In 1609, William Shakespeare published a collection of 154 sonnets, creating what is arguably the greatest lyric sequence in English literature - and at the center of this masterpiece lies a mystery that has endured for centuries. What are the identities of “the young man” and “the dark lady” to whom all but two of the sonnets allude? This moving performance brings to life the gritty reality of Shakespeare’s England, bits of the Bard’s plays and poems, and the consummate poet and dramatist himself as it exposes these personages unseen but so keenly felt in Shakespeare’s sonnets and in his life. Rupert Graves, Tom Sturridge, Indira Varma, Anna Chancellor, and Zoë Wanamaker star. Contains mature themes and explicit language. Some content may be objectionable. Produced by the Open University.
The defiant leader Moses rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.
When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and everything is possible.
A 1950s London cleaning lady falls in love with an haute couture dress by Christian Dior and decides to gamble everything for the sake of this folly.
Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.
In 1800s England, a well-meaning but selfish young woman meddles in the love lives of her friends.
In the chaos of post-Soviet Russia, rising KGB officer Vladimir Putin joins forces with master manipulator Vadim Baranov to reshape life behind the Iron Curtain, using violence and deception to change the world forever.
American Daphne Reynolds heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her boho mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost father is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.
Plagued by an abusive childhood, a woman finds escape in competitive swimming, sexual experimentation, toxic relationships, and addiction before ultimately finding her voice through writing.
The life of a respected British politician at the height of his career crumbles when he becomes obsessed with his son's lover.
A guy's life is turned around by an email, which includes the names of everyone he's had sex with and ever will have sex with. His situation gets worse when he encounters a femme fatale who targets men guilty of sex crime.
A myriad of outrageous calamities befalls an eccentric English clan with more than a few skeletons in its closets when the family's patriarch dies an unexpected death.
The true story of British intelligence whistleblower Katharine Gun who—prior to the 2003 Iraq invasion—leaked a top-secret NSA memo exposing a joint US-UK illegal spying operation against members of the UN Security Council. The memo proposed blackmailing member states into voting for war.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves in 1890s London in this holiday special.
In a climate change-ravaged world, a utopian society optimizes life, including parenthood assessments. A successful couple faces scrutiny by an evaluator over seven days to determine their fitness for childbearing.
In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a hardworking young sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a handsome and reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood, a prosperous and mature bachelor.
A gorilla named Ivan who’s living in a suburban shopping mall tries to piece together his past, with the help of other animals, as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.
When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperon Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guests Mr Emerson and son George step in to remedy the situation. Meeting the Emersons could change Lucy's life forever but, once back in England, how will her experiences in Tuscany affect her marriage plans?
When a group of rebellious deejays decides to defy the ban on government-censored music, they take to the seas to broadcast music and mayhem to millions of adoring fans.
In this modern love story set against the Austin, Texas music scene, two entangled couples — struggling songwriters Faye and BV, and music mogul Cook and the waitress whom he ensnares — chase success through a rock ‘n’ roll landscape of seduction and betrayal.
A man with the ability to enter peoples' memories takes on the case of a brilliant, troubled sixteen-year-old girl to determine whether she is a sociopath or a victim of trauma.
After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.
An American girl, sent to the English countryside to stay with relatives, finds love and purpose while fighting for her survival as war envelops the world around her.
In early 19th century England, orphaned Becky Sharp defies her poverty-stricken background and ascends the social ladder alongside her best friend.
Sal Paradise is a young writer whose life is shaken and ultimately redefined by the arrival of Dean Moriarty, a free-spirited, fearless, fast talking Westerner and his girl, Marylou. Traveling cross-country, Sal and Dean venture out on a personal quest for freedom from the conformity and conservatism engulfing them in search of the unknown, themselves, and the pursuit of “it” -- the pure essence of experience.
After her husband's death, Madame Clicquot flouts convention by assuming the reins of their wine business, defying her critics and ultimately revolutionizing the champagne industry, establishing her as one of the world's first great businesswomen.
Set in a dugout in Aisne in 1918, a group of British officers, led by the mentally disintegrating young officer Stanhope, variously await their fate.
London, 1956. Genius actor and film director Laurence Olivier is about to begin the shooting of his upcoming movie, premiered in 1957 as The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe. Young Colin Clark, who dreams on having a career in movie business, manages to get a job on the set as third assistant director.
Aging King George III of England is exhibiting signs of madness, a problem little understood in 1788. As the monarch alternates between bouts of confusion and near-violent outbursts of temper, his hapless doctors attempt the ineffectual cures of the day. Meanwhile, Queen Charlotte and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger attempt to prevent the king's political enemies, led by the Prince of Wales, from usurping the throne.
Mrs. Bakshi is eager to find suitors for her four unmarried daughters when a family friend introduces them to handsome American Will Darcy. A Bollywood-style modern adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel.
The love affair between poet Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin resulted in the creation of an immortal novel, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.”
In 1973, a young gallery assistant goes on a wild adventure behind the scenes as he helps aging genius Salvador Dali prepare for a big show in New York.
Set in a blighted, inner-city neighbourhood of London, Breaking and Entering examines an affair which unfolds between a successful British landscape architect and Amira, a Bosnian woman – the mother of a troubled teen son – who was widowed by the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Oscar Wilde is a married playwright who has occasionally indulged his weakness for male suitors. After much toil, Wilde debuts 'The Importance of Being Earnest' in London, and a chat at the theatre with Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas leads to a full-fledged romance. However, this affair leads to a legal dispute with Lord Alfred's oppressive father, the Marquess of Queensberry, and, given the local anti-gay laws, Wilde is jailed. Wilde's vast intellect helps him survive until he regains his freedom.
The film tells the story of Russian emigree and the only survivor from ship crash Yanko Goorall and servant Amy Foster in the end of 19th century. When Yanko enters a farm sick and hungry after the shipwreck, everyone is afraid of him, except for Amy, who is very kind and helps him. Soon he becomes like a son for Dr. James Kennedy and romance between Yanko and Amy follows.
Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.
A kindly shop owner whose overwhelming gambling debts allow a greedy landlord to seize his shop of dusty treasures. Evicted and with no way to pay his debts, he and his granddaughter flee.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves in 1890s London in this holiday special.
Shares a lead actor
The true story of negotiations between implacable enemies — the secret back-channel talks, unlikely friendships and quiet heroics of a small but committed group of Israelis, Palestinians and one Norwegian couple that led to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords.
Viewers also picked
Controversy and legal problems follow Dr. Jack Kevorkian as he advocates assisted suicide.
Viewers also picked
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Viewers also picked
Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford
Viewers also picked
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Viewers also picked
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Viewers also picked
Bobby Griffith was his mother's favorite son, the perfect all-American boy growing up under deeply religious influences in Walnut Creek, California. Bobby was also gay. Struggling with a conflict no one knew of, much less understood, Bobby finally came out to his family.
We’ll Take Manhattan explores the explosive love affair between sixties supermodel Jean Shrimpton and photographer David Bailey. Focusing on a wild and unpredictable 1962 Vogue photo shoot in New York, the drama brings to life the story of two young people falling in love, misbehaving and inadvertently defining the style of the Sixties along the way.
Shares a lead actor · Same director
The Sheffield family reveal and go through some home truths as their middle child inherits the Foxworth mansion. The family's ghosts looming over, and more tragedies are in store as the curse lives on.
Viewers also picked
Harry Potter has lived under the stairs at his aunt and uncle's house his whole life. But on his 11th birthday, he learns he's a powerful wizard—with a place waiting for him at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As he learns to harness his newfound powers with the help of the school's kindly headmaster, Harry uncovers the truth about his parents' deaths—and about the villain who's to blame.
Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the world's fate at stake and dark forces from Ethan's past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan must consider that nothing can matter more than his mission—not even the lives of those he cares about most.
In a world in which Great Britain has become a fascist state, a masked vigilante known only as “V” conducts guerrilla warfare against the oppressive British government. When V rescues a young woman from the secret police, he finds in her an ally with whom he can continue his fight to free the people of Britain.
Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
Novelist Catherine Tramell is once again in trouble with the law, and Scotland Yard appoints psychiatrist Dr. Michael Glass to evaluate her. Though, like Detective Nick Curran before him, Glass is entranced by Tramell and lured into a seductive game.
This special explores the return of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker to the screen, as well as Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen to their classic roles. Director Deborah Chow leads the cast and crew as they create new heroes and villains that live alongside new incarnations of beloved Star Wars characters, and an epic story that dramatically bridges the saga films.
Before Alice went to Wonderland, and before Peter became Pan, they were brother and sister. When their eldest brother dies in a tragic accident, they each seek to save their parents from their downward spirals of despair until finally they are forced to choose between home and imagination, setting the stage for their iconic journeys into Wonderland and Neverland.
With all-new gadgets, high-flying action, exciting chases and a wisecracking new handler, Derek (Anthony Anderson), Cody has to retrieve the device before the world's leaders fall under the evil control of a diabolical villain.
When their beloved school is threatened with closure should the powers that be fail to raise the proper funds, the girls scheme to steal a priceless painting and use the profits to pull St. Trinian's out of the red.
Brainy Roman teenager Atti is always coming up with schemes, but one ultimately goes too far, angering Emperor Nero. As punishment, the lad is exiled to the cold wet province of Roman Britain on the fringe of the Roman Empire. Whilst there, Atti is captured by—and eventually befriends—Orla, a feisty Celt. When he's returned to his regiment, he's horrified to find himself pitted against Orla and her tribe at the Boudican revolt's Battle of Watling Street.
The Psammead is an 'it', an ancient, ill-tempered sand-fairy with a spider-shaped body, bat-like ears, and snail-like eyes. It is grumpy but has the power to grant one wish a day, which must be made before sunset. Five siblings—Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and infant Hilary—encounter It and experience the highs and lows of frivolous wish-making.
This unique feature documentary follows two actors, Giles Terera and Dan Poole, as they travel the world to find out everything they can about tackling the greatest writer of them all. Together they have directed and produced an inspiring film that aims to demystify and illuminate Shakespeare’s work for everyone: from actors, directors and students of all disciplines, right through to the "man on the street". Think Shakespeare is boring? Think again!
This 1976 BBC documentary sees Ken Campbell (and his Roadshow) investigate the origins and the development of the traditional British Christmas pantomime.
