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Art That Made Us (2022) #1419
DOCUMENTARY
Special
8x1 hour episodes. BBC. An epic story of creativity. How works of art from Britain's past have shaped us. Some are surprising, others familiar - but all are at the heart of dramatic moments of change. Art that Made Us is a landmark eight-part series for BBC Two. Through 1500 years and eight dramatic turning points, the series presents an alternative history of the British Isles, told through art. Leading British creatives, including Simon Armitage, Anthony Gormley, Lubaina Himid, Maxine Peake and Michael Sheen join cultural historians to explore key cultural works that define each age. 1/8 Lights in the Darkness. Contemporary artists encounter artworks from a period once known as the 'dark' ages. 2/8 Revolution of the Dead. Literature, music and art find creative renewal in the aftermath of the Black Death. 3/8 Queens, Feuds and Faith. The religious revolution of the 16th century creates radical and surprising works of art. 4/8 To Kill a King.A splintering of politics and religion under the Stuarts leads to more questioning art. 5/8 Consumers and Conscience. In the 18th century, an age of exploitation stirs a growing social conscience. 6/8 Rise of the Cities. The industrial revolution forces artists to respond to upheaval in life and the landscape. 7/8 Wars and Peace. The savagery of the world wars changes British art forever. 8/8 Brilliant Isles. New and more diverse voices emerge after the 1960s, enriching British art. |
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Sitting in Limbo (2020) #1278
TV DRAMA
Main
Directed by Stella Corradi. With Anna Madeley, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Sarah Woodward, Jay Simpson. Anthony Bryan and his personal struggle to be accepted as a British Citizen during the Windrush immigration scandal. 95 mins. BBC. A shocking drama inspired by the Windrush scandal. After 50 years in the UK, Anthony Bryan is wrongfully detained by the Home Office and threatened with deportation. |
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Anthony (2020) #1312
FILM
Main
Directed by Terry McDonough. With Richard Osman, Toheeb Jimoh, Julia Brown, Bobby Schofield. In July 2005, black teenager Anthony Walker was murdered by two white men in an unprovoked racist attack in a Liverpool park. He was just 18 years old. This film tells the story of how this talented young man's life might have turned out. 90mins BBC. Written by Jimmy McGovern. |
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The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files (2019) #1200
DOCUMENTARY
Main
1 hour. BBC. David Olusoga opens secret government files to show how the Windrush scandal and the ‘hostile environment’ for black British immigrants has been 70 years in the making. The film features Sarah O’Connor, Anthony Bryan and Judy Griffith. Settled here legally since childhood, they were re-classified as illegal immigrants by new ‘hostile environment’ regulations. Unable to show proof of their nationality status, they lost jobs, savings and their health, facing deportation back to countries they could barely remember. David reveals how today’s scandal is rooted in the secrets of the past. The first Windrush generation were Commonwealth citizens - many of them ex-servicemen - coming to rebuild war-torn Britain. Yet even before arriving, they were seen by the Government with hostility. Civil servants and MPs warned of dire consequences if what they called a ‘coloured element’ was introduced into the UK. PM Clement Attlee even suggested diverting the Windrush passengers to east Africa - to pick peanuts. The same government was actively recruiting tens of thousands of white volunteer workers from Europe - some of them former members of Waffen-SS regiments which stood accused of war crimes on the Eastern Front - for ‘permanent settlement here with a view to their inter-marrying and complete absorption into our own working population’. The files expose how successive British governments spent the next decade trying to devise a way to prevent further Caribbean arrivals without appearing to discriminate against them. PM Winston Churchill, dissatisfied with ministers’ response to what he saw as a serious problem, kept the issue on the cabinet agenda and a special Working Party was set up to gather information to make the political case for immigration controls. Two weeks after the Queen’s coronation as head of the UK and Commonwealth, a secret race survey was undertaken and completed, looking for proof that Commonwealth immigrants were a burden on the Welfare State. Chief constables in major cities were asked if ‘the coloured community as a whole, or particular sections of it, are generally idle or poor workmen’, and if they were ‘addicted to drug-trafficking or other types of crime’. The Working Party found no evidence for the view that the ‘coloured community’ was less law-abiding or hard working than other Brits. When Harold Macmillan’s government introduced the 1962 Immigration Act, its control mechanism was the employment prospects of would-be immigrants. The files show how home secretary ‘Rab’ Butler, described the ‘great merit’ of the scheme was that it ‘can be presented as making no distinction on grounds of race or colour’, but would, in practice, ‘operate on coloured people almost exclusively’. By that time, Caribbean immigration had shrunk to a fraction of earlier levels. But, fearing further restrictions, the Windrush generation now arranged for their children to come. The ‘children of the Windrush' had full legal rights to join their parents in the UK, and many arrived with little paperwork or official record keeping. Successive governments passed new immigration and nationality legislation, often in response to perceived ‘problems’ or ‘crises’. Harold Wilson rushed through the 1968 Immigration Act, in just three days to stop arrivals of thousands of passport-holding British-Indians living in Kenya, whose businesses and livelihoods were threatened by its government. Edward Heath’s 1971 Act tried to restrict the legal definition of ‘Britishness’. It also placed the burden of proof on the claimant should their Britishness be challenged—a fateful clause for the ‘children of the Windrush’. Throughout the multiple changes to immigration and nationality law enacted up to 2014, the nationality status of the ‘children of Windrush’ remained unchanged and unchallenged. As British citizens with full legal rights to live here, they put down roots, pursued careers, raised children and grandchildren and contributed in ways great and small to the creation of modern Britain. But with the introduction of the so-called ‘hostile environment’ legislation of 2014 and 2016, their situation changed. Though they were never the intended targets of the new laws, the hostile environment machine that evolved over the decade wasn’t designed to make allowances. Suddenly required to prove their status (due to the 1971 Act), Sarah, Anthony and Judy found themselves unable to show the levels of proof demanded by the new ‘hostile environment’ regulations. All three lost their jobs for up to two years and ran up debt trying to make ends meet. Anthony was arrested twice by Immigration Officers and held for weeks in detention centres. Then a ticket was bought to deport him to Jamaica, a country hadn’t seen since he left, aged eight, in 1965. ‘They broke me in there’, Anthony says. ‘It was hard’. Judy Griffith, still struggling to repay her debts, says: ‘It makes you question the whole, what is British? What is Britishness?’ |
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The Two Popes (2019) #1439
FILM
Main
The Two Popes: Directed by Fernando Meirelles. With Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, Juan Minujín, Luis Gnecco. Behind Vatican walls, the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and the liberal future Pope Francis must find common ground to forge a new path for the Catholic Church |
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King Lear (2018) #1105
FILM
Main
2 hours. BBC. Anthony Hopkins. The 80-year-old King Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, according to their affection for him. Cordelia refuses to flatter him, so he banishes her. Having acquired power, Goneril and Regan expel their father from their homes. At the same time, Lear's prime minister, Gloucester, is betrayed by his son Edmund and his other son, Edgar, is forced to go into hiding. Lear becomes mad, Gloucester is blinded: both the kingdom and the family collapse into chaos and warfare. Lear and Cordelia are reunited - for a brief moment love reigns, then tragedy descends. |
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The Dresser (2015) #473
FILM
Main
Directed by Richard Eyre. With Emily Watson, Ian McKellen, Sarah Lancashire, Anthony Hopkins. A drama, based on a successful play, about an ageing actor and his personal assistant. |
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The Eichmann Show (2015) #506
FILM
Main
Directed by Paul Andrew Williams. With Martin Freeman, Anthony LaPaglia, Rebecca Front, Andy Nyman. Dramatisation of the team hoping to televise the trial of Adolf Eichmann, an infamous nazi responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews. It focuses on Leo Hurwitz, a documentary film-maker and Milton Fruchtman, a producer. |
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Solace (2015) #555
FILM
Main
Directed by Afonso Poyart. With Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Abbie Cornish, Colin Farrell. A psychic works with the FBI in order to hunt down a serial killer. |
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Experimenter (2015) #1441
FILM
Main
Experimenter: Directed by Michael Almereyda. With John Palladino, Anthony Edwards, Jim Gaffigan, Peter Sarsgaard. In 1961, famed social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of radical behavior experiments that tested ordinary humans' willingness to obey authority Thus far no DVD has been burned for this. |
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Noah (2014) #231
FILM
Main
Directed by Darren Aronofsky. With Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson. A man is chosen by his world's creator to undertake a momentous mission before an apocalyptic flood cleanses the world. |
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) #237
FILM
Main
Directed by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo. With Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford. As Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world, he teams up with a fellow Avenger and S.H.I.E.L.D agent, Black Widow, to battle a new threat from history: an assassin known as the Winter Soldier. |
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The Boxtrolls (2014) #480
FILM-ANIMATION
Main
Directed by Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi. With Ben Kingsley, Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade. A young orphaned boy raised by underground cave-dwelling trash collectors tries to save his friends from an evil exterminator. |
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Hitchcock (2012) #282
FILM
Main
Directed by Sacha Gervasi. With Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston. A love story between the influential filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville during the filming of Psycho (1960) in 1959. |
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The Wolfman (2010) #306
FILM
Main
Directed by Joe Johnston. With Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Simon Merrells. Upon his return to his ancestral homeland, an American man is bitten, and subsequently cursed by, a werewolf. |
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Dread (2009) #27
FILM
Main
Directed by Anthony DiBlasi. With Jackson Rathbone, Hanne Steen, Laura Donnelly, Jonathan Readwin. Three college students set out to document what other people dread most. |
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Motherhood (2009) #215
FILM
Main
Directed by Katherine Dieckmann. With Uma Thurman, Anthony Edwards, Minnie Driver, David Schallipp. In Manhattan, a mother of two preparing for her daughter's sixth birthday party has no idea of the challenges she's about to face in order to pull off the event. |
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New Town Killers (2008) #212
FILM
Main
Directed by Richard Jobson. With James Anthony Pearson, Dougray Scott, Alastair Mackenzie, Charles Mnene. Two private bankers, Alistair and Jamie, who have the world at their feet get their kicks from playing a 12 hour game of hunt, hide and seek with people from the margins of society. Their next target is Sean Macdonald a parentless teenager who lives with his sister on a housing estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She's in debt, he's going nowhere fast. Sean agrees to play for cash. He soon ... |
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The Hurt Locker (2008) #364
FILM
Main
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. With Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce. During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work. |
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Zodiac (2007) #23
FILM
Main
Directed by David Fincher. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards. A San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac killer. |