Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
Ordet.
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s beautifully photographed tale explores the religious intolerance and familial tensions within a Danish farming family.
Drama 1955 125 mins
Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
Overview
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s beautifully photographed tale explores the religious intolerance and familial tensions within a Danish farming family. Based on a 1932 play by Danish playwright and Lutheran country priest Kaj Munk (1898-1944), Ordet is a tale of miraculous resurrection brought about by human love.
It is an extraordinary expression of spiritual optimism, that is neither sentimental nor pious, exploring the clash between orthodox religions and true faith. Dreyer achieves its powerful effects in deceptively simple ways, and has produced, in its closing moments, one of the most extraordinary scenes in all cinema.
Contains references to childbirthRelated
Drama
Mammuth
Comedy 2010 91 mins Director: Benoît Delépine
Legendary actor Gérard Depardieu is at his most uninhibited as an abattoir worker who hits the road with wild abandon.
Intimate Lighting
Drama 1965 71 mins Director: Ivan Passer
This wonderfully subtle comedy of provincial life is the debut film of the great director Ivan Passer (Cutter's Way) and one of the signature works of the Czech New Wave.
Sawako Decides
Comedy 2010 112 mins Director: Yuya Ishii
Sawako tries to save her father's ailing clam-packing business, but it's an uphill struggle, in Yuya Ishii's joyous, nuanced, comic drama.
Daisies
Comedy 1966 73 mins Director: Vera Chytilová
Two self-confessed hedonists wreak wanton havoc in Věra Chytilová's visually spectacular neo-dadaist farce.
Second Coming
Drama 2014 105 mins Director: Debbie Tucker Green
What if an immaculate conception took place in a South London household? Idris Elba stars in a subtle, thought-provoking and original family drama.
Goldstone
Thriller 2016 110 mins Director: Ivan Sen
Ivan Sen follows his acclaimed Australian thriller Mystery Road with another distinctive, 'outback noir', with troubled indigenous detective Joe Swan (Aaron Pedersen) again on the trail of murder and corruption.
Kermode introduces
Betty Blue
Drama 1986 185 mins Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix
Jean-Jacques Beineix’s story of a volatile, highly sexual relationship was one of the most successful French films of the 1980s.
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Period drama 1925 91 mins Silent Director: Rupert Julian
'Man of a thousand faces' Lon Chaney stars in the first version of Gaston Leroux's oft-filmed novel.
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Drama 1974 194 mins Director: Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette's exhilarating combination of theatricality, paranoia and 'la vie Parisienne' follows two young women as they enter a mysterious realm upon eating a magic sweet.
The Ipcress File
Crime 1965 108 mins Director: Sidney J. Furie
The coolest spy of all – Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer – makes his brilliant big screen debut in this landmark British spy thriller.
A Matter of Life and Death
Fantasy 1946 104 mins Director: Michael Powell
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s timeless romantic fantasy, with David Niven as an airman trapped between life and death.
Hadewijch
Drama 2009 102 mins Director: Bruno Dumont
A Catholic nun falls in with some young Arabs and embraces fundamentalist Islam in Bruno Dumont’s provocative film.
Directed by Carl Th. Dreyer
Vampyr
Horror 1932 73 mins Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
The first sound-film by one of the greatest of all filmmakers, Carl Theodor Dreyer, is akin to a waking-dream; guiding the viewer on a trance-like journey between reality and the supernatural.
Day of Wrath
Period drama 1943 97 mins Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
Dark and powerful tale of love and betrayal, and a community gripped by an obsessive fear of witchcraft.
The Master of the House
Drama 1925 107 mins Silent Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s richly detailed tragicomedy of domestic manners is by turns funny, intensely emotional and deeply affecting.
Gertrud
Drama 1964 116 mins Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s final masterpiece centres on a woman who rejects the compromise of her marriage and retreats into a serene isolation.
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Biopic 1927 80 mins Silent Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
An incontestable masterpiece of silent cinema, Carl Dreyer's deeply moving biopic features one of the most powerful performances ever captured on film.
They Caught the Ferry
Documentary 1948 12 mins Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
An unusual - but no less startling – entry in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s filmography, They Caught the Ferry is a fast-paced and effective road-safety film.
New
The Woodsman and the Rain
Comedy 2011 128 mins Director: Shûichi Okita
A redneck lumberjack is recruited to work on a rookie producer's inane zombie movie, in this hilarious movie-making satire.
Vulgaria
2012 93 mins Director: Pang Ho-Cheung
Ho-Cheung Pang's wild, ribald comedy about a Hong Kong movie producer who will do anything to get his projects off the ground.
Who Loves the Sun
Comedy 2006 94 mins Director: Matt Bissonnette
Lukas Haas and Adam Scott play two old friends with a tempestuous history in this delightfully witty character comedy.
Mammuth
Comedy 2010 91 mins Director: Benoît Delépine
Legendary actor Gérard Depardieu is at his most uninhibited as an abattoir worker who hits the road with wild abandon.
Mitsuko Delivers
Comedy 2011 109 mins Director: Yuya Ishii
An eccentric, pregnant young lady returns to her hometown to help her downtrodden old neighbours, in Yûya Ishii 's strange, whimsical comedy.
The Cremator
Horror 1968 96 mins Director: Juraj Herz
This story of a professional cremator whose increasingly deranged impulses are given free reign during Prague's Nazi occupation, is a brilliantly chilling mix of Dr Strangelove and Repulsion.