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.
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.
New York, 1929, a war rages between two rival gangsters, Fat Sam and Dandy Dan. Dan is in possession of a new and deadly weapon, the dreaded "splurge gun". As the custard pies fly, Bugsy Malone, an all-round nice guy, falls for Blousey Brown, a singer at Fat Sam's speakeasy. His designs on her are disrupted by the seductive songstress Tallulah who wants Bugsy for herself.
Murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.
Latvia in the 1920s. The enterprising Edgars Ceplis establishes a company to produce bricks from Latvian clay for export. Many are involved in his project, hoping for the huge profits the venture promises. Ceplis soon becomes infatuated with his office typist Austra Zīle and starts neglecting the business...
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.
Michael Collins plays a crucial role in the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but becomes vilified by those hoping to create a completely independent Irish republic.
'Sugar' Ray is the owner of an illegal casino and must contend with the pressure of vicious gangsters and corrupt police who want to see him go out of business. In the world of organised crime and police corruption in the 1920s, any dastardly trick is fair.
Two jobless Americans convince a prospector to travel to the mountains of Mexico with them in search of gold. But the hostile wilderness, local bandits, and greed all get in the way of their journey.
A working-class love story set in and around the London Underground of the 1920s. Two men – gentle Bill and brash Bert – meet and are attracted to the same woman on the same day at the same Underground station. But the lady chooses Bill, and Bert isn't the type to take rejection lightly...
Los Angeles, 1928. When single mother Christine Collins leaves for work, her son vanishes without a trace. Five months later, the police reunite mother and son. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her isn't her child, her quest for truth exposes a world of corruption.
Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.
Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.
Artist Charles Ryder runs into aristocrat Julia Flyte and recalls his friendship with her eccentric family prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Based on the classic British novel by Evelyn Waugh.
Today, after not seeing his beloved Zulen in years, Dora comes face to face with him.
A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.
A British medical doctor fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife.
On a tour of Britain in 1926, Harry Houdini enters into a passionate affair with a psychic out to con the famous magician.
The Second World War is experienced through the journey of Private Cole, a dramatic study of the contrasting nature between the innocence of childhood and the reality of war, and the emotional struggle that accompanies it.