The Fifties

At War for Algeria

December 2024 •French

North Africa, 1954. The Algerian war of independence begins, a traumatic and extremely violent catastrophe that for eight long years will shake and finally overthrow the foundations of the colonial regime established by France in 1830.

Fifties Features - The Women behind the Pictures

December 2024 •English

A three part series about women working in the British film industry during the 1950s.

Gulag, the Story

December 2024 •French

A major political, historical, human and economic fact of the 20th century, the Gulag, the extremely punitive Soviet concentration camp system, remains largely unknown.

Corleone: A History of la Cosa Nostra

December 2024 •French

How, from 1974 to 1993, Totò Riina (1930-2017), supreme boss of the Corleone family, ruled by blood and terror over the Sicilian Mafia. An implacable account, based on the testimony of his men and those who fought against them.

España, el siglo XX en color

December 2024 •Spanish

The Vietnam War

December 2024 •English

An immersive 360-degree narrative telling the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. Featuring testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.

Del Miño al Bidasoa

December 2024 •Spanish

Hi-de-Hi!

December 2024 •English

Hi-de-Hi! is a British sitcom set in Maplins, a fictional holiday camp, during 1959 and 1960, and was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, who also wrote Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum amongst others. It aired on the BBC from 1980 to 1988. The series revolved around the lives of the camp's management and entertainers, most of them struggling actors or has-beens. The inspiration was the experience of writers Perry and Croft: after being demobilised from the army, Perry was a Redcoat at Butlin's, Pwllheli during the holiday season. The series gained large audiences and won a BAFTA as Best Comedy Series in 1984. In 2004, it came 40th in Britain's Best Sitcom and in a 2008 poll on Channel 4, 'Hi-de-Hi!" was voted the 35th most popular comedy catchphrase.

In Cold Blood

December 2024 •English

At the end of the 1950s, in a more innocent America, the brutal, meaningless slaying of a Midwestern family horrified the nation. This film is based on Truman Capote's hauntingly detailed, psychologically penetrating nonfiction novel. While in prison, Dick Hickock, 20, hears a cell-mate's story about $10,000 in cash kept in a home safe by a prosperous rancher. When he's paroled, Dick persuades ex-con Perry Smith, also 20, to join him in going after the stash. On a November night in 1959, Dick and Perry break into the Holcomb, Kansas, house of Herb Clutter. Enraged at finding no safe, they wake the sleeping family and brutally kill them all. The bodies are found by two friends who come by before Sunday church. The murders shock the small Great Plains town, where doors are routinely left unlocked. Detective Alvin Dewey of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation heads the case, but there are no clues, no apparent motive and no suspects...

The Green Veil

December 2024 •English

Gordon Rogers attempts to save an unraveling secret mission that threatens to reveal an unthinkable conspiracy.

De Gaulle at the Beach

December 2024 •French

Summer 1958… Wearied by the ingratitude of the French and by the mediocrity of their leaders, the Liberator of France decides to go on a well-deserved holiday… Charles, rather dreamy but imperturbable, is accompanied by the ever faithful Captain Lebornec. Lebornec – devoted if sometimes flummoxed by the general’s attitude – is the ideal holiday companion and confidant. They are accompanied by Charles’ wife Yvonne, his son, and Wehrmacht, a descendant of Hitler’s dog.

Lipstick on Your Collar

December 2024 •English

During the Suez Crisis of 1956, two young clerks at the stuffy Foreign Office in Whitehall display little interest in the decline of the British Empire. To their eyes, it can hardly compete with girls, rock music, and the intrigue of romantic entanglements.

Engraçadinha... Seus Amores e Seus Pecados

December 2024 •Portuguese

18 years old Engraçadinha starts a secret love affair with her cousin Sílvio, who's engaged to her best friend Letícia, who is secretly in love with Cutie Pie. Twenty years later, Cutie Pie is a deeply religious married woman who's afraid her teenage daughters might end up making the same mistakes she did in the past.

Trade War

December 2024 •Chinese

Revolves around the theme of business intrigues, portraying the complexities of human nature and negotiation strategies in the business world filled with sex, power, and struggle.

The Queen's Gambit

December 2024 •English

In a 1950s orphanage, a young girl reveals an astonishing talent for chess and begins an unlikely journey to stardom while grappling with addiction.

Brecht

December 2024 •German

East Berlin, 1956. Bertolt Brecht, revolutionary of the theater and poet of the state, looks back: his exploits as a teenager during the World War I; his romantic adventures during the twenties; the escape of the Nazi regime; the return from exile. The life of a timeless classic, a class fighter, an indefatigable free spirit, a committed artist.

Happy Days

December 2024 •English

In 1950s Milwaukee the Cunningham family must contend with Fonzie, a motorcycle riding Casanova.

Masters of Sex

December 2024 •English

William Masters and Virginia Johnson are real-life pioneers of the science of human sexuality. Their research touched off the sexual revolution and took them from a midwestern teaching hospital to the cover of Time magazine and multiple appearances on Johnny Carson's couch. He is a brilliant scientist out of touch with his own feelings, and she is a single working mother ahead of her time. The series chronicles their unusual lives, romance, and unlikely pop culture trajectory.

Le Pensionnat

December 2024 •French

Lessons in Chemistry

December 2024 •English

In the 1950s, Elizabeth Zott's dream of being a scientist is challenged by a society that says women belong in the domestic sphere. She accepts a job on a TV cooking show and sets out to teach a nation of overlooked housewives way more than recipes.