humilityprim's - Favourites List

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This Powell and Pressburger classic is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made.

Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), a young ballerina, becomes torn between her love for composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and artistic devotion to her profession, which is dominated by impresario Lermontov.

This true life story follows the struggles of T.E.Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) in uniting the hostile Arab factions and leading them to victory over the ruling Turkish Empire during the First World War.

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), naive insurance man. Falls for the seductive charms of his beautiful client Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) Together they plot to get rid of her dull husband and collect on the "double indemnity" life policy.

Agnes Varda's classic 'Cleo from 5 to 7' from 1962 manages to successfully capture Paris at the height of the sixties in this intriguing tale expertly presented in real time about a singer (Corinne Marchand) whose life is in turmoil as she awaits a biopsy test result.

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Sandrine Bonnaire won a Best Actress Cesar for her portrayal as Mona - a young and defiant drifter in this tragic story. Using a largely non-professional cast Varda recollects Mona's story through flashbacks of those who encountered her, producing a splintered portrait of an enigmatic woman.

She's not a kind girl but courageous while wandering in the winter. She announces in 1984 the collective conciousness of homeless people dying from the cold.

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Exiled from their home nations, four strangers from separate corners of the earth agree to undertake a dangerous mission to transport unstable dynamite through the dense jungle of South America in order to earn their passage home.

When the slightest bump in the road could equal instant death, the real question is not whether these men will survive this nerve-shredding ordeal but who will they have become if they return at all?

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It's the story of a child and his obsession of pursuing his dream to become a filmmaker. How he buys his first camera, shoots his first amateur film, which marks the beginning of one of the most prestigious careers of any French director, Jacques Demy.

The story is told with emotion by Agnes Varda, who shared his life for years.

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From acclaimed director Pawel Pawlikowski comes "Ida", a poignant and powerfully told drama about 18-year-old Anna, a sheltered orphan raised in a convent, who is preparing to become a nun when she discovers that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation.

This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. Powerfully written and eloquently shot, "Ida" is a masterly evocation of a time, a dilemma, and a defining historical moment.

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Masao is a quiet, sensitive nine year old boy who dreams of being reunited with his long lost mother. Kikujiro is a lazy, manipulative small time gangster and a most unlikely companion.

They both set off on an extraordinary journey, hitchhiking their way across the country, living off their wits and the generosity of strangers. Gradually they begin to warm to each other as Kikujiro instinctively takes them from one close scrape to another. But when they reach their destination, it is not the happy reunion Masao had hoped for so Kikujiro decides to cheer the boy up and their return journey is a time Masao will never forget.

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Set in Japan during World War II, the film focuses on Seita and his little sister Setsuko. After their mother is killed in an air raid, and with their father serving in the navy, they are forced to fight for survival in the devastated Japanese countryside.

Food and shelter are scarce, and even their own relatives are too concerned with their own survival. All they have is each other and their belief that life must carry on.

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Set in the glamour of 1950's post-war London, renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) are at the centre of British fashion, dressing royalty, movie stars, heiresses, socialites, debutants and dames with the distinct style of The House of

Woodcock. Women come and go through Woodcock's life until he comes across a young, strong-willed woman, Alma (Vicky Krieps), who soon becomes a fixture in his life as his muse and lover. Once controlled and planned, he finds his carefully tailored life disrupted by the scariest curse of all...love. And so begins a Gothic Romance of twists, turns and power struggles of "pure, delicious pleasure" that is "devilishly funny and luxuriantly sensuous".

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The BAFTA-winning series returns as Director Michael Winterbottom reunites Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in a culinary coast-to-coast odyssey.

Just as Don Quixote undertook three journeys, Steve and Rob will set off on a third jaunt of their own, this time travelling over 1,000 miles down the entire length of Spain. Following in the footsteps of poet and novelist Laurie Lee, Steve and Rob's semi-fictional alter-egos hit the road in search of culture, history, breathtaking vistas and, of course, some of the finest food in Europe. All the while serving up sparkling, free-flowing conversation, peppered with barbed back-and-forths, in-car singalongs and their peerless trademark impersonations.

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It's the middle of the Ming Dynasty. The powerful eunuch Cao (Pai Ying) has killed the Loyal Minister Yu, and Yu's children are exiled to the border, whereupon Cao undertakes efforts to massacre the remants of the family.

As Yu's children take refuge in the Dragon Gate Inn, Xiao the righteous swordsman (Shihjun) and the surviving loyalists of Minister Yu engage in a series of battles to the death against the forces of the bloodthirsty eunuch.

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Originally released in 1902, this legendary 16-minute film is widely considered to be one of the most important works in film history. Created just six years after the invention of cinema this is where narrative cinema truly began.

George Melies' masterpiece features six members of the Astronomers' Club, fired into space by a giant cannon, on a strange and wonderful journey to the moon to meet its inhabitants. The colour version of A Trip to the Moon, hand-painted frame by frame, was considered lost for many years, until a print, in a desperate condition, was found in Spain in 1993. It is this version which has been meticulously restored by Lobster Films, the Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema Heritage - one of the most sophisticated and expensive restorations in the history of cinema. The luminous resulting film is accompanied by a new original soundtrack by French duo AIR. Accompanying the film is an hour long documentary, The Extraordinary Voyage, detailing the restoration process and featuring words from esteemed directors such as Michel Gondry, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Costa-Gavras and Michel Hazanavicius.

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When teacher Junpei Niki misses his last bus home after a day out collecting insects on a remote stretch of coast, he is invited by a local villager to take shelter in a young widow's ramshackle hut.

Ignoring the fact that her home is at the bottom of a sandpit accessible only by rope ladder, he accepts this hospitality without realising he is the victim of a cruel trick. Trapped, he is forced into an uneasy life with this woman, sharing with her the Sisyphean task of shoveling the sand that threatens to engulf them.