This film is currently unavailable

This film is certified

moderate violence, racist language

I confirm I am over 12

Video Player is loading.

Current Time 0:00

Duration 0:00

Loaded: 0%

Stream Type LIVE

Remaining Time 0:00

Title of error

See Help

Within Our Gates

Oscar Micheaux’s startling silent classic – the earliest surviving feature from an African-American director – presents a fascinating black counterpoint to Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.

Drama 1919 74 mins Silent

Director: Oscar Micheaux

Rent for £3.50

Overview

Black filmmaking pioneer Oscar Micheaux wrote, produced and directed this landmark example of African-American cinema. It stars Evelyn Preer (then known as the black community’s ‘First Lady of the Screen’) as a woman trying to set up a school for poor black children in the Deep South, but whose romance with a doctor provokes startling revelations.

With its shocking depictions of racial violence, including a black lynching, the film was deeply controversial at the time, but can now be seen as a vital repudiation of the deplorable contemporaneous depictions in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915). Within Our Gates is a key work in the movement of ‘race films’, an early wave of black American cinema (with Micheaux at its forefront) that was independently distributed during the era of segregation. The earliest surviving work by an African-American director, Within Our Gates is not just a work of significant historical importance, but a compelling and searingly authentic drama in its own right. This silent film is presented here with a new score by Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky.

Director

Oscar Micheaux

Genres

Drama

Certificate

moderate violence, racist language

Country

USA

Language

English

Rent for £16.00

The Penguin Lessons The Penguin Lessons

Drama 2025 112 mins Director: Peter Cattaneo

Steve Coogan is superb as a disillusioned teacher whose life is turned upside-down when he rescues a penguin in turbulent 1970s Argentina.

Rent for £4.50

Cloud Cloud

Drama 2024 124 mins Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

An online scam leads to deadly consequences in Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s chilling tech thriller.

Rent for £4.50

La Cocina La Cocina

Drama 2024 139 mins Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios

Tensions rise in a frenzied New York diner, in this loose reworking of Arnold Wesker’s 1957 play.

Rent for £10.00

Misericordia Misericordia

Drama 2024 104 mins Director: Alain Guiraudie

French provocateur Alain Guiraudie's rural homecoming story mixing passion, crime, mushrooms and bedroom farce to dizzily involving effect.

Rent for £4.50

The Last Showgirl The Last Showgirl

Drama 2024 89 mins Director: Gia Coppola

Golden Globe-nominated Pamela Anderson is enchanting as the Las Vegas showgirl whose stage show is set to close.

Rent for £4.50

Driving Mum Driving Mum

Comedy 2022 113 mins Director: Hilmar Oddsson

Jon drives his mums corpse across Iceland in Hilmar Oddsson’s darkly comic odyssey of self-discovery and acceptance, beautifully filmed in crisp black and white.

Currently unavailable

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

Crime 1926 91 mins Silent Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Ivor Novello plays a strange lodger who may be behind a number of Jack the Ripper-style killings in Alfred Hitchcock’s silent thriller.

Rent for £3.50

Dead Ringers Dead Ringers

Horror 1988 116 mins Director: David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg's award-winning thriller exploring the bizarre lives of identical twins Elliot and Beverly, both played by Jeremy Irons.

Currently unavailable

Godzilla Godzilla

Horror 1954 92 mins Director: Ishiro Honda

The original Godzilla - arguably the definitive monster movie - both a bold metaphor for the atomic age and a thrilling powerhouse of pioneering special effects.