An ageing classics teacher disliked by both pupils and staff, cuckolded by a colleague and denied a decent pension, is forced into retirement by ill health. We follow his last few working days, realise his feelings of inadequacy and failure in this powerful and faithful, bar a tacked on upbeat farewell speech, adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play, whose title bears an oblique reference to the Greek tragedy Agamemnon.

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The story of a miner who becomes a champion rugby player, but who can't overcome his violent and aggressive personality, which ruins his personal life as he wins his way to success. Rugby League football as a metaphor for the rat race and real passion in the tormented affair between Harris's inarticulate demanding miner/footballer and his dowdily uncomprehending landlady. One of the great films produced by the English "realist" movement of the 50s/60s. find out more...

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko, played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine, who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern post-war Ginza district. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. A profoundly moving masterpiece. find out more...