Not So Long Ago

Metropolis

February 1927 •German

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Dances with Wolves

March 1990 •English

Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

The Last Samurai

December 2003 •English

Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.

The Birth of a Nation

February 1915 •English

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

Interview with the Vampire

November 1994 •English

A vampire relates his epic life story of love, betrayal, loneliness, and dark hunger to an over-curious reporter.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

November 1927 •English

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

People on Sunday

February 1930 •German

A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.

Battleship Potemkin

December 1925 •Russian

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

Nanook of the North

June 1922 •English

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

May 1928 •Russian

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

The Piano

May 1993 •English

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

Adrift at Sea

December 1983 •Japanese

The Story of the three Japanese castaways Otokichi, Kyukichi and Iwakichi. After their ship the Hojunmaru was damaged, they drifted to America and landed on the US-Westcoast in 1834. They had the wish to return to Japan, a long journey was awaiting them.

The Double Standard

July 1917 •English

Newly elected police court judge John Fairbrother is impassioned when it comes to the laws affecting the dives and cabarets of the city, and promises equal justice for all.

Sirens of the Sea

September 1917 •English

During a raging storm, a baby is washed up on shore on an island in Greece and is adopted by the wealthy Stanhopes, who name her Lorelei. Eighteen years later, Lorelei, now a woman, invites her school friends to spend their vacation at her villa. One of her guests, Julie, is insanely jealous of Lorelei. One day Gerald Waldron, a disenchanted society fop, sails by on his yacht, accompanied by his social-climbing friend, Hartley Royce. Seeing Lorelei and her friends swimming, they decide to go ashore. Both Gerald and Hartley fall in love with Lorelei, and Julie rages, finding herself relegated to Hartley. Together Hartley and Julie plot to separate the lovers.

Fitzcarraldo

March 1982 •German

Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.

Little Women

December 1994 •English

With their father away as a chaplain in the Civil War, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their squabbles and tragedies. But the bond holds even when, later, male friends start to become a part of the household.

The Triplets of Belleville

June 2003 •French

When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters—an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire—to rescue him.

Glory

December 1989 •English

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

The Fountain of Bakhchisaray

December 1909 •Russian

Home

August 1919 •English

A young woman of humble origins hides her family's lack of wealth and prestige from her boarding school friends.