Paul Scofield

Journey into "Hamlet"-the play and the man-through the experiences of some of the major actors and directors who have brought Shakespeare's great tragedy to life. Christopher Plummer, David Tennant, John Nettles, John Simm, Sir Trevor Nunn, Franco Zeffirelli, Philip Saville, and others explore the enduring appeal of the Prince of Denmark more than 400 years after his stage debut.

Documentary on film maker Akira Kurosawa

7.2/10

An animated film from 1999 based on the famous novel by George Orwell. Animals on a farm lead a revolution against the farmers to put their destiny in their own hands. However this revolution eats their own children and they cannot avoid corruption.

6/10
4%

Robinson is commissioned to investigate the unspecified "problem of England." The narrator describes his seven excursions, with the unseen Robinson, around the country. They mainly concentrate on ports, power stations, prisons, and manufacturing plants, but they also bring in various literary connections, as well as a few conventional landscapes. Written by Will Gilbert

7.2/10

Based upon the play "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller (who wrote the screen adaptation), the Salem witch trials in 1692 plunge the Massachusetts Bay colony into chaos.

6.8/10
6.8%

Young American Joanne Hunter is stranded in the German-occupied Holland with her Dutch grandparents. The German CO, Captain Kessel begins to wage war on the village's morale, and Joanne's house must quarter another German officer, Lt. Braun, who finds himself torn between his duty and distaste of Kessel's methods. When Kessel threatens the lead statues of 16th-century freedom fighters in the town clock, Joanne and her grandparents rally the villagers to save Kirkendam's "little riders".

6.8/10

The first film in Patrick Keiller's Robinson trilogy, preceding Robinson In Space and Robinson In Ruins.

7.4/10

Martin Chuzzlewit is a 1994 TV mini series produced by the BBC. It is based on the novel by Charles Dickens, with a screenplay by David Lodge and directed by Pedr James. The music was composed by Geoffrey Burgon. It starred Paul Scofield as Old Martin Chuzzlewitt and Anthony Chuzzlewitt & Ben Walden as Young Martin Chuzzlewit. John Mills as Old Chuffey, Tom Wilkinson as Seth Pecksniff, Pete Postlethwaite as Montague Tigg, Philip Franks as Tom Pinch, Joan Sims as Betsy Prigg, Nicholas Smith as Mr. Spottletoe, Sam Kelly as Mr. Mould, Elizabeth Spriggs as Sairy Gamp and Julia Sawalha as Mercy Pecksniff.

8.1/10

Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film which tells the true story of the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s.

7.5/10
9.6%

An all-enveloping darkness. Suddenly, a child's voice, frightened, questioning, pierces the darkness... The first flickering rays of light begin to sculpt mysterious shapes out of the darkness ... Among them, a very old man. He reassures the child, exhorting him to see the wonders of the earth. And it is with this child's eyes that we will witness the creation of the world.

5.8/10

Hugh Whitemore adapted Bruce Chatwin's novel for this tale of a New York antique dealer who travels to Prague to buy the porcelain collection of the late Baron Utz, only to become embroiled in the wreckage of the dead man's unusual life history after he discovers that the collection is missing.

6.4/10

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, finds out that his uncle Claudius killed his father to obtain the throne, and plans revenge.

6.7/10
7.6%

Gritty adaption of William Shakespeare's play about the English King's bloody conquest of France.

7.5/10
10%

A pair of children befriend an eccentric old man, who lives isolated on the far shore of their island home. But it turns out that the old man knows a terrible secret about the island and the whales who sometimes come. Meanwhile WWI is making life hard in the village.

6.1/10
6%

During the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, Otto Frank decides to hide his family, who are Jewish, after his daughter Margot is called to appear for transport to a Nazi labour camp. Miep Gies, Otto Frank's office assistant hides them in the attic above the office. The film tells the true story of Gies' struggle to keep the family hidden and safe, as the Nazis turn Amsterdam upside-down. Based upon Gies' memoirs and Anne Frank's famous diary.

6.8/10

Mr Corbett is a cruel employer to Ben Partridge. One night on New Years Eve Ben is sent out to deliver some medicine. Along the way he wishes his master was dead, little knowing that the man he is delivering to is the Collector of Souls.

7.1/10

Tragic Anna leaves her cold husband for dashing Count Vronsky in 19th-century Russia.

6.4/10

Two former patients of Sigmund Freud meet again and discuss their psychiatric treatment 65 years earlier.

6/10

Sir Robert Clarke looks back on his life and the summer when as a 16-year-old he first fell in love with Louise St. Leger.

6.7/10

A masterly study of a middle-aged woman waking up after 30 years passed in a coma induced by sleeping sickness. In her mind she is still 16, and her attempts to fathom the changed world into which she re-emerges is not only poignant and emotionally charged but, in the end, devastatingly brilliant theatre as well.

A henpecked American visiting Europe is able to throw off his ghastly wife and find love.

6.5/10

A writer's past comes to haunt him when his ex-mistress visits

7.4/10

Cross is an old hand at the CIA who often teams up with Frenchman Jean “Scorpio” Laurier, a gifted freelance operative. After their last mission together, the CIA orders Scorpio to eliminate Cross, leaving him no choice but to obey.

6.4/10
6.7%

In their nice Connecticut home, Agnes and Tobias have grown used to the imperfection and fragility of their marriage. Quietly nursing their grief over the death of their son, they get by well enough together. Agnes' boozy sister wanders in and out, and they allow anxiety-stricken friends to move into an upstairs room. But, when their daughter, Julia, shows up announcing her fourth divorce, long-repressed emotions come to the surface.

6.6/10
6.7%

Three couples planning their secret weekend away are exposed

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

7.2/10
6.7%

Updated to 1970s London, this faithful adaptation of Herman Melville's classic follows a young accounting clerk rebelling against his employer by responding to demands to do work by saying, "I prefer not to." This is carried on ad absurdum until the office is in chaos because the other employees must do Bartleby's work. His boss is unable to fire or help him and eventually has him placed in a mental hospital.

6.4/10

Male of the Species was conceived as three TV Plays for the British 'ITV Saturday Night Theatre' series. In their UK form and respective order they were known as 'Macneil' featuring Sean Connery; 'Cornelius' featuring Michael Caine and 'Emlyn' featuring Paul Scofield.

7.9/10

Adapted and directed by Peter Brook from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘production-in-progress US’, this long-unseen agitprop drama-doc – shot in London in 1967 and released only briefly in the UK and New York at the height of the Vietnam War – remains both thought-provoking and disturbing. A theatrical and cinematic social comment on US intervention in Vietnam, Brook’s film also reveals a 1960s London where art, theatre and political protest actively collude and where a young Glenda Jackson and RSC icons such as Peggy Ashcroft and Paul Scofield feature prominently on the front line. Multi-layered scenarios staged by Brook combine with newsreel footage, demonstrations, satirical songs and skits to illustrate the intensity of anti-war opinion within London’s artistic and intellectual community.

7/10

A depiction of the conflict between King Henry VIII of England and his Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who refuses to swear the Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry Supreme Head of the Church in England.

7.7/10
8.3%

As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.

7.8/10
9.2%

Violette Bushell is the daughter of an English father and a French mother, living in London in the early years of World War 2. She meets a handsome young French soldier in the park and takes him back for the family Bastille day celebrations. They fall in love, marry and have a baby girl when Violette Szabo receives the dreaded telegram informing her of his death in North Africa. Shortly afterwards, Violette is approached to join the SOE (Special Operations Executive). Should she stay and look after her baby or "do her duty" ?

7.2/10

Ana, the Princess of Eboli, wears a black patch over her right eye, where she was blinded as a youth when fighting a duel in defense of her king, the despotic Philip. Thereafter she and the monarch were close friends, although his passion for her was never consummated. She marries one of Philip's ministers, bore him a son, and soon became a widow. Now Philip calls upon her to assist in coaching a commoner, Antonio Perez, for the office of first secretary to the crown.The result is more than Philip bargained for as Ana and Antonio become lovers and create a scandal in court, always the scene of perpetual intrigue. Philip has Antonio arrested on a drummed-up charge of murder, and when Ana refuses to leave Madrid, she too is arrested. After spending time in jail, she is transferred to her home and held in check. Antonio escapes and makes his way to Ana, who persuades him to leave the country and take her son.

5.6/10

A winemaker overcomes the ignorance and illiteracy of his era to become a Torah commentator who defends the right to spiritual choice and freedom in the 11th century.

7.1/10