Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
La Belle et la Bête
Jean Cocteau’s ravishingly restored 1946 film is a cinematic classic. “Five stars. [This] magical exploration of the fairytale is a compelling and bizarre masterpiece” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Fantasy 1946 95 mins
Director: Jean Cocteau
Overview
With its enchanted castle, home to fantastic living statuary, and director Jean Cocteau’s lover Jean Marais starring as a Beast who is at once brutal and gentle, rapacious and vulnerable, shamed and repelled by his own bloodlust, this remains a high point of the cinematic Gothic imagination. As Marina Warner has written, ‘The film unfolds to a perfectly poised slow tempo in surreal settings that gain intensity from the fabulous décor and costumes, the glittering lighting and the many moments of magic effects. The candle-lit shadow-play deepens the Gothic atmosphere of the beast’s castle, harking back to early expressionist classics of the genre.’
Contains mild language and scary scenesRelated
Fantasy
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Fantasy 1988 67 mins Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Shinya Tsukamoto's wild cyberpunk tale of a businessman's agonising transformation into a walking scrap heap is a jaggedly dehumanised vision of the future.
The Tenth Victim
Fantasy 1965 89 mins Director: Elio Petri
Long before The Hunger Games, Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress battled it out in a televised assassination game, in Elio Petri’s cult sci-fi.
The Saragossa Manuscript
Fantasy 1965 183 mins Director: Wojciech Jerzy Has
During the Napoleonic wars, a soldier discovers a strange manuscript that reveals endless stories-within-stories. Wojciech Has' opus is a major cult film of the 60s, revered by Luis Buñuel, David Lynch and Jerry Garcia.
Wings of Desire
Fantasy 1987 128 mins Director: Wim Wenders
In director Wim Wenders' (Paris, Texas) most metaphysical work, a guardian angel desires nothing more than to be human. Presented in a stunning new restoration.
The Seventh Seal
Fantasy 1957 96 mins Director: Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.
Blancanieves
Drama 2011 105 mins Director: Pablo Berger
Pablo Berger’s imaginative black-and-white ‘silent’ movie relocates the story of Snow White to 1920s Spain – complete with bullfighting dwarfs
Fantastique
Successive Slidings of Pleasure
Drama 1974 106 mins Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s serpentine erotic mystery presented as a surreal investigation into a woman with feared sexual powers.
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Drama 1974 194 mins Director: Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette’s biggest commercial hit is an exhilarating combination of theatricality, paranoia and ‘la vie parisienne’, around an entrancing examination of making and watching films.
The Living Dead Girl
Horror 1983 90 mins Director: Jean Rollin
When toxic waste spill disturbs her grave, a deceased girl comes alive to walk the earth again in Jean Rollin's macabre tale of zombie carnage.
The Grapes of Death
Horror 1978 91 mins Director: Jean Rollin
A woman visiting Roublès deep in France’s winemaking country discovers that the pesticide being sprayed on vineyards is turning people into killer zombies.
Shiver of the Vampires
Horror 1970 95 mins Director: Jean Rollin
Newlyweds visit their cousins at a remote rural chateau, finding them under the spell of two vampire girls.
The Nude Vampire
Horror 1969 85 mins Director: Jean Rollin
Jean Rollin’s second vampire film is a mesmerisingly surreal art-horror, short on logic but steeped in gorgeously sensual imagery.
New
From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses
Documentary 2014 114 mins Director: Rüdiger Suchsland
Rüdger Suchsland’s 2014 documentary on the social and cultural impact of German cinema during the Weimar Republic.
Varieté
Drama 1925 94 mins Silent Director: E.A. Dupont
This under-appreciated classic of German silent cinema stars Emil Jannings as Boss, a middle-aged circus acrobat whose life is derailed by a seductive stranger (Lya de Putti).
Westfront 1918
War 1930 96 mins Director: G.W. Pabst
Four infantrymen on the Western Front suffer the everyday hardships and insanity of trench warfare, in G.W. Pabst's anti-war classic.
The Proposition
Western 2006 104 mins Director: John Hillcoat
John Hillcoat and Nick Cave's brilliant, brutal bushranger western, with Guy Pearce as the outlaw tasked with tracking down his psychopathic elder brother (Danny Huston).
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Horror 1919 77 mins Silent Director: Robert Wiene
One of the most iconic masterpieces in cinema history, Robert Wiene’s expressionist nightmare shook filmgoers worldwide and changed the direction of the art form.
Kameradschaft
Industry sponsored film 1931 90 mins Director: G.W. Pabst
A team of German miners risk their lives to rescue a team of French miners left trapped after an underground explosion, in this innovative disaster film from G. W. Pabst (Pandora's Box).