Friendship (Tilda Swinton) has been sent to Earth on a peace mission. Heading for MIT, she inadvertently lands in Amman, Jordan during the 1970 ‘Black September’ war and is ushered to safety by journalist Sullivan (Bill Paterson). Holed up in a hotel as the conflict rages outside, the pair enter ...

What drives people to have sex with complete strangers? That's the subject of this bold and insightful film, based on interviews with five men and women who describe the chance encounters that led to impulsive sex. Director Clio Barnard uses performers to lip-sync their recorded confessions, merg...

This film is a blunt, brash and blood-smeared revenge tale of two sex workers who decide to go on a killing spree through France. Co-directed by French feminist provocateur Despentes, and based on her book, Baise-moi does not care for cinematic slickness, instead using handheld visuals and raw la...

Controversial British director Ken Russell relocates former cabbie David Hines’ play Bondage from London to Los Angeles for the story of a night in the life of Liz, a cynical sex-worker looking for a way out but trapped by poverty and a dangerous pimp. Released a year after Pretty Woman, Whore’s ...

In this London-set drama, the Baptiste family are caught in intergenerational debates about identity, belonging and life in Britain. Shifting between real and mystic landscapes, co-directors Maureen Blackwood and Isaac Julien create a visual mosaic that explores the complexity of the Black Britis...

A retelling of the Hansel and Gretel tale through a tacky tabloid lens and a distinct anti-authority vibe, this early Ozon film is sensationalistic by design. Teenage Alice (Régnier) convinces her boyfriend to murder her lover, but after the deed is done they're both trapped by a strange old man ...

Based on Moravia’s novel, Jean-Luc Godard’s sardonic look at the world of filmmaking boasts superb performances by Michel Piccoli as a compromised writer, Brigitte Bardot as his bored wife, Jack Palance as a manipulative producer and Fritz Lang as himself, about to film Homer’s Odyssey in Cinecit...

Ernst Lubitsch’s 1925 Hollywood version of Lady Windermere’s Fan is often misquoted as the first screen adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s enduringly popular 1892 play. In fact, the British got there first, with this early silent feature made nearly a decade before Lubitsch’s film. While the lac...

Harrowing drama based on the true story of a murder and suicide that took place on the Luxton family farm in Devon in the 1970s. Sensitively handled by director Bob Bentley and superbly edited by the acclaimed David Gladwell, Recluse stars Maurice Denham and boasts fine naturalistic perfomances f...

A rich and challenging account of the experiences of a German Jewish musician who settled in Britain to escape Nazi persecution. Two of his friends are being sued by a former SS Kommandant, who denies their accusation that he was responsible for the genocide of 300 Belgians.

‘They asked me the wrong question’ says murder suspect Susannah after being interrogated by the police. She was found in the apartment of a known criminal but this turns out to be the least of her problems as her past begins to catch up with her. Brooding acting and stunning location shooting mak...

Told with authenticity and perception, David looks back on the life of a school caretaker in a Welsh mining town, from the marriage and birth of his son to the trauma of a pit accident.

The second instalment of Terence Davies' masterful Trilogy finds Robert Tucker in middle age, with the clash of religion and sexuality taking its toll. A depressed loner who takes the ferry across the Mersey to work as an office clerk, Robert is haunted by nightmares of his own death and tormente...

The plight of women in the 1840s London rag trade is explored and deconstructed. Informed by experimental film practice and evoking a serialised Victorian novel, this unusual film investigates the effects of protectionist ‘philanthropy’ in the sweatshop-style London clothes trade using contempor...

A soldier, out on reconnaissance in the American Civil War, finds himself trapped - buried alive and alone under the rubble of a fallen wall - deep in enemy territory. Unable to move, he is overcome by a mad terror as he hallucinates and awaits his almost certain death. This potent short, based o...

Fassbinder wrote the script for his first full-length play when he was 19, the same age as Franz (Malik Zidi) when he is picked up by the worldly Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau), and seduced into a relationship that soon sours. As Franz’s naïve fiancée Anna and Léo’s former lover Véra turn up at thei...

Caught Looking sees a lonely gay man attempt to explore his sexual fantasies with the help of an interactive computer game, guiding his virtual reality persona through a series of potential encounters (a naval rough trade, a moustachioed ‘clone’, a retro ’50s muscle men) while offering wry commen...

If Edward Lear had been alive in the 60s, he may well have made The Peaches, Britain's short film entry at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. A very beautiful, very clever girl (played by future Adam Adamant Lives! star Juliet Harmer) adores peaches, but when she falls in love the world's supply star...

Concluding his acclaimed Trilogy, Bill Douglas’ autobiographical film follows young Jamie as leaves home to live with his paternal grandmother, only to be conscripted into the RAF.

European emigre Tanya moves to London to work as a family au pair. Still grieving for her recently deceased father and rejected by an old girlfriend, Tanya draws closer to her employer's husband. The sights and sounds of the Capital at Christmas form a deceptively romantic backdrop for this bri...

Following his release from prison, Danny tries to take control of the mental health issues that have shaped his life. However, an encounter with a former flame evolves into tragic obsession. Treading Water looks with compassion and bracing realism at the lack of opportunity afforded to many peopl...

Isabelle is a former nun living in New York, earning a living writing erotic fiction while awaiting her higher calling. She meets Thomas, an amnesiac unaware of his past as a ruthless pornographer, once responsible for turning his young wife, Sofia, into the world's most notorious adult star. As ...

A gripping apocalyptic thriller from the Boulting Brothers, the relevance of which remains undiminished today. Praised upon its release as 'the most intelligent film so far to touch upon one of the problems confronting an atomic age', it used some 70 locations around London and remains a vivid sn...

Menelik Shabazz’s pioneering first feature, shot around the communities of Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove, marked a coming of age for black British cinema.