In the spring of 1913, Parisian businessman Gabriel Astruc opens a new theater on the Champs Elysées. The first performance is the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring', danced by the Ballet Russes. The rehearsal process is extremely fraught: the orchestra dislike Stravinsky's harsh, atonal music; the dancers dislike the 'ugly' choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky. The volatile, bisexual Nijinsky is in a strained relationship with the much older Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballet Russes' charismatic but manipulative impresario. Public expectation is extremely high after Nijinsky's success in 'L'apres-midi d'un faune'. Finally, 'The Rite of Spring' premieres to a gossip-loving, febrile, fashion-conscious Parisian audience sharply divided as to its merits.
An investigative reporter following an espionage story goes to London and gets involved with murder, scam artists and rock concerts.
A farmer becomes an unintentional celebrity when, because of a strike, he has to walk his 500 geese 100 miles to market at Christmastime.
A teenage girl, Jessica, befriends a teenage boy called Tom, who is bullied by a local gang. She is abused by Jack, who is both her neighbour and school teacher, and Tom is sexually abused by his father. Together they bond in the woods, creating a private reality that no-one else can enter.
Arabella has her eye on Fred which means it's not easy. So when she (and Fred) attend the Tall Man's party, she is self conscious. Afterwards, to make herself feel better, she invites Eve round for her version of a party. And of course it's easy around Eve. So with a wave of self assuredness, she invites Fred round. But again she is self-conscious around him. So Arabella strategizes. Arabella who wants to be mad. Where madness isn't loony or kooky, it's the freedom to be.
Arrogant businessman Rupert Granger is used to getting everything he wants... everything except Alison. Rupert is determined to win her over, only Alison is not the kind who can be bought. He promises to change, but promises will not rescue him when a cancelled flight leaves him stranded at the airport in Spain. Now his only hope to win her back lies in Chas, an airline passenger stuck at the airport with him. Chas doesn't tolerate any nonsense, while Rupert complains about everything... but Chas is about to give Rupert the personality makeover of a lifetime, one to put Rupert Granger on the right track to winning Alison back.
Hiller, a computer expert, was bribed by group of bank robbers to obtain details of the security system at a newly-built bank. Having obtained the information, he thought he'd seen the last of the robbers. But now they've traced him and his son to London. They hold the son hostage and force Hiller to decode the information about the alarm and then to take part in the robbery.
A widowed professor living in Paris develops a special relationship with a younger French woman.
Dramatisation of the true story of the notorious 'acid bath murderer' John Haigh, who murdered women and disposed of their bodies in vats of acid in the 1940s. He was only caught when the gallstones of one of his victims failed to dissolve in the acid and were detected by the pathologist who examined the residue from the acid bath.
Is Joe really having an affair - or is Rosie imagining it all? A story of sexual jealousy, betrayal and vengeance - an emotional journey which keeps you guessing to the bitter end.
Two boys pull a Saturday night prank on the police in a seaside British town.
A man and a woman both frantically try to catch the last post, but could be connected beyond the outer envelopes.
When the luckless Martin and Renato have the bright idea of starting up a guided coach tour of the M25, London's orbital motorway, they think they're on to a winner - but they soon discover they're on course for disaster.
What do you do when you have only two passions in life - Hull City Football Club and your girlfriend Carol? Normally, you survive -just. Until that is, the semi-final is on the same day as your wedding.... This comedy, made at the National Film School, won an Oscar for the Best Foreign Student Film Category 1987.
When a group of radical activists take over an energy company's annual gala, seizing 300 hostages, an ex-soldier turned window cleaner suspended 50 storeys up on the outside of the building must save those trapped inside, including her older brother.
Michael climbs on to the roof of the block of flats where he lives with his mother, and finds a world of make-believe, duels, and chickens existing over their heads.
A lone hitch hiker, marooned near a housing estate, has a dramatic effect on the lives of those around him.
In a foreign port two boys come to a fisherman saying they are refugees from a country where a military take-over has organised a gigantic League of Youth.
Captured live at the Almeida Theatre in November 2012. An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.
Penelope Keeling, a sixty-four-year-old daughter of a famous artist, reflects on her life, and the fate and choices that defined it, when she arrives in the Mediterranean to stay with her headstrong daughter. Shifting through time, and falling into place like the pieces of a jigsaw, the truth of Penelope's rich, heartbreaking and surprising life unfolds.
A Headmistress steals from her own school. As a young girl Colleen McCabe asks a priest in confessional "What is sin?" Thirty years later she is found out for practising it. An ex-nun,she leaves the convent because she becomes disillusioned with spiritual matters and goes into teaching, being appointed headmistress of the John Rigby School in London. Along with a small coterie of chosen staff members to act as her spies,she misappropriates half a million pounds from school funds which she spends on luxury goods and a trip on the Orient Express. Meanwhile the school suffers,having to use ancient text books and pupils as cleaners. She is tried,although admitted to hospital for depression on the trial day, and sentenced to five years in jail, later reduced to four. The film alternates dramatized scenes of Colleen's misbehaviour with interviews with those who knew her.
A passionately committed young dancer is forced to re-examine his career and life when faced with death, finding hope through an older man who becomes his lover, mentor and companion.
'They're no trouble', says the head-master, 'just give them something simple and undemanding to do - just keep their heads down'. It was better advice then he knew.
Breaking Glass is the story of punk singer Kate and her meteoric rise to stardom. Starting out in the rock pubs of London, Kate, assisted by her manager Danny, becomes a huge star overnight. Once at the top the pressure is immense as Kate's band are squeezed out and she is left to cope alone in the spotlight.
One Saturday evening Rosa Priore is preparing a magnificent Sunday lunch for her family and their friends. By Sunday afternoon her life and marriage are in ruins.
Plain Jane Hartman hates her life. She's goofy, boring and only has sex if she reads Iris Murdoch novels out loud to her loopy boyfriend. Her oldest friend Antonia McGill knows about everything. She orders the right food; she can complain and get results. She's beautiful and has a brilliant career. Is it any wonder that they hate each other's guts?
When her life is turned upside down upon discovering her husband's affair, Sandra Abbott seeks refuge in London with her estranged older sister Bif. She begins to find her feet again after letting Bif drag her along to a community dance class.
David Threlfall stars as Tom Rowse, a retired British secret service agent turned thriller novelist who is brought back into the world of espionage for one last job. The mission - foiling a Libyan plot to supply the IRA with a massive shipment of high-tech weapons in order to wreak revenge upon the UK for their support and co-operation with the US during the 1986 bombing of Libya and the attempted assassination of Colonel Gaddafi .
When a young couple from the wrong side of the tracks decide to take on an inheritance fraud job, little do they know that they have accepted a fate far darker then they could ever have imagined.
A British agent is chasing after famous terrorist Carlos when he resurfaces in Europe.
Encouraged by his editor to seek 'sexy stories that sell', a reporter preys upon the private life of an erstwhile friend, with disastrous results.
A woman is forced to confront her dark side when she investigates her husband's suspected infidelity.
A young Yorkshire boy struggles to come to grips with squabbling parents, a doctor who wants to institutionalize him because of his epilepsy, and a mother who refuses to accept that he is different in any way – and that is only the half of it. The boy, Tim, also acts as a go-between for his friend Carns, who is having an affair with a married woman. Eventually, things start to sort themselves out, and Tim sees life getting more interesting when he and his friend Win slowly get a relationship going.
After an abandoned young woman in late 19th Century England is taken in by a rural couple with three handsome sons, tragic consequences result.
David Hare's account of a one-time French freedom fighter who gradually realizes that her post-war life is not meeting her expectations.
In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.
When Wayne has to go and live with his grandfather Albert, they both initially resent the arrangement. Hostilities soften when they discover some common interests.
The Government Inspector is a 2005 television drama based on the life of Dr. David Kelly and the lead-up to the Iraq War in the United Kingdom.
Sophie, an ambitious novice, walks a razor's edge as her interview with titan of industry Henry Mann descends into a squalid power play.
McLibel is a documentary film directed by Franny Armstrong for Spanner Films about the McLibel case. The film was first completed, as a 52 minute television version, in 1997, after the conclusion of the original McLibel trial. It was then re-edited to 85 minute feature length in 2005, after the McLibel defendants took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.
In the summer of 1983, just before the release of The Witches, Giant imagines a tense meeting between Roald Dahl and his American and British publishers as they scramble to contain the fallout from his public denunciation of Israel and defence of the Palestinians in a review of a book on the 1982 Lebanon war. Filmed live onstage at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in 2025.
A dramatisation of a period in Roald Dahl's life during the summer of 1983, as he makes final edits to book "The Witches" before its release, after his 1983 literary review of the picture book "God Cried" about the siege of West Beirut by the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War was deemed anti-Semitic. John Lithgow plays Dahl in Mark Rosenblatt's critically acclaimed stage play, of this Royal Court Theatre production filmed at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London, directed by Nicholas Hytner.