Far from the Madding Crowd

Ian McKellen is in delicious form as London's most vicious critic, who strikes a Faustian pact with a struggling actor (Gemma Arterton).

Enchanting tale of female empowerment in 19th century France, based on the true story of a famed ‘bearded lady’.

Using an advanced oil painting animation technique, The Peasants is a visually thrilling rendering of Władysław Reymont’s Nobel Prize-winning tale.

Thorold Dickinson's most dazzling success, based on Pushkin’s 1834 tale of black magic and gambling.

Kubrick charts the rise and fall of an 18th-century charlatan as an acerbic study of self-destruction amid social ritual.

Kon Ichikawa's wildly melodramatic tale of a kabuki female impersonator who exacts a long-delayed revenge.

Anthony Asquith's (A Cottage on Dartmoor, Underground), fabulous silent film set in a British movie studio in the 1920s.

Joan Fontaine stars as an ex-missionary drawn to investigate the sinister undercurrents beneath the surface of English village life.

Sixty years young, this British cartoon of George Orwell’s political ‘fairy story’ is still the most abiding adaptation of this powerful, cautionary tale for all ages.

Julie Christie stars in the quintessential swinging sixties film, as a young woman flitting nonchalantly through London's nightlife.

An epic romance set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago is one of cinema’s great love stories.

Tom Courtenay is the clerk whose overactive fantasies compensate for a dull provincial life, in this classic film from the British New Wave.

The ground-breaking first feature from Sally Potter (Orlando, Ginger and Rosa) is a key film in early 1980s feminist cinema.

Julie Christie stars in an award-winning adaptation of Doris Lessing's famous dystopian novel.

Ken Loach’s perceptive, personal, and moving debut feature film tells the story of a young mother’s struggles while her husband is in jail.

Angela Carter and Neil Jordan's magical, radical take on Little Red Riding Hood.

Julie Christie stars in the quintessential swinging sixties film, as a young woman flitting nonchalantly through London's nightlife.

John Schlesinger makes his feature film debut with this adaptation of Stan Barstow’s novel about a factory worker (Alan Bates) and his complicated relationship to a typist (June Ritchie) who he doesn’t fully love.

Tom Courtenay is the clerk whose overactive fantasies compensate for a dull provincial life, in this classic film from the British New Wave.

Sleepwalking into submerged depths of memory, a mother’s dream and a daughter’s beckoning, this fascinating film tenderly untangles the knots of the past.

Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia's unsettling drama-documentary delivers a powerful commentary on the state of the world today… and tomorrow.

A striking portrait of an artist deserving of greater recognition, directed by Mark Cousins (A Story of Film).

Johan Grimonprez’s involving film essay, anchored by the rhythm of American jazz, reveals disturbing truths about the decolonial struggle between global political powers.

This powerful documentary from a Palestinian-Israeli collective might be one of the most important films of this year.

Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy delivers a stunning performance as a coal merchant who discovers horrific secrets about his local convent.