fmj's - Rented List

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One of Ingmar Bergman's key early works - directed when he was just 30 years old - 'To Joy' explores some of the themes that would come to characterise many of his later films: the incompatibility of spouses, and the responsibility of artists.

Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson) and Stig (Stig Olin), both play in an orchestra conducted by Sonderby. Their relationship is a happy one, and they soon decide to get married and have children. However, things begin to turn sour when Stig begins a sordid affair that threatens to destroy their marriage and their happiness forever. Moving and evocative. 'To Joy' sees the young Bergman grappling with the complexities of human relations to striking effect, and is an early indication of what the budding director would soon be capable of.

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As Joan (Sylvia Sidney) excitedly awaits the release of her thrice-convicted criminal lover Eddie (Henry Fonda), she has little idea of the tragic consequences that lie in front of them.

Once released, Eddie struggles against a society that refuses to give ex-cons a second chance and before long they are on the run, condemning themselves to an early demise.

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In the summer of 2014, Bernard Jordan (Michael Caine) made global headlines. He had staged a "great escape" from his care home to join fellow war veterans on a beach in Normandy, commemorating their fallen comrades at the D-Day Landings 70th anniversary.

It was a story that captured the imagination of the world as Bernie embodied the defiant, "can-do" spirit of a generation that was fast disappearing. But of course, it wasn't the whole story. It was an inspirational but sanitised retelling of one man's need to come to terms with the lasting trauma of war. Bernie's adventure, spanning a mere 48 hours, also marked the culmination of his 60-year marriage to Rene (Glenda Jackson) - "The Great Escaper" celebrates their enduring love but always with an eye to the lessons we might learn from the Greatest Generation.

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Based in and around a movie studio this experimental and intriguing picture is essentially a film within a film. A director is told by one of his old professors that the world is in the dominion of the devil, and decides to make the claim the subject of his latest picture.

He then passes the idea onto a young journalist who is coincidently going through his own personal hell with his prostitute girlfriend and her violent pimp.

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At the height of the Chinese civil Megan Davis Megan Davis, an American missionary, travelled to Shanghai to marry her childhood sweetheart.

Separated during a raid, Megan is taken prisoner by the local warlord, General Yen (Nils Asther), who, intrigued by her innocence and strength, spirits her away to his summer palace. Initially repulsed by her captor's barbaric behaviour, Megan soon realises that beneath Yen's ruthless demeanor lies the soul of a poet and philosopher. And as war rages around them, these two strangers find themselves hopelessly entangled in a dangerous web of desire, betrayal and unattainable love.

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Unable to live with her mother, Berit is institutionalised for many years. When she is released from the institutions she ends up on the streets of the harbour slums of Gothenburg, and is forced to take a job.

The job is conditional on her living with her mother and she becomes a young woman in deep suicidal despair. One night she escapes her mother's overbearing apartment to go to a dance and, in an effort to lighten her spirits, she meets a sailor and tells her new-found confidante of her troubled past. She starts to spend more time with him and begins to meet others, soon, she discovers that she is not the only one with problems.

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Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea.

Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life, in this heartrending modern romance.

Kenneth Branagh stars as celebrated sleuth Hercule Poirot in this terrifying mystery set after World War II. Retired and living in Venice, Italy, Poirot reluctantly attends a seance where a murdered guest thrusts the detective into a sinister, shadowy world.

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In 'Young Winston', director Richard Attenborough chronicles the tumultuous rise of one of the greatest public figures of the 20th century - and one of its most complex private men.

Vain, rebellious and fiercely ambitious, Churchill (Simon Ward) is the product of the stormy union between Lord Randolph (Robert Shaw), a political failure, and haughty, Brooklyn-born Lady Jennie (Anne Bancroft). Alienated from them, young Winston pours all his energies into winning love through achievement. Starting as a war correspondent in India, he later becomes a hero in South Africa during the Boer War, before eventually launching a political career which carries him into the halls of Parliament.

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Bergman's third film depicts a powerful love triangle between an abusive sailor, his son and a chorus girl. The captain of a ship where he lives with his wife, hunchbacked son Johannes and small crew, Alexander Blom is a domineering tyrant, who secretly harbours dreams of escape.

Upon receiving the news that he is losing his sight, Alexander recklessly invites his mistress to move aboard. In the midst of this tense environment, an illicit romance develops between Johannes and his father's lover, leading to a confrontation between father and son with tragic consequences.

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Bergman's second film, a romantic drama set in post-war Sweden, remains a solid example of the auteur's early work. Maggi and David, two outsiders with troubled pasts, meet by chance at a railway station and fall in love.

They decide to start a new life together, but their happiness comes under threat from a series of misfortunes and set backs. Distinguished by excellent performances and assured direction, 'It Rains on Our Love' is an affecting portrait of the bond between two people and a damning critique of the closed-mindedness of the period.

Inspired by real events, 'Munich' reveals the intense story of the secret Israeli squad assigned to track down and assassinate the 11 Palestinians believed to have planed the 1972 Munich massacre of 11 Israeli athletes - and the personal toll this mission of revenge takes on the team and the man who led it.

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This population explosion occurs when widowed Navy nurse Helen North meets handsome Naval officer and widower Frank Beardsley. They have much in common - too much in fact - she has eight kids and he has ten, and when they tie the knot, anarchy reigns in the Beardsley-North merger.

The opposing camps of step-siblings do all they can to sabotage each other and their parents' union. But, through it all, mother lovingly cares for her "troops", while father patiently coaches his coming-of-age kids in more delicate matters, and resentment soon gives way to respect and something bigger than anyone could have imagined!

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Ten years ago, a turn-of-the-century scandal over a lover forced Naomi Murdoch (Barbara Stanwyck) to desert her husband and their children for a stage career. Now, returning to their small Wisconsin town to see her daughter in a play, she hopes of a reconciliation. Her appearance is a shock.

The town is curious but unforgiving, her high school principal husband is involved with one of his teachers, and her children have mixed feelings about her. When an unexpected turn of events leads to more scandal, Naomi's hopes of starting over are dashed - until some surprising changes occur.

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Over 40 years after Sam Peckinpah's classic western was released, missing footage has been located and restored.

The new scenes complete the electrifying depiction of an obsessive Union officer (Charlton Heston) who leads a squad of rebel prisoners, ex-slaves and criminals into Mexico to hunt down a band of murderous Apaches.