KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949)

Directed by Robert Hamer

Louis Manzzini's mother belongs to the aristocratic family, D'Ascoyne.
She ran away with an opera singer and she and Louis were rejected by the D'Ascoynes. Once adult, Louis decides to avenges his mother and his birthright by becoming the next Duke in the family. Murdering every potential successor is clearly the safest way to achieving his goal.

The title refers to the following lines from Tennyson's 1842 poem "Lady Clara Vere de Vere": "Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood."

Alec Guiness famously played eight different members of the family

No Academy Awards or Nominations

DVD Special Features: None

THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS (1946)

Directed by Lewis Milestone

In 1928, young heiress Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) fails to run off with friend Sam Masterson, and is involved in the fatal death of her Aunt. Years later, Sam returns to find Martha the power behind Iverstown and married to "good boy" Walter O'Neil (Kirk Douglas), now district attorney.
At first, Sam is more interested in displaced blonde Toni Marachek than in his boyhood friends but they draw him into a convoluted web of plotting and cross-purposes

Nominated for 1 Academy Award, Best Writing - Original Story

DVD Special Features:

None

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)

Directed by David Lean

The film based on the Nobel prize winning, bestseller by Boris Pasternak, about the life of surgeon-poet Yuri Zhivago before, during and after the Russian Revolution.
Zhivago is torn between fidelity and passion. He is married to a upper-class girl,Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin) who is devoted to him, yet in love with an unfortunate woman, Lara (Julie Christie)
The story is narrated by Zhivago's half brother Yevgraf(Alec Guiness) to a young woman he believes may be the long lost daughter of Lara and Zhivago

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography(Color), Best Film Editing, Best Art/Set Decoration(Color), Best Costume Design(Color) and Best Sound

Won 5, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography(Color), Best Art/Set Decoration(Color) and Best Costume Design

The first film in the Academy's history to win the highest number of Awards in one year, without winning Best Picture.

DVD Special Features:

Doctor Zhivago: The Making of the Russian Epic

Zhivago: Behind the Camera with David Lean

David Lean's Film of Doctor Zhivago

Moscow in Madrid

Pasternak

New York Press interviews with Julie Christie

New York Press interviews Omar Sharif

LES BARBARES INVASIONS (THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS) - 2004

Directed by Denys Arcand

The sequel to LE DECLIN DE L'EMPIRE AMERICAIN (THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE)

Having a difficult time accepting the reality of death and feeling regretful of his past, a man dying of cancer tries to find peace in his last moments. His estranged son, ex-wife, ex-lovers and old friends all come to him to share his last days

Nominated for 2 Academy Awards including Best Foreign Language film(Canada) and Best Original Screenplay

Won 1, Best Foreign Language Film

The first sequel to win the foreign language Academy Award

DVD Special Features:

Denys Arcand (Writer/Director) Audio Interviews -

With Francine Stock for Front Row, BBC Radio 4

Interview recorded at the Times BFI London Film Festival

LE DECLIN DE L'EMPIRE AMERICAIN (THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE) - 1986

Directed by Denys Arcand

Four university teachers gather to prepare dinner while discussing sex, the female body and their affairs with them. Their female guests are at a gym also discussing sex, the female body and men. They later meet and carry on the same discussion revealing themselves and their society as the evening goes by

Nominated for 1 Academy Award - Best Foreign Language Film (Canada)

DVD Special Features:

None

L' HISTOIRE D'ADELE H.(THE STORY OF ADELE H.) (1975)

Directed by Francois Truffaut

Halifax,1863 Adele Hugo,(Isabelle Adjani) the second daughter of the great French Writer comes to Halifax in search of Lt Pinson, with whom she is madly in love. The Lt does not recipocate her love, saying it is hopeless.
Adele becomes obsessed and stays in Halifax, chasing and harassing him.
A tale of obsessive love and self destruction told from the real Adele Hugo's diary.

Nominated for 1 Academy Award, Best Actress

At 20, Isabelle Adjani was the youngest nominee in the Lead Actress category until 2004's nomination of Keisha Castle - Hughes's for WHALE RIDER at 13

DVD Special features:

None

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (1959)

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Based on the Tennesee Williams play and set in the 1930s New Orleans.
A rich widow, Mrs. Venable (Katharine Hepburn), plans to fund a hospital building for a state asylum, if Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) will perform a lobotomy on her niece Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor). Mrs. Venable is distraught over the death of her son Sebastian last summer and is convinced Catherine went mad the day he died under mysterious circumstances.

Nominated 3 Academy Awards including Best Actress for the two leading ladies and Best Art/Set Decoration(Black and White)

DVD Special Features:

Video Photo Montage

THE CONVERSATION (1974)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

An expert on surveillance (Gene Hackman) is hired to record the conversations of two employees in a large company. Some years previous, the same expert's work directly led to the murder of three people and he now has reason to fear it will happen again.

Nominated for 3 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Sound

DVD Special Features:

Close-up on 'The Conversation'

Audio Commentaries by Director, Francis Ford Coppola and Editor, Walter Murch

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Jonathan Demme

A psychopath known as Buffalo Bill is kidnapping and murdering young women across the midwest of America.
Believing it takes one to know one, the F.B.I. sends Agent Clarice Starling ( Jodie Foster) to interview a demented prisoner (Anthony Hopkins) who may provide psychological insight and clues to the killer's actions.

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Film Editing and Best Sound

Only the third movie to win all five major Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. The others were IT HAPPENDED ONE NIGHT (1934) and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)

DVD Special Features:

Inside The Labryinth - The Making Of The Silence Of The Lambs

Original Featurette

Deleted Scenes, Outtakes and Trailers