THE BIG SLEEP (1946)

Directed by Howard Hawks

Private-eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired to keep an eye on General Sternwood's youngest daughter, Carmen (Martha Vickers), who has fallen into bad company and is likely to do some damage to herself and her family before long. He soon finds himself falling in love with her older sister, Vivien (Lauren Bacall), who initially takes a deep dislike to Mr Marlowe. However, the plot thickens when murder follows murder

No Academy Award Nominations

DVD Special Features:

None

GODSFORD PARK

Directed by Robert Altman

Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) is a wealthy but uncouth industrialist-turned-aristocrat, with a large house in the English countryside, complete with staff. It is a world where everything runs in order - both upstairs, where Sir William and his much younger wife Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas) indulge in a very comfortable existence of shooting, dinners and parties, and downstairs, where the servants work endlessly under the command of the butler Mr Jennings (Alan Bates), and the house keeper Mrs Wilson (Helen Mirren). Whether they like it or not, everyone knows their place. But a shooting party will change all of that, with friends of the McCordles and their servants arriving from outside to upset the order. And so begins a complicated tale of secrets, lies, deceit, betrayal, revenge, bitterness, hatred, money and love - and that's all before the murder...

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress x2, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art/Set Decoration and Best Costume Design

Won 1, Best Original Screenplay

DVD Special Features:

The Making of Gosford Park

The authencity of Godsford Park

Feature Length Commentary by Director, Robert Altman and Producer, David Levy

DARLING (1965)

Directed by John Schlesinger

A film that perfectly personifies London in the swinging 60s
A beautiful amoral model, Diana Scott (Julie Christie) wants it all. Fame, Money and Love
Everything comes at a price and she has to settle for less than she expects.

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Costume Design (Black and White)

Won 3, Best Actress, Original Screenplay and Costume Design(Black and White)

Newcomer, Julie Christie famously beat Julie Andrews (THE SOUND OF MUSIC) to the award. Miss Andrews had won the previous year for MARY POPPINS

DVD Special Features:

None

THE SORROW AND THE PITY (1969)

(LE CHAGRIN ET LA PITIÉ)

Directed by Marcel Ophüls

From 1940 to 1944, France's Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany. Marcel Ophüls mixes archival footage with 1969 interviews of a German officer and of collaborators and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. They comment on the nature, details and reasons for the collaboration, from anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and fear of Bolsheviks, to simple caution. Part one, "The Collapse," includes an extended interview with Pierre Mendès-France, jailed for anti-Vichy action and later France's Prime Minister. At the heart of part two, "The Choice," is an interview with René de Chambrun, one of 7,000 French youth to fight on the eastern front wearing German uniforms.

Nominated for 1 Academy Award, Best Documentary: Features

DVD Special Features:

None

ANNIE HALL (1977)

WINNER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE

Directed by Woody Allen

Romantic adventures of neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and his equally neurotic girlfriend Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The film traces the course of their relationship from their first meeting, and serves as an interesting historical document about love in the 1970s.

One of the best loved Woody Allen film from the 1970s

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay

Won 4, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay

DVD Special Features:

None

CALIFORNIA SUITE (1978)

Directed by Herbert Ross

Four sets of people arrive in California and stay at the same hotel.
One of these persons is Hannah Warren (Jane Fonda) from New York, who has come to take her daughter who ran away from her and would like to stay with her father Bill (Alan Alda). So Bill and Hannah spend the day bickering while trying to decide what's best for their daughter.
Another one is British actress Diana Barrie (Maggie Smith), who's nominated for an Academy Award and is attending the ceremony with her husband, Sidnet Cochran (Michael Caine) who is not in the (entertainment) business.
And two doctors, Willis Panama (Bill Cosby) and Chauncy Gump (Richard Pryor), with their wives. Chauncy has been complaining all the way, and when they arrive they learn that only the Panamas have a room with the Gumps forced to stay in a small single.
Finally, there is Marvin (Walter Matthau), who came to town for his nephew's bar mitzvah, knowing that his wife is not with him his brother takes him out for a little carousing and when he returns he finds a hooker waiting for him. The next day his wife arrives.

Nominated for 3 Academy Awards including Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Art/Set Decoration

Won 1, Best Supporting Actress

Maggie Smith's win in this category made her one of only 5 Actresses to win Academy Awards for acting in both categories

The full list includes:

Helen Hayes, Best Actress, THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET (1931) and Best Supporting Actress, AIRPORT (1970)

Ingrid Bergman, 2 Best Actress Awards, GASLIGHT (1944), ANASTASIA (1956) and Best Supporting Actress, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974)

Maggie Smith, Best Actress, THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969) and Best Supporting Actress, CALIFORNIA SUITE (1978)

Meryl Streep, Best Supporting Actress, KRAMER VS KRAMER (1979) and Best Actress, SOPHIE'S CHOICE (1982)

Jessica Lange, Best Supporting Actress, TOOTSIE (1982) and Best Actress, BLUE SKY (1994)


DVD Special Features:

None

BARRY LYNDON (1975)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal) is a young, roguish Irishman who's determined, in any way, to make a life for himself as a wealthy nobleman. Enlisting in the British Army, fighting in the Seven Years War in Europe, Barry deserts from the British army, joins the Prussian army, gets promoted to the rank of a spy, then becomes pupil to a Chevalier and con artist/gambler. Barry then lies, dupes, duels and seduces his way up the social ladder and enters into a lustful but loveless marriage to a wealthy countess named Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), takes the name of Barry Lyndon, settles in England with wealth and power beyond his wildest dreams, then slowly falls dramatically into ruin.

Nominated for 7 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Costume Design and Best Art/Set Decoration

Won 4, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Costume Design and Best Art/Set direction

DVD Special Features:

None

THE ICE STORM (1997)

Directed by Ang Lee

It is Thanksgiving, 1973, and the climate is changing, politically and physically. As the Watergate scandal unfolds in the background, the inhabitants of New Canaan, Conneticut begin to slip into an existentialist void, wherein social taboos are shattered on whims and the line between adult authority and juvenile irresponsibility is practically nonexistant. Focusing on two families in particular, the Hoods and the Carvers, "The Ice Storm" chronicles a brief period of rapid moral deterioration, as the characters shatter their social "roles" in pursuit of meaning and satisfaction, within an environment turned inwards on itself. As the narrative device of an "Ice Storm" builds up around them, the actions of the characters - including adultery, sexual experimentation, drug use and petty crimes - become increasingly unpredictable and impulsive. Once the "storm" hits, though, reality sinks in, and the severity of their situation becomes all to apparent in its bitter, and resonating aftermath

No Academy Award Nominations

DVD Special Features:

None