A Chinese soldier's tale; Guzidi was a child of poverty who became a successful guerrilla soldier and then officer in the Liberation Army. After a fierce battle with the KMT Guzidi and his remaining 46 troops are sent to a front line defensive position, where they are abandoned by the main army corps to a fight to the death. After a heroic act in the Korean War Guzidi, riddled with guilt and loss of meaningful identity, fights a long battle to atone for the loss of his company by gaining recogni find out more...

Giuseppe Tornatore directed this grand-scale portrait of life and love over several decades in the small town in Sicily where he was born. We see a number of important historical events through the eyes of young Peppino, watching the fortunes of his town and his family rise and fall. While open to accusations of nostalgia, superficiality and indulgence the film is something of a feast for the senses.
A rambunctious family saga the kind they don't, and probably shouldn't, make any more. find out more...

In the cold war, a lawyer, James B. Donovan is recruited by the CIA and involved in an intense negotiation mission to release and exchange a CIA U-2 spy-plane pilot, Francis G. Powers. The pilot was arrested alive after his plane was shot down by the Soviet Union during a mission and stays in the company of a KGB intelligence officer, Rudolf Abel, who was arrested for espionage in the US.

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Two brothers, in itself a metaphor, get drafted into the Korean Civil War. The more macho elder one is determined to become a hero in order to win his bookish brother a ticket back to mum and this leads both to him turning into a monster and a serious split between the two. Against the bitter backdrop of a violent war many loyalties are called into question, to brother, family, friend, nation, ideology, nationality and to fellow soldiers, and many are betrayed. This is an awesome, if emotionally find out more...

A monumental history of the Cuban Revolution; from the initial meeting in Mexico between Che and Fidel Castro, through the landing by boat of a few desperadoes, the years of the guerrilla campaign, the gradual build-up from a rag-tag band to a fully fledged revolutionary army, the political alliances and decisions to be made, and the eventual victorious battles over the demotivated Batista led government army. find out more...

David Lean's epic romance set against the turbulant backdrop of the Russian revolution. One man's struggle for moral political and personal survival amidst the complex web of intrigue and tangled loyalties that accompanied the fall of the Tsar.

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This is Hannibal's beginning, the reason why he became what he is, a brilliant young man traumatised by a personal tragedy at the hands of the Nazis and consumed by revenge. Slick, bloody and pretty daft what really lets Hannibal Rising down is that it's pretty dull, some savage editing and snipping half an hour off the running time would have helped a lot, it still wouldn't have been good, but it might have been considerably more fun. find out more...

Stone's third, after Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, Vietnam War offering, this time seen through the eyes of a young Vietnamese girl caught up in the horror. Tommy Lee Jones gives a sensitive performance as the soldier trying to save both her and himself. Well crafted human drama and a moving love story. find out more...

An underrated story from the viewpoint of French soldiers caught up in the Algerian war. Idealistic Lieutenant Terrien forswears and forbids torture, napalm and massacre, but finds himself drawn into the desperate events that war produces. Algerians find themselves on both sides of the conflict and battle-hardened NCOs crack up under the pressure. Meanwhile back in France it's holiday time. find out more...

Based on the novel 'Post Mortem: The Story of Katyn' by Andrzej Mularczyk this film tells the horrific story of the 1940 Soviet NKVD's massacre, and subsequent cover-up, of an estimated 22,000, mainly Polish, military officers, police and intellectuals. Rarely does a film about the horrors of organised genocide achieve in its representation such an honest and harrowing account of crimes against humanity. find out more...