Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
This film is certified
- Contains some strong torture scenes and moderate violence
The Battle of Algiers
Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece about the last years of French colonial rule in Algeria, seen from the perspective of both the revolutionaries and the French authorities.
Drama 1966 121 mins
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Overview
Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece about the turbulent last years of French colonial rule in Algeria, seen from the perspective of both the guerrilla revolutionaries and the French authorities.
Pontecorvo’s use of newsreel-style cinematography and emphasis on unbearably tense set-pieces result in a highly gripping and urgent drama that’s defiantly even-handed to both sides of the conflict. One of the most significant political films, to rank alongside Battleship Potemkin, the film continues to inspire and has been used as a morale-booster by both the Black Panther movement and the 2010 Algerian World Cup team.
Contains some strong torture scenes and moderate violenceRelated
Drama
Something Different
Drama 1963 81 mins Director: Vera Chytilová
Věra Chytilová's first feature is an important work of women's cinema, which contrasts the parallel stories of a gymnast (filmed as documentary) and a housewife (told as fiction).
Fruit of Paradise
Drama 1969 99 mins Director: Vera Chytilová
Věra Chytilová's symbolic retelling of the Adam and Eve story is a ravishing tapestry of ideas, textures, and visual tropes.
The Frightened Woman
Drama 1969 86 mins Director: Piero Schivazappa
A rich sadist kidnaps a woman to subject to his elaborate S&M games, but she soon turns the tables... Piero Schivazappa's erotic thriller explodes with eye-popping psychedelic production design.
Female Human Animal
Drama-documentary 2018 74 mins Director: Josh Appignanesi
Josh Appignanesi's art-world psycho-thriller blends reality and fiction to delirious effect, in its tale of an exhibition curator pursued by a mysterious figure.
Sunflower
Drama 1969 112 mins Director: Vittorio De Sica
Sophia Loren searches for the husband she lost at the Russian Front (Marcello Mastroianni) in this sweeping romance epic with echoes of Doctor Zhivago.
L'innocente
Period drama 1976 130 mins Director: Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti's final film is a brilliant and disturbing drama set against the opulent backdrop of decadent, late 19th-century aristocracy.
Recently Added
Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon
Biopic 1998 87 mins Director: John Maybury
Derek Jacobi and Daniel Craig star as artist Francis Bacon and his muse George Dyer in John Maybury’s darkly exquisite biopic.
8½
Drama 1963 138 mins Director: Federico Fellini
Fellini triumphantly conjured himself out of writer's block with this magnum opus about a film director experiencing his own creative crisis.
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.
Power in Our Hands
Documentary 2015 75 mins Director: Angela Spielsinger
Ground-breaking documentary that uses archive film to tell the story of the British Deaf community’s fight for civil rights.
Caravaggio
Biopic 1986 93 mins Director: Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman’s unique biopic of the 17th century Italian artist Michelangelo da Caravaggio is a powerful meditation on sexuality, criminality and art.
Ismael's Ghosts
Drama 2017 135 mins Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Marion Cotillard, Mathieu Amalric and Charlotte Gainsbourg form a bizarre love triangle at the heart of Arnaud Desplechin's elaborate, playful comic-thriller.
New
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer
Horror 1991 81 mins Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Shinya Tsukamoto's sequel has the Iron Man transforming into a cyberkinetic gun when a gang of vicious skinheads kidnap his son.
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.
Power in Our Hands
Documentary 2015 75 mins Director: Angela Spielsinger
Ground-breaking documentary that uses archive film to tell the story of the British Deaf community’s fight for civil rights.
Traps
Comedy 1998 116 mins Director: Vera Chytilová
Věra Chytilová's dark, post-communist comedy. After a veterinary surgeon is sexually assaulted by two men, she uses her particular expertise in castraton to exact her revenge…
Something Different
Drama 1963 81 mins Director: Vera Chytilová
Věra Chytilová's first feature is an important work of women's cinema, which contrasts the parallel stories of a gymnast (filmed as documentary) and a housewife (told as fiction).
Fruit of Paradise
Drama 1969 99 mins Director: Vera Chytilová
Věra Chytilová's symbolic retelling of the Adam and Eve story is a ravishing tapestry of ideas, textures, and visual tropes.