Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month

The Angelic Conversation
The Angelic Conversation sees Derek Jarman conjure an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems. With narration by Judi Dench and music by Coil.
Director: Derek Jarman
Overview
The Angelic Conversation sees Derek Jarman conjure, in a beautiful palette of light and colour, an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems. Judi Dench’s emotive readings of 14 sonnets are coupled with ethereal sequences; figures on seashores, by streams and in colourful gardens. Shot on Super-8 before being transferred to 35mm film, the unique technical approach results in a striking aesthetic, with Coil’s languorous soundtrack completing the intoxicating effect.
Related

Watership Down Watership Down
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1978 92 mins Director: Martin Rosen
An apocalyptic vision pushes a group of rabbits to abandon their warren in search of a new home, in this landmark British animation.

Requiem for a Village Requiem for a Village
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1975 68 mins Director: David Gladwell
The idyllic, pastoral past of a Suffolk village is reborn through memory in this extraordinary, little-known film from director David Gladwell.

Un Chien Andalou Un Chien Andalou
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1928 16 mins Silent Director: Luis Buñuel
A scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism - Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first film is a classic of Surrealist cinema.

Eden and After Eden and After
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1969 98 mins Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s sensual fantasy follows a group of students who enter a bizarre sado-masochistic realm after taking a mysterious drug.

Gallivant Gallivant
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1997 100 mins Director: Andrew Kötting
Andrew Kötting takes a terrific, twisting coastal tour of the UK with his family.

Fata Morgana Fata Morgana
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1971 76 mins Director: Werner Herzog
Herzog’s intense, dreamlike mediation on desert life as if seen by an alien.

Macbeth Macbeth
Drama 2015 113 mins Director: Justin Kurzel
Fassbender is ferocious as the Scottish king in Justin Kurzel’s red-blooded and viscerally atmospheric Shakespeare adaptation.

Bill Bill
Comedy 2015 94 mins Director: Richard Bracewell
The Horrible Histories team’s take on Shakespeare’s ‘lost years’, following the hopeless lute player as he leaves his home to follow his dream.

Coriolanus Coriolanus
Drama 2012 123 mins Director: Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes stars and directs in the brutal Shakespeare adaptation about a fallen hero who hungers for bloody revenge against his city.

Play On! Shakespeare in Silent Film Play On! Shakespeare in Silent Film
Anthology 2016 63 mins Silent Director: Bryony Dixon and Jane Giles
This celebration of silent Shakespeare interweaves a delightful selection of thrilling, iconic and humorous scenes from 24 newly digitised films.

Richard III Richard III
Drama 1996 104 mins Director: Richard Loncraine
Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine’s bold restaging transplants Shakespeare’s play to an imagined 1930s fascist Britain.

Peg of Old Drury Peg of Old Drury
Biopic 1936 71 mins Director: Herbert Wilcox
Anna Neagle is on luminous form in this exuberant account of celebrated actress Peg Woffington's rise to fame in Georgian London's Theatreland.

Sebastiane Sebastiane
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1976 85 mins Director: Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress
A distinctly bold and sensual reclaiming of gay history, Jarman here tells the sexually intense story of the 4th-century martyr.

Jubilee Jubilee
Drama 1978 106 mins Director: Derek Jarman
The mythological past and a soon-to-be bleak future converge on the sparse, grey streets of London in Jarman’s personal vision of the punk movement.

Wittgenstein Wittgenstein
Biopic 1993 72 mins Director: Derek Jarman
Written for Channel 4 by radical literary theorist Terry Eagleton and directed by Derek Jarman, Wittgenstein is a bold, offbeat biography, exploring the politics and sexuality of the great, troubled philosopher.

The Garden The Garden
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1991 92 mins Director: Derek Jarman
Inside his modest, sparsely-furnished home on the barren, windswept Dungeness coastline, Derek Jarman dreams.

Caravaggioo Caravaggioo
Biopic 1986 93 mins Director: Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman’s unique biopic of the 17th century Italian artist Michelangelo da Caravaggio is a powerful meditation on sexuality, criminality and art.

A Night of Knowing Nothing A Night of Knowing Nothing
Drama-documentary 2021 99 mins Director: Payal Kapadia
All We Imagine as Light director Payal Kapadia’s bold and distinctive feature debut explores the political climate of contemporary India.

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut Caligula: The Ultimate Cut
Period drama 2023 178 mins Director: Tinto Brass
Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren star in one of the most controversial films in cinema history, presented here in an entirely new cut compiled from the original rushes.

All We Imagine as Light All We Imagine as Light
Romance 2024 118 mins Director: Payal Kapadia
Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning portrait of three women is a transcendent tale of love and sisterhood.

The Universal Theory The Universal Theory
Thriller 2023 118 mins Director: Timm Kröger
The spirits of Lynch, Lang and Hitchcock haunt this cold war mystery-thriller with an awesome Alpine backdrop.

The Love Witch The Love Witch
Comedy 2016 121 mins Director: Anna Biller
A modern-day witch uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her, in Anna Biller's outrageous tribute to 1960s Technicolor melodramas.

I Am Love I Am Love
Drama 2009 114 mins Director: Luca Guadagnino
Tilda Swinton and Luca Guadagnino’s sumptuous, operatic vision of an aristocratic family disrupted by unstoppable forces of passion.