USA , 2003 

Cert: 12A 138 minutes

       Dir:  Peter Weir.  Starring Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Billy Boyd

1805 and England is at war with France .  HMS Surprise is attacked off the coast of Brazil by a larger and faster French ship; the Surprise hunts down its attacker.  'Weir’s film is intelligent, exciting, and is a rich episodic adventure, a sea shanty well sung.’  (Sight and Sound)

France/Canada/Belgium/UK, 2002    

Cert: 12A  

80m

Dir: Sylvain Chomet.

Brilliant feature animation about an orphaned boy, brought up by his grandmother, who grows up with an ambition to win the Tour d France !  Very original, very funny.

UK/USA, 2003      

Cert:15            

106m

Dir: Kevin Macdonald.  Starring Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron, Ollie Ryall

A remarkable recreation of an already legendary mountaineering incident.  British climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates describe their 1985 ascent of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes during which disaster struck and Simpson was left for dead

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UK/Luxembourg/USA, 2003 

Cert:12A 

100m 

Dir: Peter Webber. Starring Colin Firth, Scarlet Johansson, Tom Wilkinson 

Griet, whose family has fallen into poverty, is employed as a servant in the artist Vermeer's household. Vermeer increasingly uses Griet as an assistant and Vermeer's wife, Catherina, becomes suspicious. This was the most requested film by the membership.

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Norway, 2001 

Cert: 15 

89m 

Dir: Peter Naess. Starring Per Christian Ellefson, Sven Nordin, Marit Pia Jacobson

 This is a delightful comedy about two institutionalised men who are released into a state-sponsored flat in Oslo. An eccentric 'buddy' movie, which is both charming and comic, the film never condescends but engages our empathy with the couple.

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Japan, 2002 

Cert: 15 

101m 

Dir: Hideo Nakata. Starring Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi 

A horror story from the director of "Ring", "Dark Water" proves that screen thrills come from the anticipation and not the realisation of an approaching terror. 'A splendidly derivative frightener whose air of creepy anxiety and out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye unease almost strangles the viewer into breathless rigidity.' (Sight & Sound)

UK, 2003 

Cert: 15 

112m 

Dir: Roger Michell. Starring Anne Reid, Cathryn Bradshaw, David Craig 

A hugely praised and controversial British film set in contemporary London which explores the sexual attraction of an elderly woman to a man thirty years her junior - who also happens to be her daughter's lover.

New Zealand/Germany, 2002 

Cert: PG 

101m 

Dir: Niki Caro. Starring Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton 

Set in the present in a small Maori village on the east coast of New Zealand, this is the story of twelve year old Paikea, grand-daughter of the tribal chief, who seeks to prove that as a female she is fit to inherit the chieftancy. A film of great charm and vitality.

Italy, 1948 

Cert:U 

90m 

Dir: Vittorio de Sica. Starring Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell

This season's retrospective is this great de Sica film, the simple story of an Italian worker who is robbed of his bicycle without which he cannot work. He and his small son search for it. One of cinema's great masterpieces. 'The slight human drama is developed so that it has all the force of "King Lear"'. (Halliwell)

China/Hong Kong/France, 2002 

Cert: PG 

116m 

Dir: Tian Zhuangzhuang. Starring Hu Jingfan, Wu Jun, Xin Baiging China, 1946.

A love story about a married woman who meets a former lover and realises she is still in love with him. 'This is a sensual, haunting film, atomospheric and moving, full of melancholy and a subtle eroticism.' (Sight & Sound)

USA/UK, 2003

Cert:  15 

124m 

Dir: Vadim Perelman. Starring Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Ron Eldard. 

Kathy, a young Californian recovering from a broken relationship and alcoholism, has her house mistakenly repossessed and she is evicted. A former Iranian officer buys the house at auction. The two lock horns with devastating results for both.

Germany, 2003 

Cert: 15  

121m 

Dir: Wolfgang Becker. Starring Daniel Bruhl, Katria Sass, Maria Simon 

This is a wonderfully bitter-sweet comedy about a woman who, comatose at the time the Berlin wall comes down in 1989, awakes to the demise of the GDR. However, as the shock of this discovery could kill her, her family goes to amazing lengths to keep this revelation from her..

Canada/France, 2003 

Cert: 18 

99m 

Dir: Denys Arcand. Starring Remy Girard, Stephane Rousseau, Marie-Josee Croze 

A retired professor is dying in a Montreal hospital. His estranged son is summoned to the hospital and sets about improving the quality of his father's last days. From what sounds a dour scenario emerges a brilliant, very witty and multi-award-winning film.

USA, 2003 

Cert: 15

 90m 

Dir: Tom McCarthy. Starring Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale 

A superb comic drama about three 'misfits' who gradually warm to each other: the 'station agent', a dwarf who inherits an abandoned railway station, Joe, a Cuban running his ailing father's hot-dog stand, and Olivia, a local artist separated from her husband. Winner of the Sundance Audience Award.

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