Actor John Gielgud (1904)

Elizabeth (1998), a British biographical period drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur and written by Michael Hirst, tells the story of Catholic Queen Mary I of England’s death in 1558. The forty-two year old daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon is believed to have died from a cancerous tumor in her womb. With Mary gone, her twenty-five year old half sister Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, is released from house arrest for suspected involvement in Thomas Wyatt the Younger’s rebellion. As the new Queen of England, Elizabeth inherits a ...

Based on the 1881 novel by Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1996) is a British-American film directed by Jane Campion and adapted by Laura Jones. Isabel Archer, a striking woman, has turned down multiple potential suitors including Lord Warburton and Caspar Goodwood, whom she had initially given hope to. Her close friend Henrietta arranges for Caspar’s visit, as she deeply cares for Isabel. Isabel’s fierce personality and independent nature are admired by her cousin Ralph Touchett, who convinces his father ...

The Power of One (1992) is a drama directed and edited by John G. Avildsen. It is loosely based on Bryce Courtenay’s book with the same name, published in 1989. The story revolves around Peter Philip Kennith Keith (also known as ‘PK’), born in 1930 on a South African homestead to an Englishwoman who had recently lost her husband. PK received dual education – from his mother in England’s ways and from a Zulu nanny whose son Tonderai was his closest friend. However, their peaceful existence is disrupted when the farm’s cattle succumb to ...

The mystery film, The Formula (1980), was directed by John G. Avildsen and produced and written by Steve Shagan, who adapted his own novel of the same name from 1979. It follows the story of Soviet forces closing in on Berlin during World War II and Panzer Korps General Helmut Kladen being sent to the Swiss border with important documents. However, he is intercepted by the U.S. Army and handed over to Army Intelligence. In present-day Los Angeles, Lt. Barney Caine is tasked with solving the murder of his former boss and friend Tom Neeley. Neeley’s body has a message ...

Saint Joan (1957) is a historical drama film based on the 1923 play by George Bernard Shaw, centered around the life of Joan of Arc. In the year 1456, King Charles VII has recurring visions of Joan, his former army commander who was burned at the stake for heresy twenty-five years prior. In these dreams, he informs Joan that her case has been reviewed and her conviction overturned. Charles reminisces about how she first came into his life as a simple peasant girl at the age of seventeen and how she received divine messages from Saints Catherine and Margaret, foretelling her role in leading the French army against ...

Alfred Hitchcock’s espionage thriller film, Secret Agent (1936), is based on the play by Campbell Dixon. During World War I on 10 May 1916, British Captain and novelist Edgar Brodie returns from leave to discover his own obituary in the newspaper. He is then approached by an unknown man, ‘R’, who offers him a secret mission: to eliminate a German agent heading to Arabia with plans to cause chaos in the Middle East. Brodie agrees and is given a new identity as Richard Ashenden, along with a fake death. He is also partnered with an assassin known as ...