Film Festivals 1989
Another wonderfully eclectic line-up this year including the radiant "Bagdad Cafe", Jan Svankmajer's surreal "Alice", David Cronenberg's superb psychological offering "Dead Ringers", the acclaimed "sex, lies, and videotape" and the fascinating "Man Facing Southeast" (pictured).
Henry V (Olivier) (1944)
7.7/10
Director: Laurence Olivier
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Leslie Banks, Robert Newton, Esmond Knight, Renee Asherson, Fe...
'Henry V' is one of Shakespeare's most compelling historical plays. Laurence Olivier won a special Oscar for outstanding achievement as an actor, prod... Read more
Matewan (1987)
7.9/10
Director: John Sayles
Starring: Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell
Writer-director John Sayles recreates the life and labour conditions that led to the infamous West Virginia shootout known as the Matewan Massacre. In... Read more
Salaam Bombay! (1988)
8/10
Director: Mira Nair
Starring: Shafiq Syed, Sarfuddin Quarrassi, Raju Barnad
An international critical favourite focusing on Krishna, a 10-year-old boy on his own who falls in with prostitutes, drug dealers, crooked cops and th... Read more
Running On Empty (1988)
7.7/10
Director: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, Martha Plimpton
A superior family drama about a pair of 60's radicals, still on the run from the FBI, trying to raise a family. Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch are th... Read more
Little Dorrit (1988)
8.3/10
Director: Christine Edzard
Starring: Alec Guinness, Bill Fraser, Cyril Cusack, Derek Jacobi, Eleanor Bron, Joan Green...
Christine Edzard's film is a brilliant reworking of the Charles Dickens classic in two parts. The first part ("Nobody's Fault") is told from Arthur Cl... Read more
Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)
6.9/10
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges, Martin Landau, Mako , Frederic Forrest, Dean Stockwell...
Jeff Bridges is Preston Tucker, American inventor and the designer of an automobile too many years ahead of its time to succeed against the major car... Read more
Red Sorghum (1989)
7.5/10
Director: Zhang Yimou
Starring: Gong Li, Wen Jiang, Liu Jia, Rujun Ten
A vivid, richly coloured drama about a young woman who takes on the management of her late husband's distillery in Northern China. All appears to be g... Read more
Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
7.7/10
Director: Paul Bogart
Starring: Anne Bancroft, Matthew Broderick, Harvey Fierstein
Harvey Fierstein adapted his Broadway hit play about the trials and tribulations of being a sexually active, gay urban male in the 1970's for the big... Read more
Shane ( Blu-ray ) (1953)
7.7/10
Director: George Stevens
Starring: Alan Ladd, Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan, Jack Palance, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, B...
George Stevens' legendary rendition of the archetypal Western myth earned six Academy Award nominations including Best Screenplay, Best Director and B... Read more
The Hidden (1987)
7/10
Director: Jack Sholder
Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Nouri, Clu Gulager
A young FBI agent (Kyle MacLachlan) teams up with an L.A. cop (Michael Nouri) to solve mysterious goings on involving an alien organism that switches... Read more