Inside this conventionally structured biopic resides an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. William Wilberforce was the parliamentary spokesman for a group of radicalised young Evangelists (and Quakers), who despised the money politics and corruption of late 18th Century UK politics and who fought for many reformist policies, the most notable of which was the one this film annotates, the abolition of slavery, a process that took years of political skulduggery and the slow passage of find out more...

Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer from Colorado Springs, CO, successfully manages to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan branch with the help of a Jewish surrogate who eventually becomes its leader. Based on actual events. 

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The story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a group of 1830s Dorset farm labourers who had the effrontery to form a Trade Union to fight against their wages being lowered and who got transported to Australia for their pains. find out more...

A heavy epic about Etienne Lantier's determination to end the terrible working conditions of the miners in 19th Century France. Along the way he rouses them to strike and incurs the wrath of the powerful mine-owners who are determined to stop him. Depardieu is excellent, as usual, and this adaptation of Zola's novel looks superb. find out more...

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The story of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre where British forces attacked a peaceful pro-democracy rally in Manchester. 

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A collective farm in disarray. A messianic agitator. And lots of mud & rain, all in Bela Tarr's trademark style: arty black & white cinematography, long slow takes, tracking shots & zooms. The style recalls Tarkovsky but the sensibility is completely different, relentlessly downbeat, squalid, cynical and bleakly, grimly comic. So you get a doctor drinking himself to death, a cat being tortured and a suicidal little girl taking rat poison, all depicted in slow real time takes. One find out more...

Made almost contemporaneously with the 1930s setting, this authentically portrays the poverty and repression of the migrant 'Okies', evicted from their dustbowl farms and treated like slaves in California. Adapted from Steinbeck's book, often called 'THE Great American Novel' and with outstanding performances coming from Henry Fonda (Tom Joad) and John Carradine (John Casey) a preacher with a fondess for vice, but a true heart... fantastic. find out more...

Returning to the topic of The Troubles, after his 1990 effort Hidden Agenda, Ken Loach has confirmed his place as a Grand Old Duke of British Cinema with the Palme d'Or winning 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'. Leaving his traditional hunting ground of contemporary urban environs Loach takes us to Eire, in the 1920s, and to labourers joining forces to oust the British 'Black and Tan' soldiers sent in to crush the rebellion. Brothers Damien and Teddy join forces in the battle, Damien sacrificing find out more...

After the Civil War a wave of radicalism was unleashed in England, one of the most prominent groups being the Diggers, led by Gerrard Winstanley, who established a self-sufficient farming community in Surrey. This is their story. A thoroughly historically researched attempt to try and recreate the lives of a 17th Commune against a backdrop of ruling class antipathy and the cruel English weather. Very amateur, but totally magnificent in its scale and authenticity. find out more...