Taking man's inhumanity to man as its central theme, 'Au Hasard Balthazar' traces the life of a donkey, christened Balthazar by a group of young children, from birth to death. Balthazar's story begins on a small farm in a rural district of France. Throughout his life he is owned by many of the locals, returning to some of them more than once, and is set various tasks, from drawing a carriage to performing in a circus, turning a grindstone to acting as a smuggler's means of transport. Some owners find out more...

Phyllis Dietrichson is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who inspires in her nothing but contempt, but rather than leave him Phyllis decides to kill him and collect on the insurance policy she's had set up with the help of her lover, and naive partner in crime, insurance salesman Walter Neff. The only flaws in their plan are the company's reluctance to pay out so much, the diligence of Neff's increasingly suspicious colleague, (and his 'little man'), and the exemplary ruthlessness of Ph find out more...

Timothy Treadwell was quite a guy, a self appointed crusader and protector for the grizzly bears of Alaska, his commitment over thirteen summers was without doubt, though his motives and methods were perhaps more confused. What Herzog has created from Treadwell's copious footage is a stunning wildlife documentary in which the observer is as fascinating as his beloved subjects; in fact Treadwell is a perfect real life example of the damaged, obsessive characters in a number of Herzog's films, and find out more...

Filmed entirely without dialogue, but rich in sound and imagery, Hukkle is a dreamily original and darkly witty depiction of not so ordinary, ordinary life. The film follows a number of residents, both human and animal, of a small rural community in Hungary going about their business, an old man with hiccups, a shepherdess and her sheep, an old woman, who may or may not be up to no good, some folk-singers at a wedding, bee keepers et al, and close-ups of the district's fauna and flora, the insec find out more...

A young working-class lad in a grim Northern mining town has no more ambition than to follow his dad down the pit. However he finds an injured young kestrel, which he nurses back to health and trains, an event which opens up a once bleak landscape for him. It's grim up there..... find out more...

Excellent, imaginative documentary set in a beautiful summer meadow. Thankfully forsaking the dreary commentary so often associated with natural history, filmmakers Nurisdany and Perennou instead rely on music and the wonderfully expressive sounds of the birds and insects themselves. Every detail of the meadow's inhabitants' activities is startlingly and vibrantly captured through a magnified lense, transforming the mundane into the magnificent. Fascinating. find out more...

Photographed by Frank Hurley and restored by the National Film and Television Archive, "South" records Sir Ernest Shackleton's heroic but doomed 1914 attempt to cross Antarctica. This unique piece of history is also a visually stunning story of strength and survival.

find out more...