THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969)

Directed by Ronald Neame

Film based on the Novel by Muriel Spark in which a fascist romantic young schoolteacher, (Dame Maggie Smith) at an Edinburgh girls' school in the period between the two wars, instructs her girls on the ways of life, love, politics and art.
Her troubled personal affairs endanger her job and one of her girls, rebels by asserting her own discoveries about life and love

Nominated for 2 Academy Awards including Best Actress and Best Original Song

Won 1, Best Actress

DVD Special Features:

Feature length Audio commentary by Director, Ronald Neame and Actress, Pamela Franklin

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

The ultimate exploration unfolds when Mankind finds a mysterious obelisk buried on the moon.
A team of astronauts and the intelligent computer HAL, set off on a quest into human destiny.

Nominated for 4 Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art/Set Decoration and Best Visual Effects

Won, 1 - Best Visual Effects

DVD Special Features:

Interview with writer, Arthur C. Clarke

THE GODFATHER: Part III (1990)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

After a 15 year gap, this is the final instalment of the Godfather Trilogy. The aging Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) seeks to legitimize his family's interests and remove himself from the violent underworld but is kept back by the ambitions of the young.

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Art/Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Original Song

Also made Academy history by being the first time, the third part of a trilogy earned a Best Picture nomination

A distinction later joined by the LORD OF THE RING TRILOGY
in 2001, 2002 and 2003

DVD Special Features:

Feature Length Audio Commentary by Francis Ford Coppola

Behind the Scenes:

The Godfather family : A Look Inside
On Location - By Production Designer, Dean Tavoularis
Francis Ford Coppola's Notebook
Music of The Godfather - Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola
Coppola and Puzo on Screenwriting
Gordon Willis on Cinematography
Storyboards - Godfather Part II
Storyboards - Godfather Part III
The Godfather Behind The Scenes 1971

THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

The continuing saga of the Corleone crime family tells the story of a young Vito Corleone growing up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. It also follows Michael Corleone's attempts to expand the family business into the West Coast and Cuba in the 1950s

Nominated 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, 3 Best Supporting Actors, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Score, Best Art/Set decoration and Best Costume

Won 6, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art/Set Decoration and Best Original Score

The first sequel to win the Academy's top award

The third time there were three nominees from the same film in the Best Supporting Actor category.

DVD Special Features:

Feature Length Audio Commentary by Francis Ford Coppola

THE GODFATHER (1972)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Based a novel and screenplay by Mario Puzo, it is a tale of a Mafia boss' s innocent son becoming involved in the bloody family business when his father is critically wounded in a mob hit

It starred Marlon Brando in the best role of his career and a cast including James Caan, Al Pacino, Diane keaton and many others and is regarded as one of the best gangster films ever made

Nominated for 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, 3 Best Supporting Actors, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score (later withdrawn as unoriginal) and Best Sound

Won 3, Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor

The second time there were three nominees in the Supporting Actor category from the same film.

Marlon Brando famously refused his Oscar by proxy

DVD Special Features:

Feature Length Audio Commentary by Francis Ford Coppola

ALFIE (1966)

Directed by Lewis Gilbert

Alfie (Michael Caine) is cockney philanderer, wonderfully successful with women although he rarely gets emotionally involved with them. He is encountering a series of life changing reversals. His health is threatened, he has a child adopted by another man and he must help procure an abortion for a married woman whom he gets pregnant. Finally, when he decides to settle down, he is rejected for a much younger man.

This film made Michael Caine an international star and is considered one of the best British films of the 1960s

Also famous for the song "what's it all about, Alfie" written by Burt Bacharach, sung by Cher

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Song


DVD Special Features: None

A TASTE OF HONEY (1961)

Directed by Tony Richardson

Based on a West End and Broadway play telling the moving story of a plain young girl (Rita Tushingham) who becomes pregnant by a black sailor, befriends a homosexual (Murray Melvin), and gradually becomes a woman

Controversial and groundbreaking for its time, this film is an example of the British New Wave Cinema which began in the 1960s

No Academy Nominations

Winner of Best Actor and Actress at the Cannes Film festival 1962

DVD Special Features:

Audio Commentary by Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan and Murray Melvin

Video Essay narrated by Cinematograher, Walter Lassally

THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE (1968)

Directed by Robert Aldrich

Based on the successful stage play of the same name in which George( Beryl Reid) lives with her lover, Childie( Susannah York) and plays a cheerful district nurse in a BBC soap opera in which her character is to be killed off.
George's life begins to fall apart when she realises that the only other job she can get is the voice of a cow in a children's tv programme.
Things get even worse for Georgie, when Childie embarks on an affair with a predatory tv producer.

A film which caused outrage and controversy when it was released.

No Academy Award Nominations

DVD Special Features:

None

THE SERVANT (1963)

Directed by Joseph Losey

This film takes a sharp look at British class relations via a dramatic turning of the tables between a dainty Oxbridge bachelor (James Fox) and his contemptuous manservant (Dirk Bogarde)

No Academy Award Nominations

DVD Special Features:

None

BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945)

Directed by David Lean

Screenplay written by Noel Coward and based on his play "Still Life" AKA Noel Coward's Brief Encounter

On a cafe at a railway station, a housewife, Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) meets doctor Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard).
They gradually fall in love and continue to meet every Thursday on the small cafe, whilst knowing their love is impossible

Nominated for 3 Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay


DVD Special Features:

'A Profile of Brief Encounter' Documentary

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946)

Directed by David Lean

The best of the four film adaptations of the famous novel by Charles Dickens where a humble orphan, Pip (John Mills) becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Art/Set Direction (Black and White)

Was the first time a British-produced film was nominated in the Best Picture category

Won 2, Best Art and Set Decoration (Black and White) and Best Cinematography

DVD Special Features: None

ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Elia kazan


The Waterfront Crime Commission is holding hearings on underworld infiltration of the unions . Worker is turned against worker and Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) has to take a stand when he inadvertently participates in the murder of a fellow longshoreman

After the success of GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT (1947) and STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951), Elia Kazan received widespread critical praise for this work and went on to direct other acclaimed films such as EAST OF EDEN (1955) and SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961) but fact that he agreed to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, haunted his career until his death in 2003.

Nominated for 12 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, 3 Best Supporting Actors, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art and Set Decoration ( Black and White), Best Cinematography (Black and White), Best Film Editing and Best Original Score

Won 8 :
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art and Set Decoration ( Black and White), Best Cinematography (Black and White) and Best Film Editing

Was the first time there were three nominations in the Best Supporting Actor, from the same film

DVD Special Features:

Audio Commentary by Richard Schickel, the author of " Elia Kazan - a Director's Journey" and Biographer, Jeff Young

Interview with Director, Elia Kazan

Contender - Mastering the Method Featurette