Annie Hall: This Is 40

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen. Photo: United Artists In the film’s first scene, Woody Allen as Alvy Singer addresses his audience, letting us know that he recently turned 40 and…

Downton Abbey: An Empire in Change

Photo: ITV I’ve lost count of how many times various actors have come to my country to promote a new season of Downton Abbey. It hasn’t always been the biggest…

Out of Africa 

In the 1910s, Karen (Meryl Streep) marries a Danish nobleman (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and they move to British East Africa to start a farm; she also befriends a handsome big-game…

The Apartment: Executive Privilege

Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Photo: United Artists When Billy Wilder saw Brief Encounter (1945), where Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard have their rendezvous in an apartment belonging to a…

Miss Julie: A Midsummer Nightmare

Anita Björk and Ulf Palme. Photo: Sandrews In 1888, when August Strindberg offered a Stockholm publisher his new play "Miss Julie", he added a warning: "I ask you not to…

Far from Heaven 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder wasn’t the only one in awe of Douglas Sirk. In this drama, Todd Haynes recreated everything from Sirk's films to perfection. One in particular in fact, All…

From Here to Eternity: Before Armageddon

Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. Photo: Columbia This is what Michael Bay was aiming for when he made Pearl Harbor (2001) – a hopefully engaging romance that's suddenly interrupted by…

Why Did I Get Married Too?

The four couples from Why Did I Get Married? (2007) get back together for a vacation in the Bahamas; well, two of the characters are now divorced, but writer-director Tyler…

Wuthering Heights: Love in the Moors

Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Photo: United Artists During the making of this classic, there was tension on set. Two of the stars, Merle Oberon and David Niven, had been…