The Face Reader

In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

In 1895, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was the most famous writer in London, and Bosie Douglas, son of the notorious Marquess of Queensberry, was his lover. Accused and convicted of gross indecency, he was imprisoned for two years and subjected to hard labor. Once free, he abandons England to live in France, where he will spend his last years, haunted by memories of the past, poverty and immense sadness.

When Huh Saek decides to become a male gisaeng, he captivates countless women with his looks and talents but doubts the existence of true love — until he meets a girl with progressive ideas.

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.

An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.

Henry IV usurps the English throne, sets in motion the factious War of the Roses and now faces a rebellion led by Northumberland scion Hotspur. Henry's heir, Prince Hal, is a ne'er-do-well carouser who drinks and causes mischief with his low-class friends, especially his rotund father figure, John Falstaff. To redeem his title, Hal may have to choose between allegiance to his real father and loyalty to his friend.

As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.

A corrupt CIA agent Sands hires hitman El Mariachi to assassinate a Mexican general hired by a drug kingpin attempting a coup d'état of the President of Mexico.

1492: Conquest of Paradise depicts Christopher Columbus’ discovery of The New World and his effect on the indigenous people.

During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.

The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, whose chances at marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. When Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son from his first marriage, John and wife Fanny. But these circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's current wife, and daughters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.

Despite mixed emotions, Frederick Winterbourne tries to figure out the bright and bubbly Daisy Miller, only to be helped and hindered by false judgments from their fellow friends.

The retelling of France’s iconic but ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette. From her betrothal and marriage to Louis XVI at 15 to her reign as queen at 19 and ultimately the fall of Versailles.

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

The classic story of Emma Bovary, the beautiful wife of a small-town doctor in 19th century France, who engages in extra marital affairs in an attempt to advance her social status.

Amid a tense political climate, the opposition leader is killed in an apparent accident. When a prosecutor smells a cover-up, witnesses get targeted. A thinly veiled dramatization of the assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis and its aftermath, “Z” captures the outrage at the US-backed junta that ruled Greece at the time of its release.

A story of love and life among the landed English gentry during the Georgian era. Mr. Bennet is a gentleman living in Hertfordshire with his overbearing wife and five daughters, but if he dies their house will be inherited by a distant cousin whom they have never met, so the family's future happiness and security is dependent on the daughters making good marriages.