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.
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 group of Boston-bred gangsters set up shop in balmy Florida during the Prohibition era, facing off against the competition and the Ku Klux Klan.
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.
A wealthy New Orleans businessman becomes obsessed with a young woman who resembles his late wife.
Diego is one of the chiefs of the Spanish Communist Party. On his way from Madrid to Paris, he is arrested at the border for an ID check but manages to get free. When he arrives in Paris, he starts searching for one of his comrades to prevent him from going to Madrid where he could be arrested.
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.
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.
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 tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.
Lisbon, 1938. Mr. Pereira is the editor of the culture section of an evening paper. Although fascism is on the rise in Europe, like in nearby civil war Spain or even inside Portugal itself in the form of Salazar's regime, Pereira only concerns himself with writing bios and translating French novels. Things change after he hires a young writer as his assistant, getting to know also his girlfriend – both opponents to the regime – and reluctantly helps them when they begin to get in trouble for subversive activities. Eventually, he's forced to take a stand...
In 1919, Frank Gibbons returns home from army duty and moves into a middle-class row house in the suburbs, bringing with him wife Ethel, carping mother-in-law Mrs. Flint, sister-in-law Sylvia and three children. Years pass, with the daily routine of family infighting and reconciliation occasionally broken by a strike or a festival, and even another World War.
Socialite Vita Sackville-West and literary icon Virginia Woolf run in different circles in 1920s London. Despite the odds, the two forge an unconventional affair, set against the backdrop of their own strikingly contemporary marriages.
In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.
In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.
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.
A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.