Actor Stephen Graham (1973)

Based on Ian McGuire’s 2016 novel, The North Water (2021) is a five-part television miniseries directed by Andrew Haigh and starring Colin Farrell and Jack O’Connell. It is an international co-production between British broadcaster BBC, Canadian broadcaster CBC Television, premium channel Super Channel, and French-language counterpart ICI Radio-Canada Télé. The series premiered in the US on AMC+ on July 15, 2021, followed by premieres in the UK on BBC Two on ...

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) is an American superhero film featuring the Marvel Comics character Venom. Produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it serves as the second installment in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe and a sequel to Venom (2018). In 1996, a young Cletus Kasady witnesses helplessly as his lover, Frances Barrison, is taken from St. Estes Home for Unwanted Children to the Ravencroft Institute. Frances, who possesses sonic scream powers, attacks a police officer during her transfer and is subsequently shot in the eye. The officer, Patrick Mulligan, suffers an ear injury ...

Greyhound (2020), an American war film directed by Aaron Schneider and starring Tom Hanks, tells the story of convoy HX-25 in February 1942. The convoy is comprised of 37 Allied merchant and troop ships on their way to Liverpool, navigating through the ‘Black Pit’, a dangerous zone without air cover for five days. Commander Ernest Krause of the USS Keeling (DD-548), also known as ‘Greyhound’, leads the escort team which includes the British destroyer HMS James F80 (“Harry”), Polish destroyer ORP Viktor H34 (‘Eagle’), and ...

The film The Irishman (2019) is a Martin Scorsese-directed and produced epic gangster movie, based on Steven Zaillian’s screenplay adapted from the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt. It follows the story of Frank Sheeran, an elderly Irish-American WWII veteran living in a nursing home, who reflects on his past as a hitman for the Italian-American Mafia. Sheeran starts off as a delivery truck driver in 1950s Philadelphia and begins selling meat shipments to local gangster ‘Skinny ...

The film Journey’s End (2017) is based on R. C. Sherriff’s 1928 play. It was written by Simon Reade and directed by Saul Dibb, and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in the ‘Special Presentations’ category. We follow young Second Lieutenant Raleigh as he joins the war effort, stationed in the trenches of Northern France. He specifically requests to be placed under the command of Captain Stanhope from C Company, who was a few years above him at school and used to vacation with ...

The American swashbuckler fantasy film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), is directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg. In the opening scene, young Henry Turner leaves his home in the dark of night on a rowboat, only to find himself pulled down to the bottom of the sea and inside the cursed ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman. He reunites with his cursed father, Captain Will Turner, and seeks out the fabled Trident of Poseidon to break his father’s curse. However, Will discourages him from this seemingly impossible task and sends him back to ...

Taboo (2017) is a BBC television drama series that premiered on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 7 January 2017 and on FX in the United States on 10 January 2017. The eight-episode series, created by Steven Knight and Tom Hardy along with his father, Chips Hardy, is based on a story written by the two Hardys. After spending twelve years in Africa, adventurer and merchant James Delaney returns to England following his father’s death in 1814. Set against the backdrop of ...

Created by Steven Knight, Peaky Blinders (2013–2022) is a British period crime drama set in Birmingham during the aftermath of World War I. The show follows the notorious exploits of a gang bearing the same name, loosely inspired by a real urban youth gang from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The series centers around a family with mixed Irish Traveller and Romani roots, situated in Birmingham, England, just months after the end of the war. Led by their cunning and ambitious boss Tommy Shelby, the Peaky Blinders gang capture the attention of Major Chester Campbell, a detective chief inspector dispatched from ...

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) is a British Cold War spy thriller film directed by Tomas Alfredson. The script was written by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, adapted from John le Carré’s novel of the same name. In 1973, ‘Control’, head of British intelligence, sends agent Jim Prideaux to Budapest on a mission to uncover a mole within their ranks. However, Prideaux is shot during the operation and Control subsequently dies. Sir Percy Alleline ...

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), the fantasy swashbuckler film directed by Rob Marshall, marks a change in leadership for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. For this installment, Jerry Bruckheimer produces while Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio write, drawing inspiration from Tim Powers’ novel On Stranger Tides and connecting to previous films At World’s End (2007) and the first ...

Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014) is a popular American period crime drama created by Terence Winter and aired on HBO. It takes place primarily in Atlantic City, New Jersey during the Prohibition era of the 1920s and features Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson, a notorious criminal. Winter drew inspiration from Nelson Johnson’s 2002 non-fiction book, Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, which focuses on the real-life kingpin Enoch L. ...

Public Enemies (2009), an American biographical crime drama film directed by Michael Mann, follows notorious criminal John Dillinger as he attempts to evade the law and continue his life of crime in 1933. With a screenplay co-written by Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, the movie begins with Dillinger’s daring escape from the Indiana State Penitentiary alongside his crew. Tragically, his mentor Walter Dietrich is killed during the jailbreak. After changing their clothes and finding refuge at a safe house on Chicago’s east side, Dillinger and his accomplices carry out a series of bank robberies while FBI agent ...

Snatch (2000), a film by Guy Ritchie, follows a group of robbers donning the guise of Orthodox Jews in the London underworld. In Antwerp, they successfully swipe an 86-carat diamond and smaller gems. To sell the loot on behalf of Cousin Avi, a New York jeweler with mob connections, gang leader Franky Four-Fingers heads to see diamond dealer Doug The Head in London. During his escape, one of his comrades advises him to obtain a weapon from arms dealer and former KGB agent Boris The Blade. Franky then calls Boris, who happens to be his brother, and instructs him to steal the diamond before he can deliver it to ...