Before, Now & Then

Japan, 1701. A group of samurai become rônin after their lord is forced to commit seppuku for assaulting a court official, who will become the target of a merciless revenge.

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.

Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.

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.

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

At a Spanish cloister, a celebrated French general of the Napoleonic Wars recognizes the voice of one of the nuns and recalls how, five years ago, she was the Duchess of Langeais, and he her most persistent suitor.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who has witnessed the tragic accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die.

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meet the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Set in the backdrop of the picturesque Munnar, it tells the story of Iyob, a slave-turned-master.

In 1930s Shanghai, a young office girl falls in love with a factory worker in the same company.

Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.

At the turn of the century on Prince Edward Island, Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla decide to take on an orphan boy as help for their farm. But they get an unexpected jolt when they're mistakenly sent a girl instead: Anne Shirley.

The adventures of a blind, gambling masseur and master swordsman. Zatoichi targets a yakuza-controlled village, because war with a neighbouring town's smaller gang is brewing.

Returning to the village where a year before he had killed Hirate, a much-admired opponent, Zatoichi encounters another swordsman and former rival in love.

A young woman's penchant for sensational Gothic novels leads to misunderstandings in the matters of the heart.

Chun-hyang, the only daughter of an old gisaeng named Wolmae, falls in love with Lee Mong-nyong and promises to marry him. But Lee leaves for Seoul with his father who's an aristocrat, and the new governor, Byeon Hakdo, covets Chun-hyang because she is the most beautiful girl in town. When Chun-hyang rejects his order to serve him at night, Governor Byeon sends her to jail. In the mean time, Lee passes the state exam and becomes a special undercover agent of the king. He comes back to where Chun-hyang lives to save her and punishes Governor Byeon.

Cree matriarch Aline Spears survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate codes into working for a special division of the Canadian Air Force as a Cree code talker in World War II. The story unfolds over 100 years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.

Free-spirited writer Juliet Ashton forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey in WWII.

A story set during the famous WWII air battle between the British Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe.