Don Boyd

Following the recent death of Ken Russell, Alan Yentob looks back over the career of the flamboyant film director responsible for Women In Love, Tommy and The Devils. Friends and admirers - including Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey - recall a pioneering documentary-maker, talented photographer and fearless film director.

6.8/10

Director Don Boyd's portrayal of the extraordinary love story between a retired bus driver from Croydon and a retired teacher from Chelsea. One took to cruising public toilets and succumbed to drug addiction, crime and prison before personal rehabilitation. The other moved in a social sphere of dinner parties and T S Eliot readings at the seaside, yet had struggles of a different kind. (Storyville)

6.9/10

A documentary portrait of the legendary French film director Louis Malle featuring many of his collaborators including playwrights David Hare and John Guare, his brother Vincent Malle, his wife Candice Bergen, the Observer film critic Philip French and a myriad of the movie stars, actors and actresses he worked with.

8.9/10

A powerful dynasty, headed by a charismatic, manipulative father, falls when he decides to hand over his criminal empire to his three corrupt and power-hungry daughters. Kath runs a brothel down by the docks, Tracy owns a soccer team and Jo, a former junkie -- and prostitute -- rejects her inheritance, pitting sisters Kath and Tracy against each other.

6.1/10

Intimate documentary portrait which chronicles the lives of Donald and Luba Boyd, the parents of the director and the grandparents of his 22 year old daughter and co-cinematographer Kate who accompanies him on his personal quest through the countries that Donald and Luba had lived out their failed marriage.

8.8/10

Opera company gathers to celebrate a wedding and perform

8.5/10

Diana is a troubled, bulimic socialite who lives with her loving husband and shoplifts to get herself off. Julie is an unstable, homeless rape victim who lives with a corrupt priest and steals to survive. They form an uneasy friendship.

4.8/10

Katie is a free spirited independently minded 21-year-old. The film follows her as she reflects on the men in her life. Along the way we meet her drug addict boyfriend Bobby, her lover Jack, close friend Baldy, and her father.

5.4/10
5.7%

Fact-based biography of James Bond author, Ian Fleming. The film focuses on his wartime exploits and romantic adventures which ultimately led to his creation of the super-spy.

6.4/10

A film with no spoken dialogue, just follows the music and lyrics of Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem, which include WWI soldier poet Wilfred Owen's poems reflecting the war's horrors. It shows the story of an Englishman soldier (Wilfred Owen) and a nurse (his bride) during World War I. It also includes actual footage of contemporary wars (WWII, Vietnam, Angola, etc.)

6.6/10
10%

The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.

6.7/10

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound (Vivaldi, Bach, Wagner), and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

5.8/10
5%

Derek Jarman's sequence from the anthology film Aria,which gathered together short musically-themed pieces by a variety of internationally esteemed directors.

After finding her boss, a private detective, has committed suicide and has left her his agency, Cordelia Gray is asked to investigate the suicide of the man's son. During the course of her investigation, Cordelia becomes obsessed with the young man's memory and his increasingly suspicious death.

6/10

Ticlaw, a small town in Florida, has only one attraction: a safari park. The government constructs a freeway that passes near Ticlaw, but decides not to put an exit into the town. The people of Ticlaw, leaded by it's Mayor, will do anything in order to convince the governor to alter the project.

5.2/10

A rather incoherent post-breakup Sex Pistols "documentary", told from the point of view of Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, whose (arguable) position is that the Sex Pistols in particular and punk rock in general were an elaborate scam perpetrated by him in order to make "a million pounds."

6.4/10
10%

Beaty, a prostitute, and Emory, a lighting/sound technician, fall in love while working at the same London cabaret, but their relationship isn't easy.

5/10

This is the hard and shocking story of life in a British Borstal for young offenders. The brutal regime made no attempt to reform or improve the inmates and actively encouraged a power struggle between the 'tough' new inmate and the 'old hands'. This film is a re-make, by the same director and writer, of a 1977 BBC teleplay banned before broadcast [see Scum (1991)].

7.6/10
8.9%

In 1948, a new British governor takes over a Far Eastern colony after his predecessor is murdered by terrorists.

4.9/10