greatest-ever-made's - Rented List

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Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche), an aged former playboy, has died and gone to hell. But the ruler of the realm of darkness, His Excellency, isn't convinced Van Cleve's come to the right place.

Henry proceeds to recount his life story, from his first real stirrings of passion with a French governess, to the wooing and winning of his beautiful wife, Martha (Gene Tierney). Yet, though deeply in love, he found it impossible to remain completely faithful, and is convinced his punishment will be an eternity of damnation. As his story unfolds, and a lifetime of love fills the screen, it's up to His Excellency to pass final judgement on Henry. Set in a beautifully rendered turn-of-the-century world of high society, the timeless theme of love vs. lust is handled with wit, taste and sophistication.

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Overworked true crime magazine editor George Stroud (Ray Milland) has been planning a vacation for months.

However, when his boss, the tyrannical media tycoon Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton), insists he skips his hols, Stroud resigns in disgust before embarking on an impromptu drunken night out with his boss's mistress, Pauline York (Rita Johnson). When Janoth kills Pauline in a fit of rage, Stroud finds himself to have been the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time: his staff have been tasked with finding a suspect with an all too familiar description...Stroud's very own!

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Deborah Kerr (in the performance of her career) plays the emotionally repressed vicar's daughter who takes up a job as a governess to two seemingly angelic orphans.

Gradually coming to believe that the children are possessed by the perverse spirits of their former governess and her sadistic lover, she begins to see manifestations of the ghosts prowling the huge gothic mansion of Bly House. Director Jack Clayton sustains a superbly haunting atmosphere throughout the film, and like James' original work, cleverly retains the ambiguity of wether the ghosts are real or the products of the governess's fevered imagination. Aided by Freddie Francis's exquisitely inventive and atmospheric CinemaScope photography, we, like the governess, are never quite sure what unspoken horrors are lurking beyond the edge of the frame and are kept guessing until the film's tragic conclusion.

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This rare Hitchcock costume drama unfolds in 1831 Sydney, Australia and concerns Irish noblewoman Lady Henrietta Flusky and her working-class husband Sam whom are escaping a secret and tragic past.

Cotton has become a man of wealth but is not accepted socially and Lady Henrietta is a raging alcoholic and verging on madness, enter Hon. Charles Adare whom she had known in Ireland an a passionate love triangle ensues as their tragic past is revealed. Under Capricorn had a troubled production due to Bergman's infamous love affair with the Italian director Robert Rossellini which resulted in her exile from Hollywood, but nevertheless it is an underrated masterpiece that is surely on of the best 'costume' films of the 1940's.

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This triumphant BAFTA and Academy Award winning production of Shakespeare's "Henry V" is a classic story of conflict, courage, honour and heroism.

Kenneth Branagh is electrifying as Henry V, a king whose inspired leadership and full-blooded courage rouses his bewildered and bedraggled men to arms against a French army five times greater than their own. Henry V is an epic explosion of bloody battles and powerful performances from the cream of British acting talent, including Brian Blessed, Judi Dench, Ian Holm, Derek Jacobi, Paul Scofield and Emma Thompson.

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Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons star in this compelling thriller set in the fog-shrouded streets of Victorian London. As he buries his wife in a rain-soaked London churchyard, Stephen Lowry thinks he has committed the perfect murder. He's wrong.

His quick-witted young maid Lily knows that he secretly poisoned his wife - and she has the proof. Now, as the price of her silence, she wants her mistresses' jewels, her mistresses' fine dresses and - most of all - her master himself. Can Stephen give Lily the love she craves? Can she trust a man who has already murdered once? As Stephen begins to court another woman, the thick London fog suddenly echoes to the cries of 'murder!' Featuring real life husband and wife Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons at the height of their international stardom, 'Footsteps in the Fog' is a first rate murder thriller with shocking twists that will keep you guessing until the very last moments.

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Luis Bunuel's visceral depiction of life in Mexico's slums stunned audiences at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951, winning Best Director and relaunching the filmmaker's career after a twenty-year hiatus.

The film tells the story of an unloved teenage boy, Pedro (Alfonso Mejía), who fights to turn his life around against the circumstances of extreme poverty and the sinister influence of an older boy, El Jaibo (Roberto Cobo).

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Set in the glamour of 1950's post-war London, renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) are at the centre of British fashion, dressing royalty, movie stars, heiresses, socialites, debutants and dames with the distinct style of The House of

Woodcock. Women come and go through Woodcock's life until he comes across a young, strong-willed woman, Alma (Vicky Krieps), who soon becomes a fixture in his life as his muse and lover. Once controlled and planned, he finds his carefully tailored life disrupted by the scariest curse of all...love. And so begins a Gothic Romance of twists, turns and power struggles of "pure, delicious pleasure" that is "devilishly funny and luxuriantly sensuous".

When Lt. Duke Halliday (Robert Mitchum) is framed for robbery, he sets out to find the real thief, Fiske (Patric Knowles), in Mexico. On the run from the cops led by Capt. Blake (William Bendix), he meets Joan (Jane Greer), and the two work together to capture Fiske and evade Blake.

Harold Diddlebock is a bank cashier with 22 years of service behind him and only thinks ahead to a time when he can marry the cashier further down the aisle. When he gets fired his dream appears to be over, but a winning streak at betting finds him the new owner of a circus. Then the fun really begins!

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Penniless husband, Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) looks like he is losing his scatterbrained wife, Gerry (Claudette Colbert) to multi-millionaire John D. Hackensacker (Rudy Vallee) when she walks out on him and heads for fun and sun in Palm Beach, Florida.

They become involved with any number of outrageous characters, played by many of the Sturges regulars in hilarious cameos. The witty, sparkling dialogue, poking merciless fun at, amongst other targets, money and sex, is unforgettable.

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Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon) is one lucky guy! When he's accidentally clobbered by a 220-pound halfback, all Harry suffers is a slight concussion.

All, that is, until Whiplash Willie (Walter Matthau) — a legal scoundrel of the first order — arrives on the scene! For if Harry follows shyster Willie's advice and feigns a crippling injury, the two charlatans can split a cool million in phoney insurance claims. But can Willie's world-class finagling dispel those ominous words that lie within the fortune cookie on Harry's hospital plate: You can't fool all of the people all of the time?

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A middle-aged lawyer, Frederik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand), his inexperienced young wife, Anne (Ulla Jacobsson), and her step-son, Henrik (Björn Bjelfvenstam), are invited to spend the weekend at the country mansion of a beautiful actress, Frederik's ex-mistress, Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck).

Amongst the guests are Desiree's current lover Count Malcolm (Jarl Kulle) and his wife Charlotte (Margit Carlqvist). During the course of the weekend these three couples meet, separate and exchange partners, providing some lively comedic action and illustrating. Bergman's sardonic attitude towards the vagaries of love. Behind the scintillating and witty approach to this charming period comedy of manners lie and illusions and pretensions of the haute bourgeois, which Bergman cleverly illustrates with his collection of fickle husbands and scheming women.

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Platinum Blonde is a glorious spoof of the newspaper business in New York City during the Depression; Ann Schuyler (Harlow), a wealthy socialite, meets reporter "Stew" Smith (Robert Williams) and the two fall madly in love.

The comedy begins as she tries to transform him from a ruffian newsman into a convincing gentleman. "Stew," who is quick with wisecracks, is slow to realise the dangers of being a kept man. At first, he likes the idle life of the rich, but there's trouble in paradise. Soon is "Cinderella Man" turns the social register upside down with his mocking repartee. To his rescue is Gallagher (Loretta Young), a sympathetic friend and co-worker at the newspaper. She comforts and consoles Stew and, in classic Capra style, helps him right into Harlow's own arms

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In early 18th-century England, a frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne, and her closest friend, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz), governs the country while tending to Anne's ill health and volatile temper.

When new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, Sarah takes Abigail under her wing as she cunningly schemes to return to her aristocratic roots, setting off an outrageous rivalry to become the Queen's favourite.