ncobb-watched's - Rented List
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The Leopard (1963)Il Gattopardo
Against a dramatic nineteenth-century backdrop of radical Italian Nationalism Luchino Visconti's masterful epic, 'The Leopard', follows the Sicilian Prince of Salina (Burt Lancaster) and his family as they adjust to the social turbulence of revolutionary times. Adapted from Tomasi di Lampedusa's esteemed novel of the same name, this is a tragicomic depiction of a class eclipsed by history. .. - Director:
- Luchino Visconti
- Cast:
- Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale
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Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård and Emily Watson star in 'Chernobyl', the critically acclaimed five-part mini-series. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukrainian SSSR suffered a massive explosion that released radioactive material across Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and as far as Scandinavia and Western Europe. Dramatising the true story of the 1986 nuclear accident, one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history, Chernobyl shines a light on the brave men and women who fought an unprecedented war against an invisible enemy, and who suffered and sacrificed, saving millions of lives, often at the cost of their own. - Director:
- Johan Renck
- Cast:
- Jessie Buckley, Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård
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Francis, God's Jester (1950)Francesco Giullare di Dio
Roberto Rossellini and co-writer Federico Fellini lovingly render the very spirit of Franciscan teaching in this extraordinary fresh and simple film - largely unappreciated at the time of its release, but now regarded as one of his greatest. Shot in a neorealist manner with non-professional actors (including thirteen actual Franciscan monks) it avoids the pious cliches of haloed movie saints with an economy of expression and a touching, human quality. - Director:
- Roberto Rossellini
- Cast:
- Aldo Fabrizi, Gianfranco Bellini, Peparuolo
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1892, New Mexico - legendary Army captain Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale) undertakes one final mission before retirement: escort Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) - a dying Cheyenne war chief - and his family back to sacred tribal lands. After 20 years of violent struggle, this gesture of peace is as unthinkable as it is harrowing. Together they battle against a punishing landscape and the brutality of men alike, coming to the rescue of a young widow (Rosamund Pike) amidst the carnage of her murdered family. Two great warriors, once rivals across the battlefield, must learn to trust each other and find peace in an unforgiving land. A heroic odyssey of survival, 'Hostiles' becomes a story not about the miles travelled nor the battles fought, but the journey towards respect, reconciliation and forgiveness. - Director:
- Scott Cooper
- Cast:
- Scott Shepherd, Rosamund Pike, Ava Cooper
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Salò o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma (1975)Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
Pasolini's final and most controversial film has been banned censored and reviled the world over since it's first release. The film is based on the Marquis de Sade's novel '120 Days of Sodom', with the setting transposed to Mussolini's miniature Fascist Republic of Salo, Italy in 1944. The film's content and imagery is extreme, and it retains the power to shock, repel and distress a quarter of a century on. 'Salo' remains a cinematic milestone - culturally significant, politically vital and visually stunning. - Director:
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Cast:
- Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle
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Fellini's Casanova (1976)Il Casanova di Federico Fellini
In an astonishing piece of screen acting, Donald Sutherland portrays Casanova in his waning days, engaging in various amorous and political adventures with an air of bored detachment as he travels through a disease-ridden Europe. Imbued with a romantic pessimism, the film debunks the myth of Casanova as a great lover and instead presents him as an ordinary man swept along by extraordinary circumstances. - Director:
- Federico Fellini
- Cast:
- Donald Sutherland, Tina Aumont, Cicely Browne
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The Phoenician Scheme (2025)El esquema fenicio
Anatole "Zsa-zsa" Korda (Benicio del Toro) - ruthless, unscrupulous, one of the richest men in Europe - fights for his life in Wes Anderson's: 'The Phoenician Scheme'. During the final stages of a vast, decades-long, career-defining business project, Korda survives a sixth assassination attempt and must appoint a successor: his long-estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) - a nun. With personal tutor Bjorn (Michael Cera) in tow, the trio set off on a globetrotting adventure to achieve Korda's epic mission. - Director:
- Wes Anderson
- Cast:
- Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera
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Rififi (1955)Du rififi chez les hommes
Jean Servais is Tony le Stephanois, a master thief with a battered face and a tubercular cough, souvenirs of a recent stint in the pen. The ageing Tony is reluctant to return to a life of crime, but when he realizes his girlfriend has thrown him over for a rival gangster, he agrees to attempt one last job. Together with three collaborators – a young father, a boisterous Franco-Italian and a sentimental Milanese safecracker – Tony meticulously engineers his biggest heist yet: robbing the most heavily guarded jewelry store in Paris. - Director:
- Jules Dassin
- Cast:
- Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel
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The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)Le chagrin et la pitié
Marcel Ophuls' four-and-a-half hour portrait of the French town of Clermont-Ferrand under German occupation from 1940-44 is one of the greatest documentaries ever made, as important as Claude Lanzmann's 'Shoah' in its value not just as a film but as an essential historical record in its own right - not least since its interviewees are all long dead. Describing the fall of France and the rise of the Resistance, with the aid of newly-shot interviews and eye-opening archive footage including newsreels and propaganda films, Ophuls painstakingly crafts a complex, nuanced picture of what really happened in France over this period. He also demolishes numerous self-serving national myths to such an extent that, although he made the film for French television, they wouldn't show it for over a decade. But, as he demonstrates again and again, the overwhelming majority of French citizens during this period weren't heroes, villains or cowards, but simply ordinary people trying to make the best of an impossible situation. And it's Ophuls' portrayal of these people, their hopes, their fears and their appalling moral quandaries, that remains unmatched in film history. - Director:
- Marcel Ophüls
- Cast:
- Georges Bidault, Matthäus Bleibinger, Charles Braun
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Like Water for Chocolate (1992)Como Agua Para Chocolate
In a Mexican border town in 1910, neighbours Pedro and Tita wish to marry, but Tita's mother Elena refuses to give her consent, since she wants her youngest daughter to stay living with her as a full-time carer. So Pedro marries Tita's sister Rosario instead - and Tita pours her innermost feelings into her cooking, triggering similar responses in anyone who samples it, whether lovelorn grief or overwhelming passion. But Tita's concoctions are just one of many magical-realist touches in this sensuous and intoxicating film, which offsets the real-life historical background of the Mexican Revolution with tales of ghosts, mysterious lights and an ancient legend that claims that human beings are essentially matches, combustible at any moment when given the right trigger. - Director:
- Alfonso Arau
- Cast:
- Marco Leonardi, Lumi Cavazos, Regina Torné
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The Eel (1997)Unaqi
With 'The Eel', the late Shohei Imamura became the only Japanese filmmaker to have twice won the Cannes Film Festival's coveted Palme d'Or. After an eight-year prison sentence for murder, Tajuro (Kôji Yakusho) chooses to start a new life as a barber in a small town, which offers perfect isolation from his fears. As a favour to the town priest he agrees to help a young woman with a troubled past by offering her job as his assistant. However, when he least expects it, her past will collide with his. - Director:
- Shôhei Imamura
- Cast:
- Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baishô, Kôji Yakusho
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Life is a Miracle (2004)Zivot je cudo
An irresistible blend of bawdy humor and love story, set against the turbulent backdrop of the Bosnian war of the early 90s. When the conflict breaks out, the life of mild mannered Serbian railwayman Luka is turned upside down as his neurotic opera-singing wife runs off with a musician and his son Milos is called up to fight and subsequently captured. A plan is hatched to exchange Milos for a hostage - a pretty young Muslim nurse, whom Luka is assigned to guard - but in the midst of the chaos around him, Luka can't help himself from falling in love with his captive. - Director:
- Emir Kusturica
- Cast:
- Slavko Stimac, Natasa Tapuskovic, Vesna Trivalic
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Life Is Beautiful (1997)La Vita e Bella
Guido - a charming but bumbling waiter who's gifted with a colourful imagination and an irresistible sense of humour - has won the heart of the woman he loves and created a beautiful life for his young family. But then that life is threatened by World War II... and Guido must rely on those very same strengths to save his beloved wife and son from an unthinkable fate! - Director:
- Roberto Benigni
- Cast:
- Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini
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"Conclave" follows one of the world's most secretive and ancient events-selecting a new pope. The Church's most powerful leaders have gathered from around the world, locked together in the Vatican halls. Tasked with running this covert process, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy and discovers a secret that could shake the very foundation of The Church. Also starring Stanley Tuccl, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini and directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front). - Director:
- Edward Berger
- Cast:
- Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow
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Evil Does Not Exist (2023)Aku wa sonzai shinai
Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) and his daughter Hana (Ryô Nishikawa) live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi's house; offering city residents a comfortable 'escape' to nature. When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency's mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the nature plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi's life deeply. - Director:
- Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
- Cast:
- Hitoshi Omika, Ryô Nishikawa, Ryûji Kosaka
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