National Theatre Live’s 2010 broadcast of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The Habit of Art, with Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour, returns to cinemas as part of the National Theatre's 50th anniversary celebrations. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. Alan Bennett’s play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion’s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.
Polish immigrant Karol Karol finds himself out of a marriage, a job and a country when his French wife, Dominique, divorces him after six months due to his impotence. Forced to leave France after losing the business they jointly owned, Karol enlists fellow Polish expatriate Mikołaj to smuggle him back to their homeland.
A theater troupe's young, energetic leader has secured an old theater in which to produce his new production. The theater's elderly caretaker urges the group to leave at once. A vampire is awakened and discovers that one of the troupe is the reincarnation of the woman who he once loved.
Invited to a wealthy client's mansion, time-traveling witch Yuko and her companions arrive to find a group of collectors assembled to participate in a mysterious auction. And the mystery only deepens when the collectors go missing one by one. As more guests disappear and strange occurrences abound, Yuko and her friends realize they must solve the mystery before they vanish as well.
A bizarre black comedy about a man whose overwhelming ambition in life is to be a renowned serial killer of women, and will stop at nothing to achieve it - but not everything goes according to plan...
After their father's death two sisters reunite at their childhood home to uncover forgotten secrets and rip open old wounds.
Encouraged by her managers, rising pop star Mima takes on a recurring role on a popular TV show, when suddenly her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered.
Teresa and Peter settle down in their new home after the wedding. Things are going well until her childhood furniture arrives, sending Teresa into horrible flashbacks of turmoil from memories of her youth.
Fame driven Ken Dean becomes the subject of a documentary when he attempts to start a pornography company. Following the failure of the company, Ken uses his father's religious music to start a Christian rock band but finds himself trapped in a gay conversion cult.
Telling the true story of Marvin Bijou, a young boy from a working-class family in a small village, who suffers constant bullying at school and home for being ‘different’ – too sensitive and too feminine. A chance encounter with a drama teacher opens the doors to a world that offers him the chance to escape his situation.
Samantha Moon, A young woman who lives by herself in the city must confront her past and future through her dreams whilst being stalked by a mysterious entity…
A serial killer ruthlessly hunts down a deaf woman through the streets of South Korea after she witnesses his brutal crime.
Tommy Jarvis, tormented by the fear that maybe Jason isn't really dead, unwittingly resurrects the mass murderer for another bloody rampage.
A funeral car cruises the streets of Medellín, while a young director tells the story of his past in this violent and conservative city. He remembers the pre-production of his first film, a Class-B movie with ghosts. The young queer scene of Medellín is casted for the film, but the main protagonist dies of a heroin overdose at the age of 21, just like many friends of the director. Anhell69 explores the dreams, doubts and fears of an annihilated generation, and the struggle to carry on making cinema.
What would you do to save someone you love? All brothers Shoma and Kanba know is that, after collapsing in an aquarium and apparently dying, their terminally ill sister Himari was somehow revived by a Penguin hat that she had wished for. Now they're on an impossible mission, because the price of keeping Himari alive is to find a mysterious object called the Penguindrum, and they'll do anything to save their sister. Anything. As they travel separate paths in their search, they'll have to unravel complex riddles, make alliances with strangers they know they shouldn't trust, and question the very fabrics of time and destiny.
Vellai is a farmer from an economically self-sufficient village. But when he and the villagers take a bank's crop loan, they get caught in debt due to drought and low prices for crops. So few desperate farmers migrate to the city in search of a job. Can they pay off their debt? Or will they give up farming?
Two Italian brothers, Franco and Giovanni, are marked by envy and resentment. While Giovanni, a talented painter, gains recognition in Brazil, Franco stays in Italy, enjoying the attention of their parents —attention that was always denied to the younger brother. When Franco asks Giovanni for a painting during a brief trip to Brazil, the bitterness between them reaches a breaking point, revealing a truth as painful as the artwork created.
Kids
Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, two elderly residents at a nursing home for senior citizens, strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company. Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and they begin playing a series of games that Fonsia always wins. Weller's inability to win a single hand becomes increasingly frustrating to him, while Fonsia becomes increasingly confident. While playing their games of gin, they engage in lengthy conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world. Gradually, each conversation becomes a battle, much like the ongoing gin games, as each player tries to expose the other's weaknesses, to belittle the other's life, and to humiliate the other thoroughly.
A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.