – past and present – give fascinating insights into his creative practices. (The version released on the Criterion Collection edition is only 38 minutes and doesn't include the interactive parts with interviews and illustrative scenes from previous Loach films.)
Miguel, a heroic Spanish doctor, puts himself in harm's way to deliver medical treatment to the victims of military uprisings in Africa.
The Nest is a Cathy Come Home story for Generation Rent; a warning tale of how quickly social harmony can break down when people are pushed out to the sidelines. Janine is a single mother struggling to raise her children at odds with the local community. And her daughter Clemy is an angry teenager trying to assert her growing independence. This tense environment is exacerbated by the fact they are living illegally in a squatted house. After being evicted the family is forced to confront their growing sense of resentment and frustration at the world around them.
A woman who survived the brutal killing of her family as a child is forced to confront the events of that day.
The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.
November 22nd, 1963 was a day that changed the world forever — when young American President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. This film follows, almost in real time, a handful of individuals forced to make split-second decisions after an event that would change their lives and forever alter the world’s landscape.
Narrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives.
When his brother-in-law runs afoul of a drug lord, family man Chris Farraday turns to a skill he abandoned long ago—smuggling—to repay the debt. But the job goes wrong, and Farraday finds himself wanted by cops, crooks and killers alike.
Caius Martius, aka Coriolanus, is an arrogant and fearsome general who has built a career on protecting Rome from its enemies. Pushed by his ambitious mother to seek the position of consul, Coriolanus is at odds with the masses and unpopular with certain colleagues. When a riot results in his expulsion from Rome, Coriolanus seeks out his sworn enemy, Tullus Aufidius. Together, the pair vow to destroy the great city.
During the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad in 2003, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his team of Army inspectors are dispatched to find weapons of mass destruction believed to be stockpiled in the Iraqi desert. Rocketing from one booby-trapped and treacherous site to the next, the men search for deadly chemical agents but stumble instead upon an elaborate cover-up that threatens to invert the purpose of their mission.
A dramatisation that follows Tony Blair's journey from political understudy waiting in the wings of the world arena to accomplished prime minister standing confidently in the spotlight of centre stage. It is a story about relationships, between two powerful men (Blair and Bill Clinton), two powerful couples, and husbands and wives.
A man trying to put his life back on track gets some advice from an unexpected benefactor (the ex-footballer Eric Cantona) in this comedy-drama from acclaimed British director Ken Loach.
Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.
Thousands of activists arrive in Seattle, Washington in masses to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 (World Trade Organization). Although it began as a peaceful protest with a goal of stopping the WTO talks, it escalated into a full-scale riot and eventually, a State of Emergency that pitted protesters against the Seattle Police Department and the National Guard.
In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.
A documentary on the films of Ken Loach. Interviews with cast and crew who worked with Loach over the years. It describe his approach to allowing actors a wide range of freedom.
Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson star in a story of grief and celebrity, set in the intense spring and summer of New Labour's election victory and Diana's death. Nighy is a PR guru who has to stop and re-evaluate his world when his daughter threatens to leave his life, perhaps as revenge for his serial infidelities. Richardson plays a mother trying to bury her grief in an unconventional way after the loss of her young son.
Paul Reynolds is a Gatsby-like figure: owner of a magnificent house, the host of great parties, and a collector of interesting people. He persuades Lizzie Thomas, a secretary at a local estate agent's, to come and work for him as his assistant, to bring some order to his chaos. He inspires her with his enthusiasm and imagination, and frustrates her with his apparent carelessness and destructiveness, which culminates in her calling the police as one of his parties is attacked by local troublemakers, seemingly with his tacit approval. But their paths are destined to cross again and again as Lizzie, with the help of some of the people that she met at Paul's house, rises through the changing landscape of corporate Britain. This is the tale of a meaningful and powerful relationship that isn't a love story; it's about those rare people who profoundly influence and shape our lives.
A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.
"Os Imortais" is without a doubt one of the best, or probably, the best Portuguese film ever made. It certainly is a landmark on the Portuguese cinema's scene; this movie his worth every minute. Every year, four ex-soldiers that call themselves "Os Imortais" (translated "The Immortals"), get together with four women to celebrate war deeds and to remember the old days, back in the war. On the summer of 1985, tired of their monotonous lives they decide to rob a bank. Joaquim Malarranha, a chief inspector from the local police about to retire, crosses their path and will spend his last days of duty trying to solve the robbery. But has he carries on with his investigation, he discovers more than he could ever think of.
The life of Prince John, youngest child of Britain's King George V and Queen Mary, who died at the age of 13 in 1919.
British filmmaker Simon Cellan Jones directs the BBC drama Eroica, starring Ian Hart as Ludwig van Beethoven. Shot on digital video, this TV film depicts the first performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, June 9th, 1804, in Vienna, Austria. Prince Lobkowitz (Jack Davenport) has invited friends to listen to Beethoven conduct his new symphony for the first time. Among the aristocratic attendees are Count Dietrichstein (Tim Pigott-Smith), Countess Brunsvik (Claire Skinner), and composer Josef Haydn (Frank Finlay). The actual musical score is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.
Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.
Sunday tells the story of an infamous day in Derry, North of Ireland and how the events of that day were subsequently covered up by the British Government of the time. On Sunday 30th January 1972 a peaceful civil rights march against internment (imprisonment without trial), organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) ended with 13 marchers shot dead and 15 wounded. It became known throughout the world as Bloody Sunday. Told primarily from the perspective of the Derry community, juxtaposed with the British Army/state's preparations and reaction to the day, Sunday communicates the forensic and emotional truth of what happened
Two parallel tales of redemption, a century apart. In the New York storyline, Edge hunts for Angela's gold to pay back a debt, and gradually grows closer to her. In the Macedonian story, the brothers end up fighting for opposite sides of a revolution, with the religious Elijah taking up sides with the Ottoman sultan and gunslinger Luke joining "the Teacher" , a Macedonian rebel.
Set in the fictional village of "Ogw" in the valleys of south-east Wales. After her father Jack suffers a stroke Annie Mary Pugh is forced to take care of him but uses the circumstances to emancipate herself and find the courage to sing once again.
In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that because of privatization, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it is clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords.
Maya is a quick-witted young woman who comes over the Mexican border without papers and makes her way to the LA home of her older sister Rosa. Rosa gets Maya a job as a janitor: a non-union janitorial service has the contract, the foul-mouthed supervisor can fire workers on a whim, and the service-workers' union has assigned organizer Sam Shapiro to bring its "justice for janitors" campaign to the building. Sam finds Maya a willing listener, she's also attracted to him. Rosa resists, she has an ailing husband to consider. The workers try for public support; management intimidates workers to divide and conquer. Rosa and Maya as well as workers and management may be set to collide.
A movie about a middle aged french man who after a family crisis travels on the spur of the moment to London only to get caught up in the male prostitution business and eventually drugs.
In London, during October 1993, England is playing Holland in the preliminaries of the World Cup. The Bosnian War is at its height, and refugees from the ex-Yugoslavia are arriving. Football rivals, and political adversaries from the Balkans all precipitate conflict and amusing situations. Meanwhile, the lives of four English families are affected in different ways by encounter with the refugees.
Xavier Lombard is a world-weary private eye in London, in exile from his native Paris; his best friend is Nathalie, a high-class call girl. He gets a call from an old friend from the Paris police department, now a businessman whose brother-in-law is missing. The missing man's parents hire Xavier over their daughter's objections, and quickly he finds himself in the realm of children's sexual slavery.
Two thirtysomethings, unemployed former alcoholic Joe and community health worker Sarah, start a romantic relationship in the one of the toughest Glasgow neighbourhoods.
Although married and pregnant Rose has always been Mother's favorite, it is younger sister Iris whose life is shaken up by Mother's death. Suffocating, Iris spirals out of control and copes by losing herself in sexual oblivion. She leaves her steady, Gary, for a steady stream of one night stands in the arms of mysterious strangers, alienating Gary, Rose, her friends, and her employers in the process. Will this go on until she loses everything that is meaningful to her?
A Glasgow man visits war-torn Nicaragua with a refugee tormented by her memories.
Two young children are brought to Janet Hinton, a social worker in the Scottish Highlands. When both she and an independent expert become convinced that the children are part of a ritual child abuse network, the small community is thrown into disarray.
Drama based on the real life events of April 1989, when ninety-six Liverpool supporters were crushed to death during an F.A. Cup Semi-Final match against Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Stadium. This movie follows three Liverpudlian families before the match, during the tragedy and at the ensuing court battles which tried to decide who was to blame and what went wrong.
David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.
Leo Doyle, a convicted IRA murderer, is released into the community after 14 years in prison on a scheme to rehabilitate former terrorists. He soon finds that the ceasefire has robbed him of both purpose and identity. Relationships with his family are difficult and reach boiling point when they find that he has rekindled his affair with a former fiancee Roisin, now married with three children.
Maggie has had four children, by four different fathers, removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. When she meets Jorge, a gentle Latin American refugee, she gradually sees her chance for happiness, but her history still haunts her.
This Ken Loach film tells the story of a man devoted to his family and his religion. Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to more and more questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.
Returning to England from Trinidad and Tobago for one night only, a former trickster finds that old friends and communities have moved on.
A behind-the-scenes look at Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy film, 'Labyrinth', featuring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly.
Anthology music film starring Japanese singer-songwriter Yumi Matsutoya. It takes place on a train intercut with a series of flashbacks or daydreams which serve as long-form music videos.
