The Elephant Man (1980), In the Name of the Father (1993), Life of Brian (1979), Pink Floyd - The Wall (1982), Gandhi (1982), Brazil (1985), The Killing Fields (1984), Maurice (1987) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best British Renaissance movies.
Storyline: The myth of King Arthur brought once again to the screen. Uthur Pendragon is given the mystical sword Excalibur by the wizard Merlin. At his death Uthur buries the sword into a stone, and the next man that can pull it out will be King of England. Years later Arthur, Uthur's bastard son draws Excalibur and becomes king. Guided by Merlin, Arthur marries Guenivere and gathers the Knights of the Round Table. Arthur's evil half-sister Morgana sires a son with him, who may prove his downfall.
Plot Keywords: knight, rise and fall, death of main character, hand to hand combat, combat, massacre, tragic event ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Encounter of three social classes of England at the beginning of the twentieth century: the Victorian capitalists (the Wilcoxes) considering themselves as aristocrats, whose only god is money; the enlightened bourgeois (the Schlegels), humanistic and philanthropic; and the workers (the Basts), fighting to survive. The Schlegel sisters' humanism will be torn apart as they try both to softly knock down the Wilcox's prejudices and to help the Basts.
Plot Keywords: railway station, heart attack, financier, father son relationship, father daughter relationship, fantasy sequence, eavesdropping ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jeremy Irons plays a Spanish Jesuit who goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region. Robert DeNiro plays a slave hunter who is converted and joins Irons in his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portuguese aggressors.
Plot Keywords: mission, slave, spanish, jungle, 18th century, slave trade, river ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of nineteenth century English farm laborers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.—Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>
Plot Keywords: australia, deportation, money, arrest, convict, snow, book burning ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Babylon follows the story of David, a working class musician and black man in South West London. By day he works as a mechanic, at night David is a Mic controller at a local dance hall. The film centres around the racial divide of London in the 80s, the lack of opportunities available to black people and poverty. David loses his job, gets beaten up and charged by the police, forcing him to go on the run. Then breaking up with his girlfriend, all of his frustrations culminate in the stabbing of a racist neighbour.—John Mulholland
Plot Keywords: gay bashing, racial tension, racist comment, intolerance, metro, ignorance, jamaican ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Young lovers Hero and Claudio are to be married in one week. To pass the time, they conspire with Don Pedro to set a "lover's trap" for Benedick, an arrogant confirmed bachelor, and Beatrice, his favorite sparring partner. Meanwhile, the evil Don Jon conspires to break up the wedding by accusing Hero of infidelity. In the end, though, it all turns out to be "much ado about nothing".
Plot Keywords: directed by star, based on play, marriage engagement, kiss, shower, slander, lie ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperone 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?
Plot Keywords: male nudity, nude bathing, pubic hair, male pubic hair, self discovery, reference to ludwig van beethoven, piano ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: It's the early 1920s. Britons Adela Quested (Judy Davis) and her probable future mother-in-law Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft) have just arrived in Chandrapore in British India to visit Adela's unofficial betrothed, Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers), who works there as the city's magistrate. Adela and Mrs. Moore, who long for "an adventure" in experiencing all India has to offer, are dismayed to learn upon their arrival that the ruling British do not socialize, let alone associate, with the native population. Such people as the Turtons, Mr. Turton (Richard Wilson) being Ronny's superior, who openly thumb their noses at the idea in their belief that the Indians are an inferior people. They are further dismayed to see that Ronny adheres to that custom in not wanting to jeopardize his career. At the local white only club, Adela and Mrs. Moore find a like-minded Brit in the form of Richard Fielding (James Fox), the school master at government college, he who offers to organize a small, but truly ...
Plot Keywords: india, himalayas, grudge, festival, elephant, culture clash, claustrophobia ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Oil billionaire Happer sends Mac to a remote Scottish village to secure the property rights for an oil refinery they want to build. Mac teams up with Danny and starts the negotiations, the locals are keen to get their hands on the 'Silver Dollar' and can't believe their luck. However, a local hermit and beach scavenger, Ben Knox, lives in a shack on the crucial beach which he also owns. Happer is more interested in the Northern Lights and Danny in a surreal girl with webbed feet, Marina. Mac is used to a Houston office with fax machines but is forced to negotiate on Bens terms.
Plot Keywords: surprise ending, fish out of water, affection, culture clash, deadpan comedy, ecology, millionaire ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The family of Raymond, his wife Val and her brother Billy live in working-class London district. Also in their family is Val and Billy's mother Janet and grandmother Kath. Billy is a drug addict and Raymond kicks him out of the house, making him live on his own. Raymond is generally a rough and even violent person, and that leads to problems in the life of the family.—Gustaf Molin <gustaf.molin@usa.net>
Plot Keywords: drug addict, violence, wife abuse, c word, working class, drugs, drug use ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: This movie is the story of the spectacular life and violent death of British playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman). In his teens, Orton is befriended by the older, more reserved Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina), and while the two begin a relationship, it's fairly obvious that it's not all about sex. Orton loves the dangers of bath-houses and liaisons in public restrooms; Halliwell, not as charming or attractive as Orton, doesn't fare so well in those environments. While both long to become writers, it is Orton who achieves fame. His plays "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" and "Loot" become huge hits in London of the sixties, and he's even commissioned to write a screenplay for the Beatles. But Orton's success takes him farther from Halliwell, whose response ended both his life and the life of the up-and-coming playwright.—Gary Dickerson <slug@mail.utexas.edu>
Plot Keywords: homosexual, murder, london england, gay sex, holiday, pills, bludgeoning ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The real-life story of Dublin folk hero and criminal Martin Cahill, who pulled off two daring robberies in Ireland with his team, but attracted unwanted attention from the police, the I.R.A., the U.V.F., and members of his own team.
Plot Keywords: ireland, art theft, jewel theft, harassment, bank robbery, courtroom, money ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Young nobleman Orlando is commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to stay forever young. Miraculously, he does just that. The film follows him as he moves through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex.
Plot Keywords: female protagonist, based on novel, immortality, eternal youth, epic, england, spectator ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The fantastic tale of an 18th century aristocrat, his talented henchmen and a little girl in their efforts to save a town from defeat by the Turks. Being swallowed by a giant sea-monster, a trip to the moon, a dance with Venus and an escape from the Grim Reaper are only some of the improbable adventures.
Plot Keywords: sea monster, moon, torture, rejuvenation, eunuch, dwarf, 1700s ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the decaying steel mill town of Sheffield in Northern England, friends Gaz and Dave, both now unemployed and on the dole after the closure of most of the town's steel mills, steal scrap metal from the closed mills to supplement their meager income, often with Gaz's twelve year old son, Nathan, on the days Gaz has custody. Still, Gaz is behind in child support payments to his ex-wife, Mandy. When Mandy threatens to sue for full custody in that Gaz can't support Nathan in any way, Gaz, seeing the long line up of women clamoring to get in to see a touring Chippendales styled dance troupe, thinks he can solve his financial and thus custody problems by forming his own male exotic dance troupe with some of his fellow un- or underemployed ex-mill workers. In addition to Dave, he has in mind middle-aged Gerald, their former foreman who has not told his spending-happy wife Linda that he has been unemployed for six months, and Lomper, a mild-mannered security guard who they just met in the ...
Plot Keywords: desperation, working class, male stripper, unemployment, gay relationship, gay love, garden ...
Movie Details Click Here!