Peter Yates' Oscar-winner is a heart-warming coming-of-age story that has also taken its place as the greatest sports movie about cycling ever made. Four friends graduate from high-school and find themselves looking at an uncertain future in small-town America. Dave's passion is cycling and his dream is to be a world-class champion like the Italians he idolises. His passion for cycling takes on new meaning when he and his friends face a team from the local college in the town's annual bike ra find out more...

The collection opens with Len Lye's modernist abstraction ‘Tusalava’, which, heavily influenced by Maori and Aboriginal art, shares an interest in ‘primitive’ cultures that was typical of the Modernist movement of the time. It was almost refused a certificate by the puzzled British Board of Censors who suspected that the dancing abstract shapes might be about sex. Lye's own explanation was that it showed the beginnings of organic life. ‘Crossing the Great Sagrada’, is a lowbrow spoof on travel find out more...

Award wining documentary ‘Song of Ceylon’, is a lyrical beauty, but owes its enduring charm to its anachronistic notions of Empire and Englishness. ‘Bread’ is a slice of realism that looks at hunger in Britain. ‘Beyond This Open Road’ shows the urban populace journeying into the countryside during their weekends away from work; the imagery and utopian aesthetic are reminiscent of the work of Leni Riefenstahl. ‘Coal Face’ is an experiment in realism that focuses on the importance of coal mini find out more...

Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman are young New York media types who document their lives as a matter of course. So when photographer Yaniv, Ariel’s brother with whom they share office space, receives an email from Abby, an 8-year-old Michigan girl, seeking permission to paint one of his photographs, their recordings suddenly get a lot more interesting.
Though unsettling viewing at times, the film provides an excellent insight into an age where online social networking has created find out more...

Three generations of women, all named Cissy Coalpitt, drown their husbands and then have to deal with a leacherous coroner whose silence is bought in return for sexual favours. A complex web of interlocking references to games, sex and mortality, famous last words, Samson and Delilah, Breughel, circumcision et al. A very black and bawdy comedy, highly recommended for lovers of the off-beat. find out more...

A visually stunning and passionate potted history of one of the greatest artists of the 20th Century, the Mexican, Frida Kahlo. This film deals primarily with Frida's private life, the enduring relationship with her husband and fellow artist, Diego Rivera, and her many scandalising affairs. Frida is a dramatic and affectionate portrait of a remarkable woman. find out more...

Critically acclaimed and visually ravishing story of the unlikely tryst between a runaway art student, distressed by impending blindness and a previous romance, and an avant-garde crusty, who meet while sleeping rough on Pont-Neuf. Director Carax takes us on an enchanted journey through a Paris of streets, rivers, bridges, escalators, the Metro and art museums as the movie progresses from the gritty reality of poverty and homelessness to a flamboyant firework lit fantasy land. find out more...

Vincent Minelli directs this biopic that, unusually for Hollywood, doesn't subsume the subject's achievements in a fictionalised life-story, explaining one not in terms of the other, but fully celebrating both. Douglas is superb as the artist living on the edge. Not just for art aficionados.

find out more...

1918 and The First World War has just come to an end, Max has only just escaped the trenches with his life but the loss of an arm has left his dreams of continuing as an artist in tatters. While in Munich, Max meets another young veteran of the war, Adolph Hitler, an aspiring painter unfortunately devoid of artistic imagination. The two men strike up an unlikely friendship, but while Max's wealthy middle class Jewish background leaves a number of options open to him, poverty stricken and increas find out more...

From the New York art scene of the 1940s to the heady heights of international adulation a stunning drama about one of the foremost artists of the latter half of the Twentieth Century. Such a volatile, passionate and influential character as Pollock has always been ripe for dramatisation and Ed Harris has achieved a mesmerising film, both in front and behind the camera; powerful, touching and damn it... educational! find out more...