Discover Movies

As night falls, the receptionist of a small hotel dutifully performs her routine tasks while strange lodgers descend upon the dark corners of the inn.

Documentary portrait of the life of playwright Joe Orton, who was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell in April 1967.

What will become of the American who crossed the seas to visit his ancestors’ graves? After reading his own name on a tombstone will things take a turn for the worse? Never underestimate the perils of sketching in a graveyard, perhaps that uneasy presence is not just an overactive imagination. Take care next time you walk through the long grass after watching this film it will never feel the same again.

After a 14 day survival exercise, Jet decides to leave home.

On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus visits a psychiatrist to find out who he is and why there are so many of him ringing bells on street corners.

Catrine Clay presents the disturbing story of gypsy children abducted from their parents in clean and ordered Switzerland.

Through the eyes of journalists and photographers working at Barricada, the official publication of the FSLN, the film observes the problems of putting socialism into practice, with reports on the war, the economy, the prison system and the political process leading up to the 1984 elections.

A fresh-faced gym instructor, Murdo Caldwell, threatens the cosy lifestyle established in the seedy Adonis Health Club in Glasgow, where, up until now, sex ‘n’ sleaze have been the order of the day. Charley and Donald, who have established a comfortable living at the club, plot to get rid of Murdo and his ideals of creating “a wholly healthy Glasgow… a city of perfectly proportioned sinuous but not over-developed physiques.... a city of non-smoking non-drinking joggers ... a city of reposeful but alert minds.' But who will win the battle of minds rather than bodies?

Part of Sweet Disaster; a 1986 series of short films made for Channel 4. It consists of “animated visions of the apocalypse”.

The South Shields-born animator Sheila Graber looks at the growing gender bias in toys for girls and boys. At the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, monster killing machines and robots fight each other and toy soldiers in khaki battle against pink clad, cute dolls, threatened animals and fairies. The toys gradually find their traditional roles reversed and harmony returns to the fictional killing fields of a Christmas home.

Belfast 1978: the Martin family, a year on. Norman is away in England, and his eldest son, Billy, and daughter, Lorna, are in charge of their younger sisters, Ann and Maureen. Second in the trilogy.

A social scientist working in a New Town development discovers that the community television system is being used to monitor and control the population.

Jerusalem is the Style Council's 'Magical Mystery Tour' - a bonkers jumble of imagery, concepts, and situations and outdoor locations that the band members find themselves in, which occasionally cuts to a song.

A promotional piece for the Disney film "Return to Oz", that also traces the history of the Oz books and films.

In between working in a supermarket by day and in a cinema by night, Connie caters for her placid Stan and adolescent kids Cheryl and Paul. But slowly she starts to rebel against the traditional women's roles she's been pushed into.

A celebration of Coventry's history & rich industrial heritage.

Brian Cox leads a group of young actors in a workshop exploring techniques in performing Shakesperean tragedy, using Macbeth and Titus Andronicus as example texts.

The son of African diplomat is kidnapped and replaced by his double in an attempt to assassinate a VIP at a London conference.

Beginning in 1861 England, and moving through a number of years, a maid helps raise two children, a boy and a girl, all the time talking about her methods in doing so.

Why do we cry? Can men cry too? When are tears acceptable and when are they not?

This profile of storied trumpeter of jazz, Tiny Davis, and her cohort pianist-drummer, Ruby Lucas, is an amalgam of artifacts about the two women, accompanied with poetry by Cheryl Clarke.

Guests at a small hotel are disquieted by the insistence of a mysterious doctor that he has been there before.

Animated short from the cartoonist. A man has a horrifying incident at a restaurant.

A couple of old friends drown their sorrows together while reveling in the naivety of a young newly-wed.

Middle-class parents have bought a run-down school in the country. Their two children, plus an assortment of friends, are staying there over the summer. One day an old lady is found in the school, claiming she used to work there. The children hold her to ransom, but no-one takes any notice.

Thirteen-year-old Cassie Palmer, the seventh child of a seventh child, has inherited the gift of second sight. Unsure whether or not she even believes in ghosts, Cassie heads to the cemetery to test her ability to communicate with the Other World. She starts with the departed spirit of a harmless child: CHARLOTTE EMMA ELIZABETH WEBB, BORN 1840 DIED 1847. But when a mysterious man appears, Cassie finds a new companion. Is he a gravedigger? A bum? Or did Cassie's inexperience cause her to bring back Charlotte's frightening neighbor: DEVERILL 1720 - 1762?

A performance of Samuel Beckett's 'Endgame', a play in which nothing happens, once - unlike Beckett's first play 'Waiting for Godot' in which nothing happens twice. It is not a play about chess, in any explicit sense, but it does feature a lovable if curmudgeonly old man in a dustbin. Generally accepted to be Beckett's bleakest play - indeed after it's 1957 English debut at the Royal Court, the TLS's Olivier Todd quipped that it made Waiting for Godot look like "a cheerful operetta". However, Beckett himself described it as "the favourite of my plays." Although the programme was not broadcast until 1991 it was recorded in 1989 prior to Beckett's death and had his blessing. This production is particularly notable as it is first full-length television performance of the play.

Ken Loach documentary, pushing for British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.

Between performances in Seaton Carew, Albie and Carla sort out their wedding, the broken tannoy, Elsie Tanner's chiropodist and whether their friend Lita should go nude with the snakes.

This eccentric short directed by Keith Griffiths, outlines Ruiz’s work, biography and preoccupations and includes a rare interview with the director.

Documentary drama.

Hawkwind's classic stage production of "The Chronicle of the Black Sword" as performed at London's Hammersmith Odeon 1985. Based on the "Elric" stories by Michael Moorcock.

Invites a diverse throng of gay men and lesbians to a party in the hallowed arches of London’s Heaven nightclub. Lesbian punks, drag queens and moustachioed muscle Marys mingle and chat about the problems facing queer people in Britain and how to tackle them. Grace Jones performs.

A short love story, set in Liverpool, between a girl and a boy.

An exclusive look behind the scenes of a magazine production.

This documentary shows how cinema has been used very differently in three neighbouring African countries with different colonial heritages: Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar. Mozambique used cinema newsreels as a crucial propaganda tool after the Portugese colonisers left. Madagascar boycotted US movies, so its screens were dominated by French, Indian and Hong Kong films instead. But a few films managed to get made. The situation in Zimbabwe was the worst, except that alone of the three countries it possessed an efficient film laboratory.

British Telecom documentary about the past and future of telephone exchanges and switches.

Bruce Lacey wandering around and interacting with stones

Short 'newsfilm' looking back at the events of 1981, beginning with the killing of 13 young blacks in New Cross, London. The film goes on to show the anger this aroused among black people, and their march in demonstration - `The Black People's Day of Action'. Also covers the Brixton riots.

Rocksteady to both a visual and musical documentary of the big shots of the English 2-Tone movement of the late 1970s that has the exhaustive, high-energy performances exploding onto stage. Jump, shout, twist and crawl and dance to the tunes of Ska and its anthems of its rough riders and three-minute heroes captivated in the moment of a generation of England's concrete jungles and razor blade alleys. No longer on your radio but now on stage, together, with the likes of Madness, The Specials and The Beat et al, this concert footage of an era is a must-see, rare and fascinating look into a once vibrant youth culture of working-class England and its musical dance craze.

Ann Turner delves into the atmosphere of the works and reveals, besides Degas the gifted draughtsman and painter, also an experimental graphic artist, sculptor, photographer and poet.

Stop-motion animated short film in which a puppet on a trike captures a puppet bird-man.

A look at the fight for civil rights in the north of Ireland from 1968 to 1988.

Arena celebrates Roy Plomley's Desert Island Discs with the help of many celebrity castaways, including Frankie Howerd, Russell Harty, Trevor Brooking, the Lord Mayor of London, Professor JK Galbraith and Arthur Askey. The special guest for the 40th anniversary programme was Paul McCartney who was also a fan of the show: 'I love its homeliness. It conjures up the best in traditional British pleasure, like the great British breakfast. It's an honour to be asked'.

The history of Expressionism summed up in 6 absolutely terrifying minutes.

A writer gets involved with a Soviet dissident.

A man condemned to die is allowed a prostitute for his last night alive, but the two of them have dark secrets to share.

An ex-West End playwright, interviewed by a hack-journalist for a railway station biography. How can this turn into a love story?

In a small town in the North West of England a vagrant serial killer is stoned to death by a gang of teenage vigilantes wearing white hoods. He then rises from his grave in the woods as a zombie a year later to gorily kill the vigilantes one-by-one!

Speaking from Henry Moore's own studio in Perry Green, Hertfordshire, John Read shares his personal memories of the artist he filmed six times over 28 years.

Live performance of Verdi's Missa da Requiem at the Edinburgh Festival in 1982. An all-star quartet of soloists under the baton of Claudio Abbado, recorded in high definition audio.

On his ninth birthday, young Gwyn (Osian Roberts), who lives on a remote hill farm in Wales, receives five strange gifts from his grandmother (Siân Phillips): a piece of seaweed, a yellow scarf, a tin whistle, a metal brooch and a small broken horse. Gwyn offers the brooch to the wind and receives back a tiny silvery spider - Arianwen, the snow spider - confirming that, as his grandmother had already guessed, he has inherited magical powers from his Celtic ancestor Gwydyon, a powerful magician whose exploits are described in the fourth book ("Math Son of Mathonwy") of the Mabinogion. With the help of the snow spider, Gwyn embarks on adventures involving other worlds of snow and silver, as he attempts to solve the five-year-old mystery of his sister Beth's disappearance in a snow storm.

Against the backdrop of the bombing campaign in Britain and the Northern Ireland Hunger Strike, a young woman joins a terrorist operation which takes three people hostage. Over the days of their captivity, she questions her own involvement and the history of Ireland which has brought her to this point.

British Public Information Film detailing what to do when one has been exposed to rabies.

Lucinda Lambton conjures up curiosities from the dark corners of museums and collections throughout the land.

A ski run in Italy, a supermarket manager in Luton, a sandwich bar in London EC2, Arena opens the bonnet of the Ford Cortina, Britain's most popular, most stolen, and most misunderstood car. 'Dagenham dustbin'? 'Poor man's Rolls-Royce'? In the year that may well see the end of a legend, some of the motoring public, including Sir John Betjeman, Tom Robinson, Alexei Sayle, Sir Terence Beckett and Magnus Magnusson take apart the Ford Cortina: Life and Works 1962-1982.

Take a virtual stroll down the streets of Glasgow’s iconic Great Western Road.