Literary
see all genres ›From cinema's earliest days, filmmakers found ready material not just in classic literature but in new best-sellers, prize-winning fiction and pulp-lit as well. Though as many a student has learned to their grief, it is not always wise to give a report on the book when in fact you've only "seen the movie."
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Genres / Adaptation / Literary
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Le notti bianche
Marcello Mastroianni, as a lonely city transplant, and Maria Schell, as a sheltered girl haunted by a lover's promise, meet by chance on a canal bridge and begin a tentative romance that quickly entangles them in a web of longing and self-delusion. Luchino Visconti's LE NOTTI...Watch Movie
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Vivre sa Vie
VIVRE SA VIE was a turning point for Jean-Luc Godard and remains one of his most dynamic films, combining brilliant visual design with a tragic character study. The lovely Anna Karina, Godard's greatest muse, plays Nana, a young Parisian who aspires to be an actress but instead ends up a...Watch Movie
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Last Ride
A desperate father takes his ten-year -old son, Chook, on the run after committing a violent crime. As the two journey into the desert and an unknown future, their troubled relationship and the need to survive sees them battling the elements and each other. Chook eventually takes control and the...Watch Movie
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In the Fog
It is 1942 and the western edge of the USSR is under German occupation where local partisans are waging a brutal war against their foreign enemies. Sushenya, an innocent rail worker, is arrested with a band of saboteurs when a train is derailed not far from his village. The German officer decides...Watch Movie
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The Music Room
With THE MUSIC ROOM, Satyajit Ray brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of the world of a fallen aristocrat (the beloved actor Chhabi Biswas) desperately clinging to a fading way of life. His greatest joy is the music room in which he has hosted lavish concerts over the years, now a shadow of...Watch Movie
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The Pit and the Pendulum
In the quest to save souls, the Spanish Inquisition will stop at nothing and knows no boundaries for its evil. Under the direction of Torquemada the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, a young baker's wife, Maria, is falsely accused of witchcraft and dragged before the inquisition and...Watch Movie
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The Conformist
One of the enduring masterpieces of the 1970s, Bertolucci's breakthrough film THE CONFORMIST is an elegant portrait of the death throes of Italian Fascism and a triumph of pure style. Adapted by Bernardo Bertolucci (an Academy Award®-nominated screenplay) from Alberto Moravia's 1951 novel, it...Watch Movie
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Creature with the Blue Hand
The inimitable Klaus Kinski plays twin brothers (one of whom is found guilty of murder and sent to an insane asylum in the prologue) and he is not even the creepiest part of this colorful murder mystery. Based on a novel by British author Edgar Wallace, this is from the...Watch Movie
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Lurking Fear
John Martense has just been released from prison after serving five years for a crime he didn't commit. John wants to stay as far away from the wrong side of the law as he can, but family ties won't let him. John gets a message to see Specs, an old friend and undertaker with a taste for larceny....Watch Movie
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The Hawk is Dying
George Gattling finds little fulfillment as an auto upholsterer, the patriarch of a broken family, and the occasional lover of a lonely psychology student. When stricken with a family tragedy, George becomes obsessed with taming a wild, red-tail hawk. At his weakest moment, he...Watch Movie
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Wake in Fright
Alongside MAD MAX and WALKABOUT, WAKE IN FRIGHT is widely acknowledged as one of the seminal films in the development of modern Australian cinema. Directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Donald Pleasence, WAKE IN FRIGHT tells the nightmarish story of a schoolteacher's descent into personal...Watch Movie
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Iguana
A grotesquely disfigured harpooner called Iguana is severely mistreated by his fellow sailors on a whaling ship in the 19th century. One night he escapes and takes up residence on a remote island. He makes himself ruler of the island and declares war on mankind. Anyone unfortunate enough to wind...Watch Movie
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Opera Jawa
Setyo and Siti live a peaceful life as husband and wife, selling earthenware in their village. But when Setyo is called away on business, a flirtatious butcher, Ludiro, takes advantage of Siti's loneliness to seduce her. Tempted by song and dance, Siti initially refuses his advances but...Watch Movie
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The Wall
Martina Gedeck, star of the Academy Award®-winning film THE LIVES OF OTHERS, brings a vivid intensity to this mysterious and riveting tale of survival set in a spectacularly beautiful Austrian mountain landscape. In a tour-de-force performance, Gedeck stars as an unnamed character who suddenly...Watch Movie
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Where Time Began
Kenneth More stars in this 1977 adaptation of the classic novel by the master of science fiction, Jules Verne. After finding a mysterious map, Professor Otto Lindenbrock leads an expedition deep below the Earth's surface to discover its long-hidden secrets. Joined by his niece...Watch Movie
