Boasting an amazing selection of the most watched, most influential and most highly acclaimed programmes ever made, The 50 Greatest Television Dramas presents a long overdue assessment of the rich heritage television drama has to offer. Channel 4 invited over 200 of Britain's top television drama professionals – writers, directors, producers and commissioners – to take part in an exclusive poll to discover what they consider the finest dramas ever produced.
James Bond tracks his archnemesis, Ernst Blofeld, to a mountaintop retreat in the Swiss alps where he is training an army of beautiful, lethal women. Along the way, Bond falls for Italian contessa Tracy Draco, and marries her in order to get closer to Blofeld.
Russian and British submarines with nuclear missiles on board both vanish from sight without a trace. England and Russia both blame each other as James Bond tries to solve the riddle of the disappearing ships. But the KGB also has an agent on the case.
Unable to pay his bookie, a man returns to his hometown where his embezzler brother and girlfriend plot a robbery that ends in tragedy.
A youngster living in a stately home discovers the magical garden Mary, Colin & Dickon stumbled across years before - but faces a battle with the housekeeper over whether to nurture it.
In Alexandria, in 1938, Darley, a young British schoolmaster and poet, makes friends through Pursewarden, the British consular officer, with Justine, the beautiful and mysterious wife of a Coptic banker. He observes the affairs of her heart and incidentally discovers that she is involved in a plot against the British, meant to arm the Jewish underground in Palestine. The plot finally fails, Justine is sent to jail and Darley decides to return to England.
Lancelot is King Arthur's most valued Knight of the Round Table and a paragon of courage and virtue. Things change, however, when he falls in love with Queen Guinevere.
The year is 1914 and Richard Hannay, Mining Engineer who is visiting Britain for a short time before returning to South Africa, is shocked when one of his neighbours, Colonel Scudder, bursts into his rooms one night and tells him a story that Prussian 'sleeper' agents are planning to pre-start World War I by murdering a visiting foreign minister. However, Scudder is murdered and Hannay is framed for the death by the 'sleepers'. Fleeing to Scotland Hannay attempts to clear his name and to stop the agents with the aid of Alex Mackenzie but not only is he is chased by Chief Supt Lomas for Scudder's death but by the agents who are headed by Appleton who has managed to hide himself in a high-placed position in the British Government...
The son of the inventor of a matter-transporter, which turned him into a monster when he tried to transport himself along with a tiny housefly, continues to pursue his father's experiment, while his own two sons attempt to extricate him, themselves and the family name from further disaster and scandal.
There's big money in pigeon racing if you've got a fast flyer, and Joe Desmond's blue-pied hen is a natural winner. But Joe's lucky streak with the birds has gone on a bit too long for the comfort of his competitors. It's time someone else had a turn. Mal Middleton's comedy was filmed on location in his home town of Sheffield.
'Oh I was naughty. And I'm still naughty so take care.' And so Leda was, all those years ago when she was the childhood friend of Jasper and his three sisters April, May and June. Now she returns to add a little spice to life in their crumbling Irish country house.
A gang of six wealthy, well-dressed and well-spoken hoodlums break into a married couple's house and rape the wife while forcing the husband to watch. Thus begins a dogged investigation by a determined detective who quickly finds that their cult-like solidarity can be a serious obstacle to breaking them.
After World War II the crew of a motor gunboat join together to buy their old vessel and go into business for themselves. This may sound like a laudable scheme, but the business they choose to go into is smuggling.
Based on real events, A Hill in Korea charts the fortunes of a small group of British soldiers serving in the Korean War. Out on a routine patrol, the soldiers find that Chinese troop movements have cut them off from their own lines. They try to fight their way back to safety but with the enemy surrounding them on all sides, the prospects look bleak. Facing almost insurmountable odds, they decide to stand a fight.
A BAFTA award winning documentary looking at the development of the BP Forties oil field in the North Sea.
Two guys meet, one American, a deserter from the US army, one Brit, and they are drawn together by their mutual love of Soul music. Neither being gainfully employed they decide to start a mobile disco service for fellow soul lovers, which leads them to buy an ice cream van, and the adventure begins. Before long they find themselves on the run from the bad guys and the police.
Director William Fairchild's 1956 British comedy takes a peek into the private lives of various performers employed as extras in a new film that's currently shooting.
A British intelligence agent must track down a fellow spy suspected of being a double agent.
A pop band and their girlfriends have fun in Spain
Widower Dr. Matt Younger and his daughter go to London for a month of dirt-bike racing. While there, Dr. Younger is surprised by finding himself attracted to Catherine, a charming but elusive woman who seems to have some mysterious men following her. A romance slowly develops between the doctor and Catherine, but there are complications to their happiness.
Following a group of five very different student nurses during their first year of training at an NHS hospital in London called St. Augustine’s Hospital (filmed at Guy's Hospital), where they live in a dormitory. Susan (Belinda Lee) is reliable and sensible; Pat (Delphi Lawrence) is flighty and open; Maureen (Adrienne Corri) is Irish and loud; Ann (Henryetta Edwards) is a typical public school girl; and Liz (Barbara Archer) comes from a typical working class background. As they get to know each other, they bond in spite of their differences.
After the battle of Worcester at the end of the Civil War, the main aim of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth is to capture Charles Stuart. The future king's escape depends on the intrepid Earl of Dawlish, who as the Moonraker has already spirited away many Royalists. Dawlish travels to the Windwhistle Inn on the south coast to prepare the escape, where he meets Anne Wyndham, the fiancée of a top Roundhead colonel.
A Liverpool gang member wins a singing contest is then called up for National Service where he clashes with another soldier.
When Ex Colonel Merton discovers a burglar ransacking his home, he is shocked to find out that the thief is a former soldier from his tank regiment. When the thief escapes, Merton tries to contact former members of the regiment, in order to find out what set the thief on the road to crime.
The story of the conception of a new British weapon for smashing the German dams in the Ruhr industrial complex and the execution of the raid by 617 Squadron 'The Dam Busters'.
A university professor opens a sexual Pandora's box when he hands his class an assignment to explore their deepest carnal fantasies and desires. As the students begin to plumb their secret passions, they find themselves propelled into an erotic world where theory soon yields to practice.
A retired British soldier struggles to adjust to everyday life, with increasing difficulty.
George, an ineffectual and inoffensive clerk, and his prim wife Gladys reserve their greatest efforts for preserving their respectibility. Sam, a rough-necked American seaman, invades their dull suburban routine. The play examines the clash of cultures between a fading British Empire and the dominance of American materialistic values.
In this look at Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), aka Lewis Carroll, Dennis Potter mixed biographical drama with a psychological profile to explore the roots of Dodgson's creativity. Dodgson tells stories to ten-year-old Alice Liddell, leading to recreations of scenes adapted from ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (1865), designed to resemble the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations.
Can Theodore Quill, a self-styled Casanova, face the truth of his affairs?
The interwoven dramas of staff and patients in Mayfield Children's Hospital, where the doctors and nurses are in the business of restoring children's lives. One small child risks losing his sight, while twin boys fool the doctors over which one has appendicitis. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, new nurse Margaret Collier suffers pangs of unrequited love for houseman Dr. Nigel Barnes.
A young American couple inherits an English castle, only to find that it is haunted by the spirit of a disgraced ancestor, doomed to stay on the estate because of his cowardice. The only way he can escape is if one of his descendants performs an heroic act, something he intends to get the husband to do.
A carnival boss and a little person from the sideshow compete for the same woman.
A mysterious spacecraft captures Russian and American space capsules and brings the two superpowers to the brink of war. James Bond investigates the case in Japan and comes face to face with his archenemy Blofeld.
Young auxiliary fire-fighters are suspected of arson.
When terrorists take over two oil rigs, and threaten to blow them up if their demands are not met, an eccentric anti-terrorism expert volunteers his unique commando unit to stop them.
When CIA operative Miles Kendig deliberately lets KGB agent Yaskov get away, his boss threatens to retire him. Kendig beats him to it, however, destroying his own records and traveling to Austria where he begins work on a memoir that will expose all his former agency's covert practices. The CIA catches wind of the book and sends other agents after him, initiating a frenetic game of cat and mouse that spans the globe.
A biography of Winston Churchill, shown through re-creations and actual film footage and told by Orson Welles.
A father is intent on finding the truth as to how his soldier son met his death while serving in Northern Ireland.
On the planet Alzarius in the alternate universe of E-Space, the Doctor, Romana and K9 find survivors of a crashed starliner, strange creatures lurking in the marshes and a genetic riddle which stretches back centuries.
A British Company in the WWI trenches await an inevitable German attack in this 1988 adaptation of R.C. Sherriff's play.
A whodunit thriller set in the backdrop of North Kolkata with its British Raj charm, based on Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table.
Academy Award-honoree Peter O'Toole stars in this musical classic about a prim English schoolmaster who learns to show his compassion through the help of an outgoing showgirl. O'Toole, who received his fourth Oscar-nomination for this performance, is joined by '60s pop star Petula Clark and fellow Oscar-nominee Michael Redgrave.
Percy Pointer's passion in life is the theatre, and all his spare time is devoted to the play he is writing. When it's finished it arrives on the desk of a London impresario, when he wants to stage a flop.
A behind the scenes look at the James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"
The cast and crew of I, Claudius (1976) discuss the making of the series.
After a chance meeting and an indiscreet conversation, childhood friends Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley become involved in a convoluted intrigue led by a mysterious man known simply as Mr. Brown.
The film is set in a tea garden in Assam, where a British tea estate owner Berkeley (George Baker), he falls in love with Chameli (Binita Borgohain), is local girl who works in the tea estate. Subsequently, Berkeley marries Chameli, however later finds himself accused of her murder.
Miniseries comprising short plays featuring Diana Rigg and guests.
It is Mrs Capper's 50th birthday and for years she has quietly gone about doing her best to help others. Her kind gestures have not gone unnoticed with her employers and friends joining together to give her night to remember.
Corrupt builder Ballard is approached by Bernie Fermor, a young computer engineer with a roll of names from Ballard's business which he intends to blackmail him with. Ballard plays it cool and then has the engineer followed,he wants the Mr Big behind the demand, but the engineer is found dead.
Celebrating the life and career of legendary British blonde bombshell Diana Dors, who died in 1984. Friends remember her affectionately and film clips illustrate her big screen movie roles.