An all time classic 60s movie glamourising the real life story of the Barrow gang who terrorised the American South in the early 30s. 'Reclaiming the American gangster movie, after it had been stolen by the Nouvelle Vague, Penn's film was so successful (and so imitated) that it inevitably met with some grudging devaluation. But it's still great, half comic fairytale, half brutal fact, it reflects the essential ambiguity of its heroes by treading a no man's land suspended between reality and fant find out more...

The story of an Arkansas farm girl who, as a young girl, witnessed the death of her father in a horrific crash and then gained revenge on his boss. On the run she hits the road in a life of crime and meets up with an assortment of characters, including a trade unionist, a black friend of his and a small-time Yankee conman. find out more...

Set in the 1930s and based around real events, we follow a diverse group of characters and events in depression hit New York. The young Orson Welles, with a group of equally idealistic and determined actors, sets about trying to stage a performance of the infamous left leaning musical 'Cradle Will Rock'. This has an awesome cast and is strikingly visualised, but Robbins has perhaps bitten off more history than it is possible to chew on in one two hour movie. Nevertheless a powerful and absorbi find out more...

The object of this massive tribute died as he had always lived, without wealth, without property, without official title or office. Mahatma Gandhi was not the commander of armies, nor the ruler of vast lands, he could not boast any scientific achievement or artistic gift, yet men, governments, dignitaries from all over the world, have joined hands today to pay homage to the little brown man in the loin cloth who led his country to freedom. This quote is from his funeral, one of the greatest s find out more...

The somewhat sensationalist title belies what is at heart an earnest attempt to realistically portray the descent of Hitler into madness, paranoia and megalomania. While the recently made ‘Max' focused on the young Hitler from a ‘What Could've Been' angle, ‘Hitler: The Rise of Evil' tries admirably to stick to the facts as it traces his career in politics (as a rising star, darling of both the poor and the powered gentry), to his self-destructive end. While the film portrays a truncated view of find out more...

Howard Hughes was an insatiable man, a billionaire whose success within Hollywood and obsession with aviation made him more famous than many of the movie stars his studio employed. This lush dramatisation of Hughes concentrates on the man, as a rebel within the ordered system of big business, charming, glamorous, decadent and ruthlessly focused. We witness the beginning of his fall from grace and decent into reclusive paranoia, but this is more an epic of Hughes glory years and, though lacking t find out more...

It's all sweetness and light in this moving music biopic classic of Glen Miller's impressive rise to fame with June Allyson playing his childhood sweetheart and James Stewart outstanding as the man himself. It's got all the great arrangements from 'Pensylvania 6-500' to 'Moonlight Serenade', all scored by Henry Mancini in homage to Miller's style, plus Louis Armstrong makes an appearance playing 'Basin Street Blues' and Frances Langford does 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo'. find out more...

As the second son of George V, the future George VI was not expected to ascend to the throne, but when his brother Edward abdicated he found himself a reluctant king. Plagued by a nervous stammer he was expected to make a rousing radio speech to herald Britain’s entry into the war against the Third Reich. ‘The Kings Speech’ charts the touching, often humourous, personal relationship that developed between England's reluctant King and his irreverent Australian speech therapis find out more...

Following an early and promising political career, Franklin Roosevelt, the only US president to be elected three times, was stricken with polio at 39 years of age. This film follows his struggle with paralysis, the refuge he took in an obscure and run-down Georgia health spa, the place in which he found the opportunity for peace, solace and the will to continue, and the family pressure to return to public life and politics. Perhaps the most significant battle he fought with the stigma of paralys find out more...