The original and best adaptation of Hemingway's sweeping WW1 novel. Cooper positively smoulders as the US ambulanceman who falls in love with an English nurse and finally goes AWOL to join her only to find, tragically, that he may be too late. Oscars for Best Cinematography and Sound. find out more...

Seen through the eyes of a young girl, we observe her life, and that of her parents, in a Brooklyn tenement at the turn of the 19th Century. Dad is a hopeless, but loveable dreamer, the mother a hardened realist, struggling to keep the family together. Directed by Elia Kazan, who would go on to Academy recognition with A Street Car Named Desire and On The Waterfront, and taken from Betty Smith's acclaimed novel; A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is a deeply moving and beautifully evoked drama. find out more...

The beautiful Venice waterfront scenery and frustated emotions abound in this cinema classic from Thomas Mann's novel. Dirk Bogarde is an ageing gay man who fantasises whistfully about a young boy who is in the same hotel on the Lido. A revealing tale as much about old age grieving for lost youth as it is about obsession and homosexuality. 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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An atmospheric and emoptionally charged adaptation of Steinbeck's most powerful novel. Adam, the father of Cal and Aaron lives with the painful memory of having been deserted by the boys' mother, the only woman he ever loved. Having been told that their mother was dead, Cal's discovery that she is alive and running a brothel in Monterey sends him half mad. Obsessed with the fact that he inherited his badness from his mother, Cal grapples with notions of free will and the essential nature of good find out more...

Hugely acclaimed and moving tale of the childhood of Huw Morgan, told in retrospect. Morgan grew up in a small Welsh mining town, and events leave his normally close-knit family facing terrible strains. Screen legends Maureen O'Hara and Walter Pidgeon star in this superbly moving, touching drama. Won Best Picture at 1941 Academy Awards. find out more...

Beautiful, but spoiled, Fanny has married Jewish stockbroker Job to save crooked brother Trippy's arse and for his money, but she soon denies Job access to the marital bed. Trippy disappears to get himself killed in WW1 and Fanny eventually divorces Job, who also goes to Europe, with their daughter.
Years later; the daughter has returned to the USA but Job has been whisked off to a concentration camp, where he goes blind. Fanny catches diphtheria and loses her beauty while her daughter find out more...

Philip Carey (Leslie Howard), a club-footed medical student, falls for a pretty waitress Mildred Rogers (Bette Davis). To Philip's dismay Mildred does not return his affection, instead she suffers his attentions, while treating him with contempt. As desire leads to infatuation, Philip, ever the gentleman, finds himself on the receiving end of her lies and mockery, but finds it impossible to kick her out of his life. As Mildred's cruel and uncompassionate personality drags her inevitably into find out more...

Set against the background of a grimy village near Nottingham, this story of a coal-miner's son with promising artistic talent unfolds with sensitivity and intelligence in Jack Cardiff's adaptation of DH Lawrence's semi-autobiographical novel. Caught up between his mother's possessiveness and his father's violent bouts, Paul Morel sacrifices both the chance to study art in London and the local girl he loves, eventually becoming involved in a damaged relationship with a woman separated from her h find out more...

The original and the best screen adaptation of John Buchan's jingoistic thriller of German plots and dashing Englishmen. Considered by the director as one of his very best this launched the theme of the innocent man on the run from both the law and the villians. Excellent. find out more...