David M. Thompson

Released in 2006, British filmmaker Stephen Frears' "The Queen" dramatizes the brief but intense conflict between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Elizabeth II in 1997, following the death of Princess Diana. The documentary underlines the film's boldness. By taking the living royal family as its subject, it breaks a taboo in British cinema and reveals a deeply human queen. Blending freedom of tone with documentary rigor, it offers a lesson in how fiction can serve historical truth.

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The Ballet Master: Sir Peter Wright at 90

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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.

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Camera operator Noël Véry provides a commentary on footage shot during the making of The Beast.

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The first major profile of the great British film director Nicolas Roeg, examining his very personal vision of cinema as in such films as Don't Look Now, Performance, Walkabout and The Man Who Fell to Earth. Roeg reflects on his career, which began as a leading cinematographer, and on the themes that have obsessed him, such as our perception of time and the difficulty of human relationships.

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Documentary about the making of James Gray's 1994 film LITTLE ODESSA

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With the beginnings of Hollywood, the star system was born with an archetypal bad girl - the vampish Theda Bara - and the good girl - the blazingly sincere Lillian Gish. From the 1920s, vivacious Clara Bow and seductive siren Louise Brooks are most remembered, but none made the impact of Marlene Dietrich, an icon of mystery, or Greta Garbo, with her perfect features and gloomy introspection. From the power of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis to the seductiveness of Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner, Hollywood studios produced their own brand of beautiful, sassy and confident women. But it wasn't to last. The era drew to a close with the supreme fame of Elizabeth Taylor and the tragic death of Marilyn Monroe.

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The making of Pialat's masterpiece.

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Documentary about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 film "Notorious."

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BBC producer/director David Thompson follows a group of admirers of the film A Canterbury Tale (1944) on their annual location walk in 2005. As this was the year of the centenary of the birth of director Michael Powell the location walk included visits to a lot of the places around Canterbury where Powell grew up. The documentary includes interviews with walk organizers Paul Tritton and Steve Crook as well as with various other people there. Some of the scenes from the film are re-created with people on the walk reading out the lines from scenes filmed at those locations 60+ years ago.

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Long treated with indifference by critics and historians, British silent cinema has only recently undergone the reevaluation it has long deserved, revealing it to be far richer than previously acknowledged. This documentary, featuring clips from a remarkable range of films, celebrates the early years of British filmmaking and spans from such pioneers as George Albert Smith and Cecil Hepworth to such later figures as Anthony Asquith, Maurice Elvey and, of course, Alfred Hitchcock.

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The making of The Dreamers, its background and relation to the May 1968 student riots in Paris.

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Documentary profile of legendary dance choreographer Busby Berkeley.

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Robert Altman interviewed during the making of GOSFORD PARK (2001), as well as members of the cast and crew. Also, revealing behind the scenes footage and information about his career leading up to this feature.

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Very insightful BBC documentary about Paul Verhoeven, tracking his career up to Showgirls. The programme focuses on talks with Verhoeven, but also includes interviews with many of the people who worked with him, both from the US and Holland, and even his wife. Also has a lot of behind the scenes footage from the set of Showgirls. Verhoeven is very open about the way he works, the themes in his movies and his life. He also interprets his own work in a very frank and intelligent way and, as always, is a gas.

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From his quirky compositions for the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone to his sublime musical contributions to director Roland Joffé's acclaimed 1986 drama The Mission, film composer Ennio Morricone has crafted more than 500 scores over the course of his enduring career in film. Now fans can take a look back at the life and career of one of cinema's most prolific composers through interviews with both the composer himself and many of his longtime collaborators. From his Italian efforts to his work in America, this documentary covers every aspect of Morricone's career as few have, offering insight into his childhood, his longtime association with Leone, and his ultimate disenchantment with the American studio system.

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A documentary profile on Quentin Tarantino broadcast by the BBC's "Omnibus" strand in 1994 to coincide with "Pulp Fiction" hitting UK cinemas.

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Part one of a BBC documentary about Jean Renoir.

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The second part of a BBC documentary on the latter half of the career of French director Jean Renoir.

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The story of Granada, the company responsible for Britain's most enduring soap opera Coronation Street, the current affairs series World in Action, and highly praised drama from Brideshead Revisited to Prime Suspect. With contributions from Jeremy Isaacs, Gus Macdonald, David Plowright, Michael Parkinson, Gerry Robinson and Sir Denis Forman. Director David Thompson

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Documentary about Vittorio Storaro, cinematographer of Apocalypse Now, The Last Emperor, Reds, Il Confimista, 1900. Vittorio Storaro talks about his work, along with collaborators like Warren Beatty and Bernardo Bertolucci and peers like Nestor Almendros. On-set footage from Dick Tracy and The Sheltering Sky. Storaro explains his zany theories about light and colour, and gives a potted history of lighting in the cinema. Sublime.

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A profile of the film director Roberto Rossellini, looking at his life, personality and films, following his career and his relationship with Ingrid Bergman.

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A retrospective of the films of Britain's Hammer Studios, renowned for making stylish horror films in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Included are clips from Hammer productions and interviews with actors, actresses, directors and producers who worked on these films.

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Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.

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In this new documentary, Susan Kemp explores the life and work of the great British director Antonia Bird, who died in 2013. Bird blazed a trail from the radical hotbed of the Royal Court Theatre in the 70s, via the groundbreaking early days of EastEnders and Casualty in the 80s, all the way to Hollywood in the 90s and back again. She always had something urgent to say, but her career was a long struggle to get her voice heard. Featuring many of her close collaborators, including Robert Carlyle, Irvine Welsh, Kate Hardie and Mark Cousins, this documentary is the first to examine Bird’s legacy, and to place her where she belongs – among the most important British film, TV and theatre directors of her era.

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Dramatizations and actual archival film footage and photographs combine to relate the life of American composer Charles Ives and to document the musical background which influenced his work. Composers Aaron Copland and Elliott Carter reminisce about Ives and discuss his music.

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The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances, and an award is given for regional theatre.

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A broken family is forced to come together when 16-year-old Finn and his livewire younger brother Charlie run away from trouble at home in England to reach their estranged grandfather on Ireland’s stunning and wild west coast.

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This four-part historical drama follows the end of Catherine the Great's reign and her affair with Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin that helped shape the future of Russian politics.

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Grace lives an idyllic life in a British seaside town, but her world soon comes crashing down when her husband of 29 years tells her he's leaving her for another woman. Through stages of shock, disbelief and anger -- and with support from her son -- Grace ultimately regains her footing while learning it's never too late to be happy.

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The lives of two half-sisters and their drawing master get caught up in a deadly conspiracy revolving around a mentally ill woman dressed all in white.

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Released in 2006, British filmmaker Stephen Frears' "The Queen" dramatizes the brief but intense conflict between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Elizabeth II in 1997, following the death of Princess Diana. The documentary underlines the film's boldness. By taking the living royal family as its subject, it breaks a taboo in British cinema and reveals a deeply human queen. Blending freedom of tone with documentary rigor, it offers a lesson in how fiction can serve historical truth.

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