"A Sweeping Panorama of Living"
A chronicle of the lives of the Gibbons family, from shortly after the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second.
Social & External
Frank Gibbons
Ethel Gibbons
Mrs. Flint
Aunt Sylvia
Bob Mitchell
Billy Mitchell
Queenie Gibbons
Vi Gibbons
Reg Gibbons
Sam Leadbitter
Phyllis Blake
Edie
Woman in Crowd
Mourner
Narrator (voice)
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.
Pierre has been happily married for fifteen years and a good father. Still in love with his wife, he enjoys his wife and family and is content. One evening, he meets Elsa at a party and are immediately attracted to each other. Fifteen days later, they happen to meet again and the mutual attraction turns into infatuation. But his love for his wife and Elsa's rule about not dating married men prevents them from taking the next step. Instead, they fantasize about each other, and soon the fantasies mingle with the reality.
In Warsaw in 1980, the Communist Party sends disgruntled radio reporter Winkel to Gdańsk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers - particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an independent labour union leader whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews the people surrounding Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka.
Will Freeman is a good-looking, smooth-talking bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility. But when he invents an imaginary son in order to meet attractive single moms, Will gets a hilarious lesson about life from a bright, but hopelessly geeky 12-year-old named Marcus. Now, as Will struggles to teach Marcus the art of being cool, Marcus teaches Will that you're never too old to grow up.
A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.
Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall - London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose inevitable stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.
Shipped off to a Romanian orphanage to finish his sentence, a British criminal finds romance but also discovers corruption inside the facility.
Retired farmer and widower Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. He then has the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.
A character study of a family on vacation. The emotional abyss and problems are behind the seemingly nice facade of an intact family as they experience guilt, love, and jealousy.
Rahul Seth is a dashing young millionaire who believes he is "western" enough to rebel against his mother and grandmother. They are not too keen about his Caucasian girlfriend Kimberly who, to make matters worse, is a pop star. Before you can say "karmic intervention," Kimberly dies in a freak accident and Rahul is devastated. Instead of allowing him to mourn in peace, Rahul's mother sees the opportunity she's been waiting for. She threatens to call off his sister's wedding unless he finds himself a "nice Indian girl." Rahul enlists the services of Sue, a fiercely independent escort whom he believes to be Hispanic, and therefore not "married" to the conventions taught to young Indian women. With a wink in her eye, Sue accepts the deal to pose as his Indian bride-to-be. She needs the money and having never been a fan of the typical Indian male, she feels her heart is safe. The charade begins....
Yasuo (Hiroshi Abe) grew up as an orphan. He married a woman he loved and they had a son Akira (later played by Takumi Kitamura). Yasuo's life seemed great at the time, but his life totally changed after his wife died in accident. Since that time, Yasuo, who never experienced parents' love himself, has to raise his son Akira alone.
With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.
At dawn, Kelsey Akioka hikes out onto the Kalapana lava fields with a camera in hand and 80 lbs of gear on his back. We observe his methodical photography process amid one of nature’s most beautiful and chaotic events. Under the shade of a pop-up tent, he sells these photos at a small makeshift marketplace to apathetic tourists. By the end of the day, Kelsey returns home, exhausted and worn, to his son and elderly father. When he learns his friend is sacrificing his passion and moving away from home to pursue a better life for his family, Kelsey begins to question his own choices. As his frustrations spill into his home life, Kelsey must confront the turmoil stirring within him.
Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.
Eight very different couples deal with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
When her American lover visits London, a wealthy woman’s jealous husband hatches a plan to murder her and inherit her fortune.
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
During the final weeks of a presidential race, the President is accused of sexual misconduct. To distract the public until the election, the President's adviser hires a Hollywood producer to help him stage a fake war.
A middle-aged man recalls his childhood growing up in and around London during World War II.
Summer 1939. Influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English seaside town to learn the language and be ambassadors for a future looking National Socialist. A teacher there sees what is coming and is trying to raise the alarm. But the authorities believe he is the problem.
England, 1926. An American journalist looks for mystery writer Agatha Christie when she suddenly disappears without explanation, leaving no trace.
As WWII looms, a wealthy widow hires an amateur archaeologist to excavate the burial mounds on her estate. When they make a historic discovery, the echoes of Britain's past resonate in the face of its uncertain future.
In 1930s England, a group of pretentious rich and famous gather together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.
Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.
A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.
When the Great War breaks out, brothers Roy and Monte Rutledge, each attending Oxford University, enlist with the Royal Flying Corps.
Jimmy Gralton returns from New York and reopens his beloved community hall, only to meet opposition from the local parish.
Copenhagen, Denmark, 1962. When a high-ranking Soviet official decides to change sides, a French intelligence agent is caught up in a cold, silent and bloody spy war in which his own family will play a decisive role.
Based on the life stories of the eccentric aunt and first cousin of Jackie Onassis raised as Park Avenue débutantes but who withdrew from New York society, taking shelter at their Long Island summer home, "Grey Gardens." As their wealth and contact with the outside world dwindled, so did their grasp on reality.
In Northern England in the early 1960s, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.
Set in a small English town in 1959, a woman decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.
George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.
Angie is a working class woman. After being fired, she decides to set up a recruitment agency of her own, running it from her kitchen with her friend, Rose. Taking advantage of the desperation of immigrants, Angie builds a successful business extremely quickly.
Seven children bury their mother and hide her death - until their long-lost father returns.
A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.
In this sequel to Hope and Glory (1987), Bill Rohan has grown up and is drafted into the army, where he and his eccentric best mate, Percy, battle their snooty superiors on the base and look for love in town.
Karl Anton Verloc and his wife own a small cinema in a quiet London suburb where they live seemingly happily. But Mrs. Verloc does not know that her husband has a secret that will affect their relationship and threaten her teenage brother's life.
In the midst of World War II, Sherlock Holmes rescues the Swiss inventor of a new bomb-sight from the Gestapo and brings him to England, where he quickly falls into the clutches of the evil Professor Moriarty.