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World Cinema Classics

Discover classics from world cinema that made their mark in Britain and beyond.

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  • Ran

    Akira Kurosawa’s visually spectacular epic transplants Shakespeare’s King Lear from Celtic Britain to feudal Japan. In its epic scope and expert execution, Ran can be seen as a culmination of the great Japanese director’s filmmaking career; a late triumph which he planned and refined over several...

  • Le Mépris

    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...

  • Girl Picture

    High school best friends Mimmi and Rönkkö work at the smoothie parlour in the local mall, exchanging gossip and taking delight in the puntastic names of the fruit drinks they sell. Both single, Rönkkö is after that elusive spark of instant attraction, whilst the tempestuous Mimmi scoffs there...

  • Fitzcarraldo

    One of Werner Herzog's most acclaimed films, Fitzcarraldo tells the incredible story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (played by Herzog regular Klaus Kinski), an opera-loving fortune hunter who dreams of bringing opera (specifically Caruso) to a remote trading post in the heart of the Peruvian jungle.

  • Battle Royale

    In a world where teenagers have no respect and adults are losing control there can be only one solution: Battle Royale! Now, see what happens when you let a high school class loose on an island, arm them and then give them a simple choice... Kill your friends or have them kill you; with poison, c...

  • Farewell my Concubine

    Spanning 50 years and a lifelong relationship amidst the violence and upheaval of national civil unrest, this unflinching epic balances intimate romance and devastating scale to heartbreaking effect. Adapted from the novel by Lilian Lee (author of Rouge), the tale of Dieyi and Xiaolou carries us ...

  • Girlhood

    In the tough suburbs of Paris, sixteen-year-old Marieme decides to reinvent herself when she joins a girl gang. Excluded from school and in fear of her overbearing brother at home, Marieme changes her name and appearance and escapes into a new, liberating world outside of society’s conventions.

  • Stranger by the Lake

    Alain Guiraudie’s acclaimed mystery-thriller is set in a gay cruising ground in Southern France. The appearance of a handsome stranger stirs the passions of a young man, whose obsession continues even after the new arrival appears to have committed a violent crime. It’s a fascinating mix of t...

  • The Eye

    A blind concert violinist from Hong Kong is overjoyed when a cornea transplant allows her to see again. However, her elation dissipates when she begins experiencing ghostly encounters that seem to foretell gruesome deaths. Desperate to discover what’s going on, she sets out to find the origins ...

  • Scarlet Diva

    Anna is a popular Italian film actress and aspiring filmmaker, writing her first screenplay, the semi-autobiographical project Scarlet Diva. Hurtling across Europe and America in a blur of hedonism and despair, she seeks artistic recognition while struggling against exploitation. A whirlwind desc...

  • A Call Girl

    Having grown up in small-town Slovenia, 23-year-old English student Alexandra moves to the capital, embracing all the excitement and anonymity the big city has to offer. She styles herself into a mid-level call girl, selling her soul in exchange for a view from above. But as her new life inside h...

  • Aguirre, Wrath of God

    This early masterpiece from legendary German director Werner Herzog stars Klaus Kinski as a power-crazed explorer in sixteenth-century South America who leads a band of conquistadors through the Amazon in search of El Dorado.

  • Mr. Blake at Your Service!

    Recently widowed Andrew Blake decides to leave his business in England and return to France, the country where he first met his late wife. Hoping to reconnect with his past, he takes a job as a butler in a grand but eccentric estate. What begins as an attempt to escape his grief soon turns into s...

  • Warm Water Under a Red Bridge

    Yosuke, a recently unemployed Tokyo businessman, estranged from his wife travels to a remote fishing village after hearing rumours of hidden treasure. Instead, he meets Saeko, a mysterious woman who gushes water when sexually aroused. Enamoured, Yosuke decides to start a new life as a local fishe...

  • Tony Takitani

    Director Jun Ichikawa brings us his award-winning film adapted from Haruki Murakami's New Yorker tale of solitude and obsession. When illustrator Tony Takitani meets a client, Eiko, he becomes fascinated with her and imagines a life beyond his loneliness. She, in turn, is infatuated with shopping...

  • My Sole Desire

    This erotic drama stars Louise Chevillotte as Manon, the newcomer to a Parisian strip club where Mia (Zita Hanrot) also works. The two become friends then something more, as director and co-writer Lucie Borleteau (Fidelio - Alice's Story) explores female kinship and desire. Her drama goes more th...

  • The Blue Caftan

    Mina (Lubna Azabal) and her husband Halim (Saleh Bakri) run a small shop selling traditional, hand-stitched caftans in Salé, Morocco. To help with customer demand, the couple hire young apprentice Youssef (Ayoub Missioui) – but complications arise when Mina notices a deeper connection forming ...

  • Amores perros

    Gael Garcí­a Bernal stars in the savagely brilliant debut feature from double-Oscar-winning director Alejandro González Inárritu (Birdman, The Revenant). Intertwining three intense storylines on the theme of animalistic desires, it follows the respective fates of a young man caught up in the worl...

  • Peter von Kant

    Early in his career, Ozon paid homage to German great Rainer Werner Fassbinder by adapting his play Water Drops on Burning Rocks. 22 years on, Ozon revisits Fassbinder in this elegant, inventive remake of his 1972 chamber classic The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant – with designer Petra here bec...

  • The Untamed

    Part potent social drama, part tentacular science-fiction enigma, Amat Escalante’s idiosyncratic film is as difficult to categorise as it is to describe. The film opens in the opaque Mexican lowlands. Veronica is a dispossessed young woman with a curious addiction. When an injury leads her to t...

  • Elite Squad

    Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura), a BOPE (Special Police Operation Battalion) officer, is tasked with clearing the drug gangs in the slums of Rio de Janeiro before a visit from the Pope. Meanwhile, desperate to take on a safer job so that he can be closer to his pregnant wife, he trains up two y...