greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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California surgeon Dr. Mike Parker (Rock Hudson) is away at a conference in New York, having a drink in a bar, when he is introduced to a caricaturist named Victor (George Sanders) in the company of Mike's German ex-wife Lisa (Cornell Borchers).

Lisa, panicked, darts from the bar - and is run over by a car. As Mike treats her wounds and aids her recovery, the story of their love affair, marriage and painful parting is retold. Lisa, now living under an assumed name, went missing, presumed dead, eight years earlier after being trapped in the Russian quarter of post-war Vienna, where Mike was serving as a US Army medic. Visiting her father, whose home lies behind the Iron Curtain, Lisa is arrested for breaking a curfew. Word leaks back to the Allied side that her father is dead and, fearing the worst, Mike is persuaded to return to America to raise their young daughter Suzy (Shelley Fabares). Back in the present, a still frail and recuperating Lisa agrees to accompany Mike back to his California home, but Suzy gets hysterical, refusing to believe any suggestion that her mother can have come back into her life. Can the family be pieced back together, or is it best for everyone that they leave the past behind?

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"Mary Queen of Scots" explores the turbulent life of the charismatic Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan). Queen of France at 16, widowed at 18, Mary defies pressure to remarry and instead returns to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne.

By birth, she also has a rival claim to the throne of Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie), who rules as the Queen of England. Determined to rule as much more than a figurehead, Mary asserts her claim to the English throne, threatening Elizabeth's sovereignty. Rivals in power and in love, the two Queens make very different choices about marriage and children. Betrayal, rebellion and conspiracies within each court imperil both Queens - driving them apart, as each woman experiences the bitter cost of power.

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Adapted from Mary Jane Ward's autobiographical novel, Anatole Litvak's 'The Snake Pit' is a vital precursor to Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor in its concern with issues relating to mental illness.

An Oscar nominated Olivia de Havilland stars as Virginia, an outwardly normal woman whose marriage to a caring husband (Mark Stevens) unravels when her behaviour becomes erratic. On professional advice Virginia is committed to an overcrowded state hospital where she encounters the bullying antics of the resentful matrons and the threat of the fearsome snake pit, an open room where the most deranged cases are held.

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Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), a barber in a small northern California town. Ed is dissatisfied with his life, but his wife Doris' (Frances McDormand) infidelity presents Ed with an opportunity for blackmail that he thinks will help him to change it.

However, Ed's scheme unravels and lays bare even darker secrets before leading to murder.

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Errol Flynn shot to stardom as Peter Blood, a 17th-century physician turned pirate after escaping unjust political imprisonment. It was a role the handsome, sea-loving Tasmanian was born to play, and he shaped it into Hollywood's archetypal image of the adventurous hero.

That he also became a romantic idol and a vision of gallantry in love is due in large part to his ideally cast co-star: radiant Olivia de Havilland in the first of their eight films together.

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Bette Davis and Errol Flynn made The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex fascinatingly public, striking sparks with this lavish Technicolor tale of the ill-fated love between the aging Elizabeth I and the dashing Earl of Essex.

Thoroughly unglamorous here - eyes and hairline shaved, face painted chalky white – Bette Davis exudes such intelligence, energy and ardor that her romance with the decades - younger Essex is completely believable.

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Written by a discharged journalist as a publicity stunt, and as a parting shot at the paper's new editor, the premise of the letter unexpectedly fires the imagination of the Bulletin's readers and the wider American public.

Its real author, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) who has fabricated the letter in her final column, is rehired, and now needs to find someone to play the part of the fictional "John Doe." Gary Cooper is perfectly cast as Long John Willoughby, an injured and penniless former baseball pitcher lured into impersonating "John Doe" with the promise of medical treatment. In what would have undoubtedly been an Oscar winning performance, were it not for his own success that same year in Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York," Cooper excels himself here as Willoughby's initial indifference to his undertaking turns to genuine concern at his role. But, as he becomes an increasingly culpable pawn in an ever more treacherous game, just how can "John Doe" redeem himself?

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Betty Grable and June Haver pour on the singing, dancing and show-biz razzmatazz in this jaunty tale of sisters who become vaudeville sensations in Europe and America.

Grable, then in the fourth year of her decade-long reign as a Top 10 box office star, grabs the spotlight as Jenny, a gifted performer torn by career demands and by her on-again, off-again romance with a Tin Pan Alley tunesmith (John Payne). Laced throughout are songs (including Oscar Nominated "I Can't Begin to Tell You") and splashy production numbers that let the GI's favourite pinup girl show off her talents and the gams that Fox, in a noted publicity stunt, had insured for a million dollars.

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Suffering from headaches and inexplicable blackouts, timid housewife Eve White (Joanne Woodward) begins seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Luther (Lee J. Cobb).

He's stunned when she transforms before his eyes into the lascivious Eve Black (Joanne Woodward), and diagnoses her as having multiple personalities. It's not long before a third, calling herself Jane (Joanne Woodward), also appears. Through hypnosis and continued therapy, Luther struggles to help Eve recall the trauma that caused her identity to fracture.

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The acclaimed sequel to the original 'Frankenstein', one of the most popular horror classics in film history, has now been restored in stunning high definition. The legendary Boris Karloff reprises his role as the screen's most misunderstood monster, now longing for a mate of his own.

The last horror film directed by James Whale features a haunting musical score that helps make 'The Bride of Frankenstein' one of the finest and most touching thrillers of its era.

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Washed-up producer Barry 'Dutch' Detweiler (William Holden) attempts to lure the iconic but reclusive actress Fedora (Marthe Keller) out of retirement in a bid to revive both their careers.

But her privacy is hard won, and with good reason, and opening up the secrets surrounding her could spell disaster.

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Deep in the English countryside, the tranquil village of Lipsbury Lea seems a long way from the war raging beyond. So it's the perfect spot for Battle of Britain fighter ace (and keen bird watcher) Jimmy Bancroft (Niall MacGinnis) to recover from his war-wounds. Jimmy's not the new arrival, however.

For only the second time ever, a pair of Tawny Pipits have arrived in Britain to nest. Led by the redoubtable Colonel Barton-Barrington (Bernard Miles), the good folk of Lipsbury Lea rally around to show these birds some traditional British hospitality, protecting their little guests from the might of the army, the stupidity of bureaucracy and the machinations of some very determined egg hunters...

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Cannons thunder, blades clatter and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's incomparable music swirls and flourishes in The Sea Hawk. In one of his best roles, Errol Flynn plays Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe, who commandeers a 40-gun galleon, endures captivity, then boldly escapes to warn England of Spain's armada.

Working on his 10th of 12 movies with Flynn, Michael Curtiz masterfully directs the film's blend of royal intrigue and derring-do heroics - made on a then lavish $1.7 million-scale that included construction of two full-sized ships.

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The film is Fritz Lang's seventh Hollywood feature, made in 1953 on a miniscule budget and shot in just twenty days by one of the best 'noir' cameramen Nicholas Musurca and is considered one of his best murder mystery films.

Norah (Anne Baxter) is a pretty telephone operator engaged to a soldier posted overseas. When she receives a letter from him ending their engagement, feeling despondent, she falls for the charms of Officer Lothario and agrees to a date. They go to the Blue Gardenia Club, where he gets her drunk and then takes her back to his apartment. She is later forced to fight off his lecherous advances by bludgeoning him to death and flees, leaving behind her handkerchief, high heels and a blue gardenia at the scene. She awakes the next morning remembering nothing while a nationwide murder hunt gets underway, but journalist Casey Mayo (Richard Conte) offers his support and suggests an interview in exchange for a fair trial.

When Prince John (Claude Rains) and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army.