British Film Institute

A 'fin-de-siecle' personal portrait of London from an English experimental filmmaker, shot over a period of twelve months, which saw the election of John Major as prime minister, renewed IRA bombings, the 'Black Wednesday' European monetary crisis and the 'fall of the house of Windsor'.

A personal study, in which the filmmaker traces the evolution of his identity as a gay man through the films with which he grew up, suggesting that Chinese cinema has dealt with questions of gender and sexuality more frankly and more provocatively than any other national cinema.

The film record of Sir Ernest Shackleton's heroic but ill-starred attempt to cross Antarctica in 1914-16, photographed by Frank Hurley. A restored version of the silent original constructed by the National Film and Television Archive from a wide range of materials, including a print and negative deposited by the distributor Sir William Jury, a tinted print from the Nederlands Filmmuseum,and a set of glass slides that originally accompanied the film...

Documentary about the abuse of animals in factory farming, sport and research. Made over a period of two years in Britain and the U.S., includes interviews, clandestinely shot footage of stag hunting and pharmaceutical research, and rare material of the military use of animals for training, weapons testing and nuclear research.

Humphrey Jennings and Harry Watt’s famous film, produced at the GPO film unit, is an enduring example of British self-mythology and rousing evidence of the artistic potential of supposed propaganda. A hymn to our capital city’s resilience during the Blitz, structured as a day-in-the-life of stiff-upper-lipped Londoners, its poetic espousal of British fortitude ensured the film was widely exhibited internationally and utilised as a tool to help...

Documentary, public information film, morale booster; propaganda film – all descriptions that apply to Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister's extraordinary war-time film. Using his customary combination of poetry and propaganda, Jennings constructs a collage of the various people and classes of Britain, at home and at work, at war and at peace. The result, while not overtly proselytising, sounded a clear clarion call to internal and international...

Martin Scorsese’s contribution to the Century of Cinema series is a fascinating exploration of some of the landmarks of American cinema, as well as some of its lesser known byways. Scorsese analyses the work of filmmakers as diverse as DW Griffith, FW Murnau, Sam Fuller and John Cassavetes. This is no academic history, but a declaration of passion for cinema from one of its most celebrated contemporary practitioners. This episode explores the concepts...

Any minority craves images of itself, and this compilation of clips from Britain’s post-war cinema archives is a testament to the closeted appearances of gay characters and sentiments from filmmaking’s earliest days. Following gay characters as they go from being the butt of jokes to full-blown leading characters, Weiss has captured a playful, occasionally melodramatic, insight into on-screen homosexual characterizations. With Ian McKellen as...

Set during the American Civil War, the story of a Southern soldier sent to reconnoitre enemy positions who is trapped beneath a huge fall of masonry when Northern cannons hit the wall near which he was spying from.

A brother and sister living in an isolated farmhouse in Yorkshire accidentally run down and kill a cyclist. The body is taken to their house, where the woman slowly comes to imagine that he is their dead elder brother.