Mary Beard is on a mission to uncover the real Julius Caesar, and to challenge public perception, exploring Caesar's surprising legacy.
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Using home videos recorded by her voice coach, Diana takes us through the story of her life.
The "David and Goliath" legend is presented as credibly as possible, while David's later disastrous romance with Bathsheba is handled with taste and decorum. Also in the cast are Anthony Quayle as King Saul, and Terence Hardiman as Bathsheba's unfortunate warrior husband Uriah.
A politically naive Viennese butcher manages to survive the Nazi occupation of Austria and the second world war.
In this hour-long documentary, Oxford academic Janina Ramirez tours the country in search of Anglo-Saxon art treasures. Her basic thesis - and it is a plausible one - is that we should not look upon their era as a "dark age" as compared, for example, to Roman times, but rather celebrate it as an age in which creativity flowered, especially in terms of artistic design as well as symbolism. She shows plenty of good examples, ranging from the Franks Casket to the Staffordshire Hoard, and the Lindisfarne Gospels. - l_rawjalaurence
What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?
Haunted by uncanny similarities between Nazi stage techniques and the showmanship employed by modern entertainers, a filmmaker investigates the dangers of audience manipulation and leader worship.
A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria and her relationship with her slave Davus, who is torn between his love for her and the possibility of gaining his freedom by joining the rising tide of Christianity.
The last shots had been fired in the First World War — but peace had yet to be made. Inspired by Margaret MacMillan’s acclaimed work of popular history, Paris 1919 takes us inside the most ambitious peace talks in history, revisiting the event with a vivid sense of narrative. Evoking a pivotal moment when peace seemed possible, director Paul Cowan reflects upon the hard-learned lessons of history.
After the death of Emperor Constantine in Rome, the persecutions of the Christians threaten the centurion Marco forced to become a gladiator.
Why did the Roman Empire, which dominated Europe and the Mediterranean for five centuries, inexorably weaken until it disappeared? Archaeologists, specialists in ancient pathologies and climate historians are now accumulating clues converging on the same factors: a powerful cooling and pandemics. A disease, whose symptoms described by the Greek physician Galen are reminiscent of those of smallpox, struck Rome in 167, soon devastating its army. At the same time, a sudden climatic disorder that was underway as far as Eurasia caused agricultural yields to plummet and led to the westward migration of the Huns. Plagued by economic and military difficulties, attacked from all sides by barbarian tribes, the Roman edifice gradually cracked.
Meet The Plastic People of the Universe, the avant-garde, jazz-rock, Sun Ra meets Velvet Underground, Czech revolutionaries. A tribute to the band that against all odds used the power of their music to help topple their oppressive government.
During the Napoleonic Wars, when the French have occupied Spain, some Spanish guerrilla soldiers are going to move a big cannon across Spain in order to help the British defeat the French. A British officer is there to accompany the Spanish and along the way, he falls in love with the leader's girl.
Nikola Tesla is considered the father of our modern technological age and one of the most mysterious and controversial scientists in history.
A short documentary about the making of "The Great Dictator."
Epic account of the thief Barabbas, who was pardoned for his crimes and spared crucifixion when Pilate offered the Israelites a choice to pardon Barabbas or Jesus. Struggling with his spirituality, Barabbas goes through many ordeals leading him to the gladiatorial arena, where he tries to win his freedom and confront his inner demons, ultimately becoming a follower of the man who was crucified in his place.
Professor Niall Ferguson argues that Britain's decision to enter the First World War was a catastrophic error that unleashed an era of totalitarianism and genocide.
2010 documentary film on the Armenian Genocide by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It is based on eyewitness reports by European and American personnel stationed in the Near East at the time, Armenian survivors and other contemporary witnesses which are recited by modern German actors.
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
It is the year 2546. Corporations rule the world, and an agent is on a secret mission to explore the untold stories of the past. His journey leads him into a secret virtual reality where one corporation has recreated the 1980s, an era that witnessed the birth of video game development, an event in which a politically and economically restricted small European country, Hungary, had a significant role. He discovers a strange but exciting world, where computers were smuggled through the Iron Curtain and serious engineers started developing games. This small country was still under Soviet pressure when a group of people managed to set up one of the first game development studios in the world, and western computer stores started clearing room on their shelves for Hungarian products.
Documentary film with play scenes about the rise and fall of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 from the perspective of various well-known poets and writers who experienced the events as contemporary witnesses.
Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.
Quiet, withdrawn 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs lives peacefully in her home in a New England beach town. Whenever the prying landlady inquires after Rynn's father, she politely claims that he's in the city on business. But when the landlady's creepy and increasingly persistent son, Frank, won't leave Rynn alone, she teams up with kindly neighbor boy Mario to maintain the dark family secret that she's been keeping to herself.
Five strangers board a train and are joined by a mysterious fortune teller who offers to read their Tarot cards. Five separate stories unfold: An architect returns to his ancestoral home to find a werewolf out for revenge; a doctor discovers his new wife is a vampire; a huge plant takes over a house; a musician gets involved with voodoo; an art critic is pursued by a disembodied hand.
Whitney Wolfe uses extraordinary grit and ingenuity to break into the male-dominated tech industry.
Monty Python perform many of their greatest sketches at the Hollywood Bowl, including several from pre-Python days.
Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler. When trying one of his own samples, washed down with water from the cooler, Fulton begins to act just like a twenty-year-old and believes his potion is working. Soon his wife and boss are also behaving like children.
Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.
In late 19th century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that he is only praised for his acting due to his status as his father's heir. Devastated by this, he turns to Otoku, a servant of his family, for comfort, and they fall in love. Kikunosuke becomes determined to leave home and develop as an actor on his own merits, and Otoku faithfully follows him.
A gambler and a prostitute become thriving business partners in a remote Old West mining town until a large corporation arrives on the scene.
Fast Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match.
Official Shogunate executioner Ogami Itto has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, against whom he now is waging a one-man war, along with his infant son, Daigoro.
A group of Serbian socialists prepares for the war in a surreal underground filled by parties, tragedies, love and hate.
In postwar Tokyo, a blunt, alcohol-soaked doctor diagnoses a swaggering young yakuza with tuberculosis, forging an uneasy bond that’s tested when the gangster’s ruthless former boss returns and drags him back toward the swampy underworld he can’t escape.
A woman suffers a subdued psychological breakdown in the wake of a devastating breakup.
While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find. Both are devastated when they learn that Kichi has died, but his wife soon begins an affair with a neighbor who survived the war, Hachi. The mother disapproves and, when she can't steal Hachi for herself, tries to scare her daughter-in-law with a mysterious mask from a dead samurai.
Phillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, hero-worships his father's butler Baines. His perception of the man changes when he accidentally discovers the secret that Baines keeps and witnesses the consequences that adults' lies can cause.
Afflicted with a terminal illness John Bernard Books, the last of the legendary gunfighters, quietly returns to Carson City for medical attention from his old friend Dr. Hostetler. Aware that his days are numbered, the troubled man seeks solace and peace in a boarding house run by a widow and her son. However, it is not Books' fate to die in peace, as he becomes embroiled in one last valiant battle.
In 1930s Italy, a wealthy Jewish family tries to maintain their privileged lifestyle, hosting friends for tennis and parties at their villa. As anti-Semitism intensifies under Fascism, they must ultimately face the horrors of the Holocaust.
The Tramp is an escaped convict who is mistaken as a pastor in a small town church.
Four stowaways get mixed up with gangsters while running riot on an ocean liner.
