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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I Am Cuba is an epic poem to Communist kitsch - a dramatic journey though the decadence of Batista Havana set against the grinding poverty and oppression of the Cuban people. find out more...

A controversial version of the gospels in which the central conflict is seen in terms of political struggle and betrayal. Detailing the Jews' rebellion against the oppressive power of Rome, it elevates Barabbas to the status of a proto-Zionist nationalist leader, and the dynamics of the narrative are presented as the consequence of wide-ranging historical movements rather than in terms of individuals. When Jesus is born in Bethlehem there are some who recognize him as the future king of the J find out more...

Godard's brilliant dialectical farce in which five Parisian students, members of a Maoist cell, discuss the implications of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the chances of using terrorism to effect a similar upheaval in the West. Dazzlingly designed as a collage of slogans and poster images, it was criticised at the time for playing with politics. But Godard was well aware what he was doing and his film stands as a prophetic analysis of events of May 1968 in all their desperate sincerity and find out more...

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

The first of Eisenstein's classic series of films. The story of a revolt in a factory and its murderous suppression contains all the elements that went into his later films - the crowd masses, the mosaic of detail, the caricatures, faces of love, breathless montage and ferocious images of cruelty. find out more...

A highly acclaimed and influential account of Algeria's turbulent past made in psuedo-documentary style. The tense plot surrounds the rise of nationalist organisations in '54 and the French government's attempts to quell them. This film was the prototype for most political thrillers of the 1970s. find out more...