agpw's - Rented List

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Denigrated by the public, vilified by the critics, re-cut at the insistence of its producers, and finally banned by the French government as 'demoralising' and unpatriotic, La Regle du jeu was a commercial disaster at the time of its original release.

On the surface, a series of interlinked romantic intrigues taking place at a weekend shooting party in a country chateau, the film is in fact a study of the corruption and decay within French society on the eve of the outbreak of World War II.

A murdered girl's defiant mother (Frances McDormand) boldly paints three local billboards, each with a controversial message, igniting a furious battle with a volatile cop (Sam Rockwell) and the town's revered chief of police (Woody Harrelson).

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Detective Andreas' (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) perfect life is thrown into chaos when he is called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple only to find their infant son neglected and crying in a closet.

With red tape stopping him from intervening, Andreas is shaken to the core and finds himself powerless in protecting the child from his violent father. Slowly losing his grip on right and wrong he decides to take justice into his own hands with devastating consequences.

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Having left behind his life as a gifted concert pianist, Charlie (Charles Aznavour) sees out his downcast days tinkling the ivories in a dingy Parisian jazz bar. One day his brother Chico (Albert Rémy) arrives, searching for sanctuary from a gang of crooks that he's double-crossed.

Charlie offers to help but soon finds his murky past catching up with him and before long is embroiled in an affair that he can no longer control.

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Based on Lionel White's novel 'Obsession', 'Pierrot le Fou' transforms a story about a couple on the run into an entertaining, existential romance. Tired of his bourgeois life, Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) leaves his wife and elopes with his former baby sitter, Marianne (Anna Karina).

When a dead body is found in Marianne's apartment, the two lovers flee to the South of France in a futile bid to escape Marianne's dangerous past.

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From acclaimed filmmaker Terence Davies, 'A Quiet Passion' is a powerful study of' 19th Century poet Emily Dickinson that features a stunning performance from Cynthia Nixon.

Spanning a rebellious schoolgirl youth to her later years as a reclusive writer, Davies elegantly explores the hopes, dreams and desires of a woman who wrote some of the most important poems in American literature that still resonate today.

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Summer in the GDR, 1980. Barbara, a young doctor, is exiled to a provincial hospital, seemingly punished for attempting to leave East Germany.

Confined to a claustrophobic small town and under a constant veil of suspicion, she befriends no one, waiting patiently for the opportunity to resume her mission. When her new boss appears to confide in Barbara, she is thrown. Hers is a life in which the fear of surveillance is embedded in all personal relationships, and she doesn't know who to trust. Why has he covered for her and one of her patients? Torn between her instinct and her duty, the characteristically hyper-controlled Barbara begins to lose her grip on herself, her obligations and her heart.

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In a place almost untouched by time and in an age still blessed by innocence, a father and his two sons struggle to make sense of their changing relationships. The Reverend Maclean is head of his family; a stern man shaped by hard times in a land still largely wilderness.

His sons are Norman, serious and scholarly, and Paul, a hothead with a weakness for pretty girls and gambling. They are different but devoted and on the Big Blackfoot river they are in perfect harmony, bound by a passion for fly-fishing - the gentle, sometimes mystical art that slowly comes to symbolise their hopes and fears.

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Oscar winner Denzel Washington and Oscar winner Viola Davis deliver the 'performance-driven masterpiece' of the year in the film adaptation of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, the film takes a passionate look at former Negro-league baseball player Troy Maxson (Washington) as he fights to provide for those he loves in a world that threatens to push him down. Washington's directorial triumph 'connects with people on a deep, emotional level' and pulses with the universal truths of love and forgiveness, despite what lies beyond your own fence.

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Eleven jurors are convinced that the defendant is guilty of murder. The twelfth has no doubt of his innocence.

How can this one man steer the others toward the same conclusion? It's a case of seemingly overwhelming evidence against a teenager accused of killing his father in "one of the best pictures ever made".

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On the outskirts of Queens, and just steps from some of New York's most iconic landmarks, Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in a 'Chop Shop' - an illegal workshop breaking stolen cars for the purpose of selling them as parts.

In this ramshackle world of mud, rust, graffiti, and twisted scrap metal populated by illegal immigrants and low-level adult criminals, young Alejandro struggles to pursue his goal of making a better life for himself and his spirited 16-year-old sister, Isamar.

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Solo, a Senegalese immigrant driving a taxi in North Carolina, has aspirations of becoming a flight attendant and help provide a better life for his pregnant wife and step-daughter. One night he picks up William, a tough Southern old-timer with a lifetime of regrets.

One man's dream is just beginning, while the other's is quickly winding down. But despite their differences, both men soon realise they need each other more than either is willing to admit.

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"Hidden Figures" tells the incredible untold story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P.

Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) - brilliant African-American women working at NASA who served as the brains behind the launch into orbit of astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell), a stunning achievement that turned around the Space Race. The visionary trio crossed all gender and racial lines and inspired generations.

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Set in occupied France, the film opens in the summer of 1944 as Lucien, our troubled teen hero, expresses an interest in assisting the local resistance movement. He is turned down and, after a chance encounter, signs up as a collaborator for the Gestapo.

Easily seduced by the power and apparent glamour of the position, he soon forgets his old life. The Gestapo also allows Lucien to give in to his most nihilistic urges. When he develops a strained relationship with a Jewish tailor - and falls for his beautiful daughter - he becomes increasingly compromised and is forced into examining his real identity.

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French director, screenwriter, actor and producer Bertrand Tavernier looks at the rich history of French cinema and its impact on his life, from his youth as a movie buff to his own career as a filmmaker.

Along the way, he explores the works of acclaimed French directors such as Jacques Becker, Jean-Pierre Melville, Claude Sautet, Frangois Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard.