alec-guimness-films's - Rented List

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Set in downtown New York in 1900 - 'The Knick' is a groundbreaking new scripted drama from Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh starring Oscar nominee Clive Owen.

The series centres on the Knickerbocker Hospital (dubbed The Knick), which faces a major upheaval due to poor finances and an exodus of wealthy patients. The one remaining star is Dr. Thackery (Clive Owen) who along with the hospital staff of surgeons, nurses and other personnel must struggle to keep both themselves and the hospital going. The Knick provides a fascinating lens into some of the major issues of the time (much of which is still relevant today), including race relations, class distinctions, rapid (and unregulated) changes to medicine, drug addiction and more.

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"Amy" tells the incredible story of six-time Grammy winner Amy Winehouse - in her own words. Featuring extensive unseen archive footage and previously unheard tracks, this strikingly modern, moving and vital film shines a light on the world we live in, in a way that very few can.

A once-in-a-generation talent, Amy Winehouse was a musician that captured the world's attention. Her huge success, however, resulted in relentless and invasive media attention which coupled with Amy's troubled relationships and precarious lifestyle saw her life tragically begin to unravel. Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at the age of 27.

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Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling) is planning a party to celebrate her 45th wedding anniversary. One week before the celebration, however, a letter arrives for her husband, Geoff (Tom Courtenay), containing news that reawakens troubling and long-hidden memories.

Though Kate continues to prepare for the anniversary, she becomes increasingly concerned by Geoff's preoccupation with the letter and the ensuing revelations about his past. By the time the party comes round, there may not be a marriage left to celebrate.

Greta Gerwig gives a glowing performance as Frances, a twenty-something woman living in New York, who dreams of being a dancer and, despite the obstacles that stand in her way, lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness.

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Shaun Evans returns to duty at Oxford City Police as Colin Dexter's cerebral Endeavour Morse, with four new gripping murder mysteries set amidst the turning tides of 1960s Britain.

His partnership with DI Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) now firmly cemented, the two men must band together to crack this fresh quartet of dazzingly complex cases, shaking the highest pillars of Oxford society as they go. A parade soured by suspected suicide; a girls' school haunted by memories past, a strangler stalking the foggy autumn twilight; and conspiratorial whisperings in the corridors of power. Endeavour must risk all if he is to bring those responsible to justice, and escape with brain and body intact.

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'Good Kill' tells the story of a Las Vegas fighter-pilot turned drone-pilot, Major Thomas Egan (Ethan Hawke), who fights the Taliban via remote control for half of his day, then goes home to his wife (January Jones) and kids in the suburbs for the other half.

But Thomas is starting to question the mission. Is he creating more terrorists than he's killing? Is he fighting a war without end? This is one soldier's tale...with epic implications.

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From the director of Frances Ha and starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, 'While We're Young' is a hilarious cross-generational comedy of manners about aging, ambition, and relationships.

No film has better captured the weird, upended logic of urban sophisticates: the older ones embracing their iPads and Netflix, the young ones craving vinyl records and vintage VHS tapes.

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John (Jack Reynor) lives with his mother, Jean (Toni Collette), in a Dublin social housing suburb and ekes out a meager living as a taxi driver.

Spending his days hanging out with his best friend, Shane (Will Poulter) and long nights driving, he returns home one morning to find his mother unconscious from an overdose. It is not the first time. Embarrassed and engulfed by a sense of helplessness, Jean violently rejects John's attempts to help. But when Jean is offered a final opportunity to recover by her counselor Jim (Michael Smiley), and with no savings or insurance, John is forced to offer his services to a criminal gang to help pay for his mother's costly rehabilitation program. John is subsequently faced with a life-changing task that may alter him and his family's lives forever.

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"The Outsiders", Godard's playful reimagining of the Hollywood crime films of the 1940s, follows young misfits Franz (Sami Frey), Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Odile (Anna Karina) as their plan to burgle a rich old lady goes tragicomically wrong.

Shot in just 25 days on the wintry streets of suburban Paris, "The Outsiders" remains one of Godard's most loved films and is often remembered for its exhilarating cafe dance sequence and famous race through the Louvre.

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Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Television Series - Drama and Best Actress in a Television Series - Drama (Ruth Wilson), 'The Affair' is a provocative and suspenseful look at how many stories are involved in every love affair.

Noah Solloway (Dominic West) is a New York City schoolteacher and happily married father who finds himself powerfully attracted to waitress Alison Lockhart (Ruth Wilson) while vacationing with his family on Long Island. But nothing is as simple as boy-meets-girl, as both sides of the romance are explored by a detective investigating a murder. Also starring Maura Tierney and Joshua Jackson, it's every episode of the gripping first season that quickly had audiences begging for more.

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'The Swimmer' takes place in an affluent Connecticut suburb, and for Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster) it is where he confronts all of his dreams...and deceptions.

Burt Lancaster gives the best performance of his career as Ned the troubled suburbanite who one summer morning decides to "swim" home via the pools of his wealthy friends. Along the way he encounters several women from his past: a tempestuous teenage girl (Janet Landgard), teetering at the edge of adolescence and womanhood; his embittered ex-mistress (Janice Rule); and the sensual wife of an old friend (Kim Hunter). Ned's journey is one of embarrassments, humiliation and steamy passion. He passes from one scenario to another until he arrives home to an empty house...and to a startling self-revelation.

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In the blistering heat of the Mexican sierra, a village trembles in fear - waiting for the savage onslaught from Calvera and his bandidos. Terrorised, robbed, humiliated, the villagers are desperate to hit back and set off for the American border to buy guns.

But in their quest they come across seven awesome weapons of destruction: a group of hard-riding, mercenary Western gunmen who will ride with them to the village and take out the bandidos. Led by Chris Adams (Yul Brynner), the seven find themselves plunged into a fight for the life of the village. In this classic Western inspired by the Seven Samurai of Japan, Brynner - together with a cast of the caliber of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and Horst Buchholz - fire the first bullets in a fight to the death.

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Based on an extraordinary true story, "Pride" tells how a group of London-based gay and lesbian activists raised money to support the families of miners during the strike of 1984.

Identifying a mining village in Wales, they set off to make their donation in person, and in so doing inspired "the Best British film in years".

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Deep in a forest near the coast of Washington State lies a grotesque Gothic mansion used as a special psychiatric hospital for the military. Those who know of its existence and the nature of project Freud refer to it as 'Center Eighteen'.

Confined to the centre are high-ranking military officers undergoing treatment for mental breakdowns, which are unaccountable by their services experiences. Determined to establish the true nature and origin of the men's mental illness, the Pentagon enlist Colonel Hudson Kane (Stacey Keach), a brilliant, yet strangely unorthodox psychiatrist. Typical of the patients is Captain Cutshaw (Scott Wilson), an astronaut who aborted a space probe. He is convinced that God is a fraud. His fellow inmates are similarly consumed with inner torments - they fear the evil within themselves and are afraid that, with a Godless universe, man leads a purposeless existence. Slowly through the love he possesses for his fellow man, Colonel Kane is able to break down the lunatic facade of the inmates and of Captain Cutshaw in particular. But as he leads the way back to a world of reality the dividing line between sanity and madness assumes an increasingly vague definition, so much so that Kane's colleagues pose with real urgency the question of who is therapist to whom.

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Following the exploits and conquests of two constantly introspective college roommates, from anxious and awkward virginity to domesticated frustration and jaded middle-aged impotence, Carnal Knowledge tackled the provocative issues that preoccupied a whole generation.

From the conservative values of the Kennedy era to the hedonistic, experimental pursuits of the sexual revolution, Carnal Knowledge perfectly captures a time of social upheaval and change.