mervyn-verstellung's - Favourites List

Show moreShow less

At the end of the First World War, beloved children's author A. A. Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) creates the magical world of Winnie-the-Pooh - which brings him immediate acclaim.

But the books' international success comes at a cost to the author, his young son Christopher Robin (Will Tilston) and his wife Daphne (Margot Robbie), in this beautifully filmed, poignant story about fame and family that also stars Kelly Macdonald.

Show moreShow less

Frances Austen (Sandy Dennis), a young, wealthy spinster, invites a mute teenager into her apartment after finding him freezing in the park next to where she lives.

Despite her best efforts, their lack of communication only increases her sense of loneliness, as her possessiveness spirals into frightening new realms.

Show moreShow less

Drawn from his own family memories, 'Distant Voices, Still Lives' is a strikingly intimate portrait of working class life in 1940's and 1950's Liverpool.

Focusing on the real-life experiences of his mother, sisters and brother whose lives are thwarted by their brutal, sadistic father (a chilling performance by Pete Postlethwaite), the film shows us beauty and terror in equal measure. Davies uses the traditional family gatherings of births, marriages and deaths to paint a lyrical portrait of family life - of love, grief, and the highs and lows of being human, a 'poetry of the everyday' that is at once deeply autobiographical and universally resonant.

Show moreShow less

Terence Davis' lyrical hymn to childhood revisits the same territory at his prize winning debut feature distant voices, still lives, this time focusing on his own memories of growing up in a working-class, catholic family in Liverpool.

Eleven-year-old bud (a heartbreaking performance from Leigh McCormack) finds escape from the greyness of 50's Britain through trips to the cinema and in the warmth of family life. But as he gets older, the agonies of the adult world-the casual cruelty of bullying, the tyranny of school and the dread of religion-begin to invade his life.

Show moreShow less

Terence Davies’s ode to his native Liverpool has wowed audiences and critics alike after being hailed as the highlight of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where it received its premiere. This is a spectacular return to form by Davies, long-hailed as one of Britain’s greatest filmmakers.

Of Time and the City is an illuminating and heartfelt work, powerfully evoking life in post-war Britain while exploring the nature of love, memory, and the toll that the passing years take on the cities and communities that we cherish. No simple documentary, it is an entrancing piece of autobiographical cinema that reaches far beyond the city in which it is set, weaving a rich tapestry from archive and contemporary footage, music, voice, literary quotation, personal reminiscence and wickedly funny observation.

Show moreShow less

From Robert Eggers, the visionary filmmaker behind the modern horror masterpiece 'The Witch', comes this hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890's.

As an approaching storm threatens to sweep them from the rock and strange apparitions emerge from the fog, each man begins to suspect that the other has become dangerously unmoored.

Show moreShow less

Failed comedian Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) encounters violent thugs while wandering the streets of Gotham City dressed as a clown.

Disregarded by society Fleck begins a slow descent into madness as he transforms into the criminal mastermind known as Joker in director Todd Phillips' thrilling origin story.

Show moreShow less

"An Angel at My Table" is the internationally acclaimed second film by Oscar-winning director Jane Campion. It is an extraordinarily moving celebration of the life of Janet Frame, New Zealand's most distinguished author, based on her autobiographical trilogy.

The film follows Janet through her poor childhood in the depression and her growing fascination with literature; her painfully shy student days and subsequent treatment for misdiagnosed schizophrenia; and finally on her travels to Europe where she samples Bohemian life and achieves international success as a writer.

Show moreShow less

Ada (Holly Hunter) - mute since birth - her nine year old daughter and her piano arrive to an arranged marriage in the remote bush of nineteenth century New Zealand. Of all her belongings her husband refuses to transport the piano and it is left behind on the beach.

Unable to bear its certain destruction, Ada strikes a bargain with an illiterate tattooed neighbour (Harvey Keitel). She may earn her piano back if she allows him to do certain things while she plays; one black key for every lesson.

Show moreShow less

Beautiful Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor) is committed to a mental institution after witnessing the strange and horrible death of her cousin. Catherine's aunt, Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) tries to influence Dr.

Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift), a young neurosurgeon, to surgically end Catherine's haunting hallucinations. By utilising injections of Sodium Pentothal, Dr. Cukrowicz discovers that Catherine's delusions are in fact true. He then must confront Violet about her own involvement in her son's lurid death...

Show moreShow less

Fabienne (Catherine Deneuve), an ageing movie star, is about to publish her long-awaited memoirs. Sparks immediately fly when her daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche) returns to Paris from New York to confront this rose-tinted version of their family history.

However, as the past is gradually addressed, their strained relationship takes a journey toward possible reconciliation. Also starring Ethan Hawke, 'The Truth' paints a moving portrait of family dynamics and human relationships.

Show moreShow less

Kim Ki Taek's (Song Kang Ho) family are all unemployed and living in a squalid basement. When his son, Ki Woo, gets a tutoring job at the lavish home of the Park family, the Kim family's luck changes.

One by one they gradually infiltrate the wealthy Park's home, attempting to take over their affluent lifestyle, but as their deception unravels events begin to get increasingly out of hand in ways you simply cannot imagine.

Show moreShow less

Based on one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, 'The Crucible' takes place in Massachusetts in 1692. In the small Puritan town, where one's life is dedicated to the service of God, several teenage girls are discovered in the woods and are accused of engaging in 'The Devil's' work.

As time goes by the village becomes consumed by cries of witchcraft. One by one, the blameless victims of this mass hysteria are torn from their homes and families.

Director Bill Forsyth (That Sinking Feeling, Gregory's Girl, Local Hero, Comfort and Joy) made his American film debut with this moving and offbeat adaptation of Marilynne Robinson's acclaimed novel, about two young girls who are sent to live with their eccentric aunt (Christine Lahti) after the suicide of their mother.

Show moreShow less

In Ronald Neame's film of Joyce Cary's classic novel, Alec Guinness transforms himself into one of cinema's most indelible comic figures: the somewhat vulgar but dedicated painter in search of his artistic vision, Gulley Jimson.

As the ill-behaved Jimson searches for a perfect canvas, he determines to let nothing come between himself and the realization of his exalted ideal. Jimson is a man, who's given up all else, including health, wealth and conventional relationships to live in a leaky houseboat. As the story develops it, like all great literature, manages to puncture almost all of life's rationalizing balloons.