In nineteenth century Yorkshire wealthy orphan Anne Lister lives with an aunt and uncle, anxious for her to marry well and blissfully – unaware that she is a lesbian. Anne is recording her thoughts and exploits in a coded diary. When her lover Mariana Belcombe makes a marriage of convenience to rich old Charles Lawton she feels betrayed and, although Mariana visits her,the relationship is going nowhere. Helped by old flame Tib she makes a play for innocent Miss Browne but sees she is barking up the wrong tree and diverts herself by renovating the family hall. A drunken Tib almost exposes her secret and scornful mine-owner Christopher Rawson, whose marriage proposal she rejects, tells her that her sexuality is a subject of local gossip….
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Drama
Marguerite et Julien / Marguerite & Julien (2015) Valérie Donzelli, Anaïs Demoustier, Jérémie Elkaïm, Frédéric Pierrot, Drama, Romance
Julien and Marguerite de Ravalet, son and daughter of the Lord of Tourlaville, have loved each other since childhood. But as they grow up, their affection veers toward voracious passion. Scandalized by their affair, society hounds them until, unable to resist their feelings, they flee. A contemporary fairytale about desire, passion, hope, love and death.
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Sierra Leone (1987) Uwe Schrader, Gottfried Breitfuss, Nikolaus Dutsch, Hans-Eckart Eckhardt, Drama
After spending three years doing field installation work in West Africa, Fred returns home to his old neighbourhood, an industrial region on the outskirts of a major city. He is filled with confidence and optimism for a new start. He has brought home with him a pile of money that he made in Africa. But he never wrote to his wife Rita. He only wired her a money transfer every month. In the meantime, Rita has a new life that she now shares with a GI. Fred rents a room in the “Royal”, a sleazy hotel. There, he meets Alma, who takes care of the rooms and the guests and who is being kept by her sugar daddy – the aging hotel director. A passionate encounter with his old girlfriend Vera, who had high hopes for the two of them at some earlier time, dissipates into a brief carnal episode.
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Inserts (1975) John Byrum, Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Harper, Bob Hoskins, Comedy, Drama
A young, once-great Hollywood film director refuses to accept changing times during the early 1930s, and confines himself to his decaying mansion to make silent porn flicks.
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Uomini sul fondo / Men in the Deep (1941) Francesco De Robertis, Felga Lauri, Diego Pozzetto, Marichetta Stoppa, Drama
Submarine disaster drama made under the auspices of Mussolini’s department of defense. During maneuvers a submarine collides with a surface vessel and drops to the ocean floor. The crew have thirty hours’ worth of air to get it back to the surface.
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Es war eine rauschende Ballnacht / It Was a Gay Ballnight (1939) Carl Froelich, Zarah Leander, Aribert Wäscher, Hans Stüwe, Drama
1865. Katharina goes to a ball in Moscow. There she meets again Tchaikowsky, her first and only love. The young, who is now married to wealthy Michael Iwanowitsch Murakin, a man she does not love, has not forgotten Piotr Illich, the (not yet) famous composer. Both are still in love with each other but Piotr is engaged to Nastassia, a dancer, while for her part Katharina cannot leave her husband. Tchaikowky’s first love then decides to sacrifice her happiness to the success of the composer, sponsoring him in secret. Something Piotr will learn only years after. When Katharina finds herself free at last it is too late: Tchaikowsky is dying of cholera and she only has time to close his eyes.
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Close to My Heart (1951) William Keighley, Ray Milland, Gene Tierney, Fay Bainter, Drama
Gene Tierney and Ray Milland play the Sheridans, a married couple unable to have a biological child. They visit an adoption agency to make inquiries and start the ball rolling. Then, they learn of a child abandoned at a local police station. The loving and very lovely Midge (Tierney) is determined to adopt the young boy, no questions asked; Brad (Milland) insists on learning about the boy’s heredity and his parentage. The Sheridans learn the boy’s father may be a murderer. Will there be a baby for Midge?
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Chicago Calling (1951) John Reinhardt, Dan Duryea, Mary Anderson, Gordon Gebert, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
Bill Cannon (Dan Duryea) loses everything to alcohol: his job, his family, his self-respect. Soon after his wife and daughter leave him, he receives word his little girl has been injured in a car accident outside Chicago. His wife will call later with news, but Bill’s short the $53 he needs to keep his phone from being disconnected. Filled with anguish, he heads out onto the Los Angeles streets to find some way to come up with the cash. As his character encounters expected cruelty and unexpected kindness, Duryea takes what might have been mere melodrama and turns it into a perceptive examination of one shattered soul.
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Black Board / Burakkubôdo (1986) Kaneto Shindô, Terutake Tsuji, Nobuko Otowa, Kazuki Minabuchi, Drama
Takeshi Yasui, a junior high school student is found dead in a river. The police investigate it as a murder related to bullying. The dead boy turns out to have been murdered by two of his schoolmates, who he had been bullying.
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Bombers B-52 (1957) Gordon Douglas, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Marsha Hunt, Drama, Romance, War
U.S Air Force Sgt. Chuck Brennan always disliked playboy and hotshot, Col. Jim Herlihy. He first met him in Korea, where his emergency arrival for repairs while enroute for what Chuck thought was the colonels “hot date” in Tokyo, caused the death of several of his crewmen. Now several years later when Chuck, while still in the Air Force, is now weighing continued enlistment or retirement, the base’s new C.O. is none other than Col. Herlihy. Compounding his dislike is a budding romance with Chuck’s daughter, Lois.
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