A platoon of British soldiers aggressively descend upon a car on a Northern Irish border roadside and promptly execute the driver and apprehend the passenger.
A man in nineteenth century Prague is injured in his job at a dye factory. His attempts to seek compensation from an insurance company turn into a Kafka-esque nightmare.
An authoress, whose career is more successful than her private life, arrives at a French hotel and finds her life changing in unexpected ways.
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.
The story of Anthony Blunt, the "fourth man" in a notorious 1951 spy scandal.
The quiet life of Oxford professor James Westgate (Bob Peck) is shattered when he is introduced to Penny (Miranda Richardson), the wife of his crass new colleague (Barry Foster). Westgate recognises her as his childhood sweetheart, and the two resume their friendship. Westgate is bored with his mundane college life, including his deadly dull girlfriend, his German friend Boris who experiments on animals in the lab, and the attentions of a shy male student who claims to be in love with him, so he is only too happy to be diverted into joining Penny in her search for missing archaeologist Pilkington (a fellow Oxford colleague). As Westgate's obsession with his childhood friend grows, he is drawn into a tangle of misunderstanding, intrigue, and murder.
Michael Palin's nostalgic comedy set in the 1950s about a teenage boy reluctantly dragged to a Suffolk seaside resort for the family holiday. Loosely based on the real-life story of how Michael Palin met his future wife, Helen Gibbins, on Southwold beach in 1959.
Jane Austen's classic story of a young girl whose head is full of romantic and melodramatic notions about the world. Through her adventures, Catherine Morland comes to learn that marriage in the society of her day is determined not by true love but by wealth and social status.
Jo, an American teacher working in a rural comprehensive school on an exchange deal, uses behavioural psychology in her work with difficult pupils. In return, one of her pupils, Helen, teaches Jo horse-riding.
St. John Quartermaine, a teacher in an English language college for foreign students, his life revolving around work, seemingly without a social life of his own, is becoming increasingly absent-minded and forgetful.
Timothy Gedge, a socially inept yet intrusive teenage boy, wanders around the dull seaside town of Dynmouth, spying on the town's residents. At first this behaviour is seen as merely annoying, even comical, until people begin to realise that his purpose may not be as innocent as initially thought.
A college lecturer contracts HIV after having a brief affair with one of his students. The news threatens his marriage and family life. Starring Liam Neeson and Miranda Richardson.
Young, handsome and alone in London. Will Sunil’s luck hold out against the seductions of pretty girls, the wiles of con-men and a hundred temptations of the great city?
A moving, comic tale of three boys about to leave a grim Catholic School in Greenock, Scotland, who find they must each choose a different path in life as they face the future.
'I, Margie Starling, am perfectly, perfectly happy, right now!' ...and why not? An adoring young husband, a grown-up daughter who'll soon adjust to having a stepfather her own age, and now a birthday picnic by the river. Why shouldn't Margie be happy?
This is the story of rival "Firms" of football (soccer) supporters, and how one man has a wish to team them up for the European Championships of 1988. However, when this is discussed, the opposing leaders are not happy, as they believe this is a challenge to their authority. This Film shows how football violence has progressed from pure violence to a form of organized crime, to the extent that all the leaders know each others home phone / mobile phone numbers.
The story of a famous real-life murder case in which an employee of the Prudential Insurance Company was suspected of killing his wife.
The Impossible Spy is based on the life and career of Israeli undercover agent Elie Cohen. The story begins in 1959, with the Egyptian-born Cohen (John Shea) being recruited by the Israeli Mossad. Cohen, a mild-mannered Jewish accountant, wants no part of espionage, but goes along with his superior's plans to send him into Syria under an assumed identity. The reluctant spy is so successful in his cover that he is nearly elected Syrian minister of defense! What finally does happen results in the death of Cohen in 1965--and the birth of an enduring legend.
A story of a women is torn between two men in post world war II London.
In 1916 author Marcel Proust is leading a reclusive life in Paris. He hires a quartet of musicians and befriends one of them, a wounded serviceman.
When his son confesses he is gay, Owen realises that he too can no longer live a lie. Starring Brian Cox.
American couple Jake and Tina are living in an expensive London hotel way beyond what they can afford. When they were asked to pay the bill, Jake wants to sell Tina's 20.000 pound Henry Moore sculpture, but she is not happy about that. The deaf-mute hotel maid admires the sculpture for its beauty rather than its value. When the sculpture goes missing, the couple start fighting over it...
Once upon a time there were two people in love, their names were Nina and Jamie. They were even happy enough to be able to live happily ever after, (not often the case) and then Jamie died. Nina is left with a house full of rats and handymen, a job teaching foreigners English and an ache that fills the night sky.
Four women, driven to desperation in 1920s London, rent a small castle in Italy for a holiday, where they are joined by their husbands. The magic of the place soon begins to work in unexpected ways.
Adaptation of Muriel Spark's witty and macabre novel set in 1950s London, featuring a distinguished cast that includes Maggie Smith and Michael Hordern. 'Remember you must die,' says the anonymous voice on the telephone. Is it a practical joke or is there a more sinister purpose threatening the lives of the recipients, all part of an ageing coterie of friends who share guilty secrets from the past?
In 1950s England, nineteen-year-old Margaret is unhappily about to marry a dull middle-aged man. As the wedding draws closer, the guests arrive, including the free-spirited Lili, who forms an unholy alliance with the groom's mother, determined to ruin the wedding. Drama based on the Summerhouse Trilogy novels by Alice Thomas Ellis.
Poignant love story that follows a cantankerous elderly Highlander and his wife on a journey of discovery. Learning that Kitty is ill with cancer, they set off to visit their children, now geographically and socially miles apart.
Twenty-year-old Irish lass Sharon Curley (Tina Kellegher) still lives at home with her mom (Ruth McCabe), dad (Colm Meaney) and many siblings. But notoriety in her small town suddenly arrives in the unlikeliest of forms when, after a boozy night on the town, she becomes pregnant and refuses to divulge the identity of the baby's father. Eventually, the not-so-proud dad is exposed, bringing new levels of embarrassment and complication to the devout Roman Catholic Curley household.
Harold Pinter's screen adaptation of Franz Kafka's enigmatic masterpiece. The story of a man who gets drawn into a world of lies and corruption as he seeks to prove his innocence.
Back in the 'bad old days' when the physically and mentally disabled were locked away in institutions a legend grew of someone who could stand up to the authorities and help them. This charming story is how a group of disabled people went to chase that legend. To assist them John is forced to come to terms with his daughter and her friends
A couple expecting their first baby spend a few days in the Highlands, hoping to make a fresh start to their relationship - only for the past to creep up on the present with devastating results.
Leo Doyle, in his mid-30s and single, is released into ceasefire Belfast after serving a life sentence for an IRA murder. Desperate for a new cause, he tries to rekindle an affair with his ex-fiancée.
Political drama adapted by David Hare from his own play, starring John Thaw as politician George Jones. Going against the grain of his bosses during a tough political contest, Jones finds himself campaigning against his own party. Though the ending is ironic, it is hardly surprising - especially since the story was based on the real-life defeat of the Labour Party in the 1992 election.
Leaving her home and family in the West Indies, Gabriel Angel embarks on a cruise liner bound for England during the 1950s in the hope of becoming a female aviator.
A vivid and uncompromising journey into the soul of a tortured Catholic priest as he struggles with his own sexuality, his vow of celibacy and the confidentiality of the confessional. Father Greg arrives at a Liverpool parish to work with Father Matthew Thomas and wage war against sin and poverty. But Greg's homosexual affair with Graham leaves him racked with guilt. This feeling intensifies when he hears a terrible secret in the confessional box and is powerless to do anything about it.
Jo is a single mother in the middle of a tempestuous love affair with Kevin, a married man. She is pregnant, and when Kevin starts to mess her around and her mother is taken ill, Jo's life starts to crumble.
Tom, a young Glaswegian, is living in London and has Aids. Against the advice of Ira, his partner, he decides on a trip home, back to the family that rejected him and the friends he once was close to. Ira has to rescue him from the resulting mayhem.
The Home Secretary's plans for a prison privatisation programme are scuppered when three maximum security inmates escape.
A childless couple's obsession with becoming parents draws them into the shadowy world of baby trafficking.
A serial killer nicknamed "the Hawk" is preying on women, and suburban wife Annie Marsh begins to suspect her husband. But her past psychiatric history means that nobody will take her seriously.
Idealistic young Parisian lawyer Richard Courtois sets up a practice among the superstitious rural community of Abbeville. Soon, he gets embroiled in religious, political and sexual intrigue.
Set in 1842, it tells the turbulent story of mysterious Eustacia Vye, who longs for the excitement of a world beyond the constraints of village life on Egdon Heath.
A dramatised account drawn from actual transcripts that follows the unfolding drama of the Scott Inquiry into the supply of arms to Iraq. The inquiry was set up in response to public outcry over the collapse of the trial of industrialist Paul Henderson.
Rachel Clifford, a young dentist, starts working in a high security prison when her marriage breaks up. Before long she is drawn into an intense, secret affair with a convicted criminal.
Dublin, 1960s: as usual, bus conductor Alfie Byrne is captivating his passengers by reciting from the works of Oscar Wilde. This morning, however, they are joined on their route by a new face, the beautiful Adele Rice, and Alfie realises he has the opportunity to fulfil his dream of staging Wilde's Salome, with Adele as his princess.
When 15-year-old Jack's parents die, he and his sister Julie are worried that their younger brother and sister will be taken into care. As the pressures of trying to keep their family together build up, Jack finds the sexual frustrations of teenage life and his growing attraction for his sister starting to impinge on their already complicated lives.
Paul, an underworld hitman, recruits his childhood friend AD on his next job - the execution of a corrupt lawyer involved in drug dealing. But the hit goes wrong.
Drama set in Belfast, asking whether it is possible to have peace with justice. Rosie Williams is haunted by the murder of her husband 12 years previously. Her teenage son John is heading for a life of delinquency fuelled by revenge. Then, he meets Billy McVea, who runs a boxing gym, affecting all their lives.
At the close of the 19th century, Paul Reisner is one of an elite group of young doctors working on the cutting edge of medical research, under the leadership of Professor Mandry. Paul shows every sign of a brilliant career, and falls in love with Clara, a laboratory assistant. But his world is shattered when he makes a startling discovery about the professor.
In a desperate bid to save his political career, scheming Home Secretary David Hanratty resigns from an unpopular Conservative government to join forces with the Labour Party and its charismatic new leader Tom Peel.
A small group of Ghanaian stowaways are discovered on board a cargo ship and all but one brutally murdered by its crew. The survivor tells his story.
Ireland, 1941: while the rest of Europe is at war, the inhabitants of Kinalty Castle find themselves overwhelmed by uncontrollable feelings of lust and passion. Before long, Charlie Raunce, the castle's butler, has fallen head over heels in love with Edith the housemaid.
Two young children are brought to Janet Hinton, a social worker in the Scottish Highlands. When both she and an independent expert become convinced that the children are part of a ritual child abuse network, the small community is thrown into disarray.
A recently married schoolteacher becomes infatuated with an enigmatic photographer after a chance encounter. But when she discovers that he has covertly been taking pictures of her, she aims to destroy this part of his portfolio.
Dallas Adair, an American golf guru, comes to live with a middle-class family in suburban Australia. With her riotous antics and her capacity to attract both sexes, she soon sets about sexually awakening the Sommers household.
Andy (played by Alan Cumming, also directing) works at the Hastings Telephone Exchange. All day, every day he copes with emergencies, from squashed seagulls to suicide attempts. But on this particular day he takes a series of calls from someone who is threatening to murder him.
It's summer 1969 in New York City. Young, gay and full of dreams, Matty Dean arrives on a Greyhound bus and heads downtown. It's the time of the Vietnam War and the Apollo moon walk, but gay people are still being persecuted.
Four young police officers are sent undercoverto infiltrate a gang of hooligans linked to a London football club, but only total commitment will gain the officers the acceptance they need to do their job.
Seeking refuge from a violent husband, Jean secretly moves into the riverside cottage that belonged to her mother to clear out her possessions. Here, she meets a married stonemason - Redfern - with whom she gradually forms an intimate relationship. Both experience feelings of guilt for their in admissible love for one another, and it isn't long before the couple's quiet affair of the heart is violently and tragically shattered.
Eunice travels the motorways in a fruitless search for Judith, the only person who has ever understood and loved her. She meets Miriam, who is fascinated by the violent and unpredictable Eunice and follows her, only to find herself an accomplice to multiple murder.
Amir, an illegal immigrant, makes his way into Britain buried beneath piles of vegetables, finding refuge in a bleak terraced house with 17 other men in the same situation. Things look up when he gets work at a mill, but then Hussein Shah, the house leader, brings home Mary, an attractive woman with a murky past.
When a single mother's drinking binge threatens to spoil yet another Christmas, her five children lock her in the sauna to dry out.
In the Glasgow of 1968, young teenager Lex Maclean is torn between the artistic life of his middle brother Alan, and the thuggish world of his older sibling, Bobby.
Musical based on Mbongeni Ngema's Broadway theatrical production and set on location in Soweto. Sarafina sees a fellow student shot dead by police. The film follows Sarafina's subsequent participation in rioting and her imprisonment as she struggles against the strictures of apartheid. Shown on UK television as part of the 'Screen Two' series as part of the 'Wind of Change' season.
