Adapted from the classic, absurdist, anti-war novel by Joseph Heller. "Catch-22" is the story of Yossarian, a pilot who trys to opt out of flying bombing missions by being declared insane, the catch being that anyone trying to avoid bombing missions by being insane must be sane. This dark classic catches much of the flavour of the book, the insanity, the corruption and the absurdity of war. Think MASH, but non-linear - flawed but awesome. find out more...

Kline and Judd combine well in this delightful homage to the life and times of Cole and Linda Porter, man and wife, composer and muse, a couple who led a life of glamour and indulged eccentricity. There's no shortage of the man's music, which is unfortunately sometimes murdered by using a series of unsuitable singers; "It's De-Lovely" by Robbie Williams, "Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)" by Alanis Morissette, "Begin The Beguine" by Sheryl Crow, "Let's Misbehave" by Elvis Costello, "Be a Clown" find out more...

A flight surgeon and a navy pilot overcome personal differences to work on solving the problem of dive bombers blacking out and dying. Another adrenalin fuelled collaboration between Flynn and Curtiz, based on a true story, but more interested in the suicidal/heroic white knuckle world in which so many early experimental pilots seemed to live. find out more...

Set in the Sino-Japanese war, Yasuzo Masumura's black-and-white anti-war film tells of an army nurse who sexually services an amputee and falls in love with a drug-addicted surgeon. This can't be recommended to the squeamish, but neither can its nuanced eroticism nor its passionate, unpredictable moral focus, be easily shaken off. Comparable with Altman's MASH, it suggests a less comic treatment of the same theme, how to preserve one's humanity in impossible circumstances, but its ethics are con find out more...

Sweeping romantic drama of epic proportions. Fiennes's WWII pilot lays badly burned and in the care of an army nurse. As the unnamed, stiff-upper-lipped "English Patient" begins to recover, memories emerge of a past life as an archaeologist/cartographer in the Sahara, and a passionate affair with a married woman, Katharine. Though Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's novel simplifies, jettisons and changes certain elements of the original story, it remains a rich, complex, entran find out more...

Part 3, Melbourne; the 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal is relieved and arrives in Melbourne, Australia. Basilone receives the Medal of Honor and is sent home to sell war bonds.
Part 4, Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika; Eugene Sledge enlists in the Marines and trains for combat, while Leckie and the 1st Marine Division are put into action at Cape Gloucester. Leckie is treated for nocturnal enuresis. find out more...

During a life-saving operation young army surgeon Fujisaki contracts syphilis from a patient, a disease virtually incurable in 1940s Japan, and is forced to abandon his own true love. A rarely seen early masterpiece from the great Akira Kurosawa, adapted from Kazuo Nikuta's acclaimed play. find out more...