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 barren soundstage is stylishly utilized to create a minimalist small-town setting in which a mysterious woman named Grace (Nicole Kidman) hides from the criminals who pursue her. The town is two-faced and offers to harbor Grace as long as she can make it worth their effort, so Grace works hard under the employ of various townspeople to win their favor. Tensions flare, however, and Graces status as a helpless outsider provokes vicious contempt and abuse from the citizens of Dogville.
Over the course of a year, in a small town scarred and beaten down by industrialization, Tonda and Monika, friends since childhood, come to experience what life might be like if they could be with one another - which they seemingly cant. Or can they?
A Danish film produced in the Dogma style by Thomas Vinterberg that portrays a family having a party for their father when one son makes a toast speech that tells the truth about the murder of their eldest sister possibly involving the father.
An emotive journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.
A middle-aged London factory worker (Blethyn) is shocked when the mixed-race daughter she gave up at birth decides to track her down. At first she denies she is her mother. All family members become emotional, as everyone's secrets are exposed.
Summertime on the coast of Maine, \In the Bedroom\ centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. He is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.
The plot of the story is interactions between two young boys, two teenagers, a mother, a grandmother, and two elderly women. It can be said though that the main actor in the film is frozen sea, and the rest of the stories are only surreal background to it.
During one single day a number of life destinies cross one another. It becomes a night for the involved they will never forget, a night when the coincidences are going to change their lives forever.
Set over a two-decade period in a tiny Central European village, this drama not only chronicles a couple's tragic star-crossed love, it also serves as a metaphor for the tragedy of lost traditions. After opening in the snowy wilds as two people spectacularly die, the story jumps back 20 years as young Verona prepares to marry. Unfortunately, voracious wolves descend upon the ceremony and all but Verona and her courageous 10-year-old brother-in-law Goran, who saves her, perish. That day, Verona gives birth to Veronika and promptly betroths her daughter to the heroic Goran. A decade passes and on Veronika's 10th birthday, her engagement to Goran is formally announced at a big party. Festivities halt when a troupe of female circus performers and their sly employer Madina show up. Veronika soon finds herself more interested in Madina's young son Michal than she is in the adult Goran. Meanwhile, the worldly Madina attempts to adjust to life in an old-fashioned village.
Based on the true childhood experiences of Noah Baumbach and his brother, The Squid and the Whale tells the touching story of two young boys dealing with their parents divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980's.
Movie|United States|02/18/1997| HBO |Drama|Family Ties
Since self-made immigrant Nico Podaras's death, widow Elenie runs his lucrative garage, with an illegal side business, generously using the profits to keep control of their three sons' lives. Simpleton Dan is happy to sire the crucial heir without hesitation to keep unruly, immature wife Charlene in line, but goes to far, so she absconds pregnant. Firstborn John gave up his dream, fishery, to work in the garage. When he marries Kathryn, she starts questioning and resisting Elenie's matriarchal manipulation, but bares her a grandson. The conflict escalates, leaving John torn between loyalties.
Movie|United States|03/08/1998| HBO |Drama|Family Ties
A loopy mother locks her teenage daughter in her room after allegedly showing signs of being crazy. Over a decade later, somebody finally investigates, removes the daughter from the mother's care, and attempts to rehabilitate the daughter.
Two neighboring families in Florida, one black and one white, struggle with the problems of race, poverty, prejudice, and absent fathers, as their children become friends over the course of one summer and fall.
Ten short unrelated stories that move chronologically through Slovakia's twentieth-century history as seen from the perspective of life in small towns and villages.
Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.
A little girl is told by her parents that she is adopted. Determined to find her birth mother, her family eventually agrees to take her to Sri Lanka, where they are abducted by the terrorist group known as the Tamil Tigers.
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
After her husband runs off with his secretary, Terry Wolfmeyer is left to fend for herself -- and her four daughters. As she hits rock bottom, Terry finds a friend and drinking buddy in next-door neighbor Denny, a former baseball player. As the two grow closer, and her daughters increasingly rely on Denny, Terry starts to have reservations about where their relationship is headed.
Novelist and filmmaker Jose Giovanni turned to the remarkable true story of how his father helped him escape a date with the guillotine for this drama, which is based closely on events from his own life. During World War II, Manu (Vincent Lecoeur, as a character Giovanni modeled after himself) fought with the French Resistance, but near the end of the war he fell into a life of crime, and in 1947, 22-year-old Manu was arrested for his part in a bungled robbery that left a man dead. While Manu did not pull the fatal trigger, he refuses to say who did, since it would mean implicating his uncle, one of the few members of his family who has stood by him; Manu's brother is dead, and he turned his back on his father Joe (Bruno Cremer) years ago. Manu is sentenced to death, and while he protests his innocence, his attempts to escape from prison do little to convince anyone that he's telling the truth.
By accident, Luc discovers the whereabouts of his brother Ad, who mysteriously disappeared fifteen years before. As it turns out, he is living with Els, secluded from the rest of the world, on a farm. Luc decides to stay a few days, even though he and his wife Mieke are not welcome at first. After a while, Mieke heads home. Also, Luc hears strange sounds coming from a barn at the farm. He decides to investigate the matter. He discovers a secret that Ad and Els have been hiding for years.
Ladies in Lavender is a 2004 British drama film written and directed by Charles Dance, who based his screenplay on a short story by William J. Locke. Set in picturesque coastal Cornwall, in a tight-knit fishing village in the 1930s, Ladies in Lavender stars Judi Dench and Maggie Smith playing the leading roles of sisters Ursula (Dench) and Janet Widdington (Smith). Andrea is played by Daniel Brühl. A gifted young Polish violinist from Krakow, Andrea is bound for America when he is swept overboard by a storm. When the Widdington sisters discover the handsome stranger on the beach below their house, they nurse him back to health. However, the presence of the musically talented young man disrupts the peaceful lives of Ursula and Janet and the community in which they live. William Locke's original story was published in 1916. The title is a play on words of the phrase Lace in Lavender and refers to the custom of sprinkling dried lavender among clothing packed in storage to keep it...
