20th Century Flicks, Bristol

ARIEL (1988)

Certification15 Our Rating

Taisto Kasurinen is a Finnish coal miner whose father has just committed suicide, a misery compounded when he is then framed for a crime he did not commit. In jail Taisto starts to dream about leaving the country and starting a new life, but after managing to escape from prison he swiftly discovers that the rest of his hopes may not be quite as easy to achieve as he had originally fancied. A delightfully quirky, shrewd and downbeat comedy drama from the man responsible for �Leningrad Cowboys'. find out more...

COMPARTMENT NO. 6 (2021)

Certification15 Our Rating

A young Finnish woman escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow by boarding a train to the arctic port of Murmansk. Forced to share the long ride and a tiny sleeping car with a larger than life Russian miner, the unexpected encounter leads the occupants of Compartment No. 6 to face major truths about human connection.

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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (1983)

Certification15 Our Rating

An adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel, updated to present-day Helsinki. Slaughterhouse worker Rahikainen murders a man, and is forced to live with the consequences of his actions. An adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel, updated to present-day Helsinki, Crime And Punishment concerns itself less with if our protagonist will be punished but more what form the payment will take and why it must inevitably be made. A clever and understated reworking from the genius behind �Man Without A Past'. find out more...

DRIFTING CLOUDS (1997)

CertificationPG Our Rating

Dry-as-a-bone comedy from the director of "Leningrad Cowboys Go America". Set in modern-day Finland, life is comfortably uneventful for tram driver Lauria and his wife Ilona, head waitress in an upmarket eaterie. When both disastrously lose their jobs at the same time, their marriage and self-esteem are sorely tested, until Ilona comes up with a scheme to open their own restaurant. Despite the contemporary setting, the film has a curiously kitsch look, serving to illustrate the predicament of tw find out more...

FROZEN LAND (2006)

Certification18 Our Rating

A multi-stranded tale of tragedy after tragedy unfolds against an icy Finnish backdrop. Following the sacking of a school teacher we follow a chain of misfortune from victim to victim; a loser car-thief, an ex-alcoholic vacuum salesman, who falls off the wagon in spectacular style, a depressed policewoman, a computer hacker and the policewoman's husband amongst others. A dark, uncompromising film which shows how fickle and cruel fate can be. There are some moments of humour but they are jet jet find out more...

No Image for HAMLET GOES BUSINESS / CALAMARI UNION

HAMLET GOES BUSINESS / CALAMARI UNION (1987)

Certification15 Our Rating

Hamlet Goes Business � Kaurismaki reworks Shakespeare in his own inimitable style; turning Hamlet into a hard-boiled B-movie film noir set in modern day Finland. Farcical plotting and pure 1940's melodrama is kept afloat by Kaurismaki's characteristic dead-pan humour and intelligent dialogue. find out more...

INTO ETERNITY (2010)

CertificationE Our Rating

The haunting "Into Eternity," about the folly of storing nuclear waste for 100,000 years to make it safe for future generations, is a rare hybrid: an information-packed documentary crossed with an existential art film. In a deceptively low-key manner, Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen has beautifully crafted one of the most provocative movies of the year. - David Lewis, Rotten Tomatoes

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LENINGRAD COWBOYS MEET MOSES (2007)

Certification15 Our Rating

After years of fame and misfortune in Mexico, the members of struggling find out more...

MYSTERY OF THE WOLF (2006)

CertificationPG Our Rating

Wolves have long evoked both fear and admiration as symbols of beauty and danger. Their image has changed drastically through the centuries – from creator and helper to symbol of evil, from predator to prey, from legend to icon. Director Raimo O. Niemi (The Blow-flower Boy and the Sky Mechanic) has mainly dabbled in television, but Mystery Of The Wolf, finally released in the UK after a four-year absence, offers a glimpse at this remarkable animal, along with its complex and ever-changi find out more...

QUARANTINE (2008)

Certification18 Our Rating

Television reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles fire crew. But when an apparently routine call takes them to a rundown apartment block the easy going banter is soon lost. Police officers have already arrived at the scene in response to reports of screaming from one of the flats, what they discover is an initially unknown infection that is not only killing the residents but sending them into a murderous psychosis before they die. As if t find out more...

No Image for RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE (2010)

Certification15 Our Rating

Lapland, December. An American expedition locates the original Santa Claus, buried in an ice-filled mountain. Pietari (Onni Tommila), son of reindeer hunter Rauno (Jorma Tommila), fears that the primal, original, vengeful Santa has been unloosed.

If you’re a bah-humbug type looking for an alternative to Santa Claus: The Movie or Miracle On 34th Street, this could be a holiday perennial. May be too strange for normal people, but weird kids will love it. - Kim Newman.

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SHADOWS IN PARADISE (1986)

Certification12 Our Rating

A typically offbeat yet touching romantic tale from Kaurismaki. Nikander is a refuse collector and would-be entrepreneur who finds his plans for success thwarted by the death of his business associate. Just as he thinks things cannot get worse he meets Ilona, a supermarket cashier, and a tentative relationship begins to blossom. find out more...

SISU (2022)

Certification15 Our Rating

When an ex-soldier who discovers gold in the Lapland wilderness tries to take the loot into the city, Nazi soldiers led by a brutal SS officer battle him.

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SPLIT (2016)

Certification15 Our Rating

Three girls are kidnapped by a man with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th.

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THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST (2002)

Certification12 Our Rating

This is a beautifully drawn comic drama about a man 'M' who loses his memory after a near fatal beating from some Helsinki thugs. 'M' wakes up unable to remember where he lives or where he came from. A surreal series of events unfold as he begins to rebuild his life (and brings rock and roll to a small community of salvation army river dwellers). The stark visual style, comedic dead pan dialogue and the film makers delicate compassion for the dispossessed, make this a truly original and heart wa find out more...

THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL (1990)

Certification15 Our Rating

Kaurismaki's darkly comic masterpiece tells the story of a young woman stuck in a dead end job, spurned by the opposite sex and treated poorly by her self-obsessed parents. When she finds herself pregnant and abandoned by the child's father its one rejection too many and she plots her revenge. find out more...

THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE (2017)

Certification12 Our Rating

A poker-playing restaurateur and former traveling salesman befriends a group of refugees newly arrived to Finland.

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UP IN THE AIR (2009)

Certification15 Our Rating

Bingham spends his life flying round the good Ole US of A making a living as somebody who professionally fires people. He loves the airport/flying ritual and having casual flings with other frequent fliers, but he is forced to reassess things when a young upwardly mobile rival threatens his life-style! An extremely funny mid-brow stab at touching contemporary American, and perhaps our own, desires and phobias. find out more...