Roger Michell
In a top London recording studio, Cat, a young songwriter, her producer Bernard, their lawyers and psychotherapists go to battle over who owns a hit song. Amidst a gathering storm of bitter complaints and recriminations Cat and Bernard inflict a devastating toll on each other.
In 1961, Kempton Bunton, a 60 year old taxi driver, stole Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. It was the first (and remains the only) theft in the Gallery’s history. Kempton sent ransom notes saying that he would return the painting on condition that the government agreed to provide television for free to the elderly. What happened next became the stuff of legend. Only 50 years later did the full story emerge -Kempton had spun a web of lies. The only truth was that he was a good man, determined to change the world and save his marriage – how and why he used the Duke to achieve that is a wonderfully uplifting tale.
BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Elieen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
A young Englishman plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.
Christopher Jefferies's life is turned inside out when one of his tenants disappears without a trace just before Christmas.
Nick and Meg Burrows return to Paris, the city where they honeymooned, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and rediscover some romance in their long-lived marriage. The film follows the couple as long-established tensions in their marriage break out in humorous and often painful ways.
The story of the love affair between FDR and his distant cousin Margaret Stuckley, centered around the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the United Kingdom visited upstate New York.
A young and devoted morning television producer is hired as an executive producer on a long-running morning show at a once-prominent but currently failing station in New York City. Eager to keep the show on air, she recruits a former news journalist and anchor who disapproves of co-hosting a show that does not deal with real news stories.
Maurice is an aging veteran actor who becomes absolutely taken with Jessie - the grandniece of his closest friend. When Maurice tries to soften the petulant and provincial young girl with the benefit of his wisdom and London culture, their give-and-take surprises both Maurice and Jessie as they discover what they don't know about themselves.
Two strangers become dangerously close after witnessing a deadly accident. On a beautiful cloudless day a young couple celebrate their reunion with a picnic. Joe has planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside with his partner, Claire. But as Joe and Claire prepare to open a bottle of champagne, their idyll comes to an abrupt end. A hot air balloon drifts into the field, obviously in trouble. The pilot catches his leg in the anchor rope, while the only passenger, a boy, is too scared to jump down. Joe and three other men rush to secure the basket. But fate has other ideas...
A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.
A rush-hour fender-bender on New York City's crowded FDR Drive, under most circumstances, wouldn't set off a chain reaction that could decimate two people's lives. But on this day, at this time, a minor collision will turn two complete strangers into vicious adversaries. Their means of destroying each other might be different, but their goals, ultimately, will be the same: Each will systematically try to dismantle the other's life in a reckless effort to reclaim something he has lost.
William Thacker is a London bookstore owner whose humdrum existence is thrown into romantic turmoil when famous American actress Anna Scott appears in his shop. A chance encounter over spilled orange juice leads to a kiss that blossoms into a full-blown affair. As the average bloke and glamorous movie star draw closer and closer together, they struggle to reconcile their radically different lifestyles in the name of love.
Belfast 1972: The politically naive Bernie is trying to bring up a normal family in less than normal surroundings. Her best friend is accidentally shot dead by the IRA, and her neighbours are constantly raided by the army. In this climate of fear she stands up and condemns the murders. Criticising both factions, her call for a ceasefire is interpreted as an attack against the IRA, and as her peace movement takes momentum, she and her family are placed in the frontline.
A group of English gay men get together to reminisce. They are all coming from a wake for one of their circle who's died of AIDS. It's that terrifying time between the outbreak of AIDS and the development of an AIDS test and as the conversation unfolds it becomes apparent that each man there has had unprotected sex with the deceased.
This film adaptation of Jane Austen's last novel follows Anne Elliot, the daughter of a financially troubled aristocratic family, who is persuaded to break her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a young sea captain of meager means. Years later, money troubles force Anne's father to rent out the family estate to Admiral Croft, and Anne is again thrown into company with Frederick -- who is now rich, successful and perhaps still in love with Anne.
Naveen Andrews plays the charismatic Karim, a half-Asian, half-English, wholly hedonistic chancer who is mortified when his civil servant father (Roshan Seth) plunges into an affair with the exotic Eva and begins passing himself off as a spiritual guru. This brings Karim into contact with Eva's wayward son, Charlie, and ostensibly offers an escape from suburbia. The story follows his break-out, from London to New York, constantly snagging himself on cultural barbwire and falling into situations a raconteur would die for.
Sultry Sandra Julien stars as a teenage virgin who is traumatized after being raped by her 2 "friends", a young man and his sister, leaving her with no interest in sex. Discouraged, she embarks on a journey of sexual awakening in hopes of curing herself.
A feature adaptation of Zelda la Grange’s book, a personal tribute to the late South African leader and freedom fighter, one of the dominant figures in global politics in the second half of the 20th century. After his presidency, Mandela picked La Grange to serve as his private secretary at a time when distrust and tensions still ran high in South Africa between the black population and white Afrikaners.
