Movies: Ian McKellen

Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe looks at that most English of things - the folly....

Sir Ian McKellen reads the poetry, Michael Wood traces the journey on the ground. Together they conjure up the extraordinary life, times and words of China’s greatest poet, Du Fu. In this film, the first to ever be made about Du Fu in the west, Micha...

Matt Hobbs is a talented but unsuccessful actor. When estranged (and strange) ex-wife Beth dumps their daughter Jeannie on Matt, father and daughter have a lot of adjusting to do. His budding relationship with attractive production assistant Cathy Br...

A man with learning difficulties suffers neglect and ill-treatment, and this is only exasperated when his parents die and nobody seems to know what to do with him. A sequel to this film, titled "Walter and June", was released in 1983 and set 19 year...

Macbeth is a 1978 videotaped version of Trevor Nunn's Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play by William Shakespeare. Produced by Thames Television, it features Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth. The TV version was direc...

Several guests who are lesbian or gay go to a home for Christmas....

An exploration into the history of Shakespeare's plays, from the silent era to the modern day featuring archive interviews with movie directors including Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Franco Zeffirelli, Kenneth Branagh and more....

A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Created by filmmaker Costa Botes (personally selected by Peter Jackson), this documentary uses raw footage to reveal the inside story on how the greates...

Rafe Esquith, 1992 American Teacher of the Year and National Medal of Arts recipient, teaches 5th-grade children whose parents don't speak English at a school in a dangerous, poor, drug-infested 100% Latino/Asian neighborhood in Los Angeles....

A musical man lives a careful life. Each day is like the next, just how he likes it. One day, however, misfortune and fate collide, breaking his routine and rocking his world forever....

In three programmes shown over consecutive weeks in BBC2's Timewatch strand, Allan Francovich interviewed key Gladio players such as Propaganda Due head, Licio Gelli, Italian neofascist and terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra, Venetian judge Felice Casson...

A brief comedy about a visit from a legendary theatre maker and his legion of fans....

Pip, a street kid just turning 18, receives his grandfather's World War II-era memoirs and discovers parallels to his own life....

When his father dies unexpectedly, a young man seeking to cope with his grief goes on a powerful emotional journey through time and space....

This documentary celebrates one of Britain’s greatest actors, Dame Judi Dench, and looks back over her remarkable 60-year career....

Zina, the daughter of Leon Trotsky by his first wife, is undergoing freudian analysis in Berlin in the 'thirties. Meanwhile Trotsky is in exile in Prinkipo having been driven from power by Stalin. The Nazis rise to power in Germany and Austria and Zi...

An elderly right-wing politician is kidnapped, seemingly as part of a student prank. But his captors have a more alarming agenda....

Profile of the life, work and ethos behind one of Britain's most controversial and prolific human rights campaigner: gay UK activist Peter Tatchell....

The reign of Edward II, King of England, is troubled from the start when he brings his male lover, hated by the nobles, out of exile....

The estranged children of a once-famous artist hire a forger to complete his unfinished works so they can be discovered and sold after his death....