The Lost King

Stephen Frears

In this inspiring true story, amateur historian Philippa Langley believes she has made the archeological find of the century: the lost burial site of King Richard III. She takes on Britain's most eminent historians, forcing them to rethink the legacy of one of the most controversial rulers in English history.


Mrs. Henderson Presents

Stephen Frears

Laura Henderson buys an old London theater and opens it up as the Windmill, a performance hall which goes down in history for, among other things, its all-nude revues.


The Snapper

Stephen Frears

One little secret is about to cause a big, big commotion in this hilariously funny hit comedy that has everyone talking! When the oldest daughter of a riotous, close-knit family announces her unexpected pregnancy, everyone wants to know who fathered the "snapper" she's carrying. But the young woman's refusal to reveal anything about her predicament sends the entire town into a tizzy! Critics coast-to-coast praised The Snapper as one of the year's finest and funniest films - it's sure to deliver nonstop laughs to you!


The Queen

Stephen Frears

Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Actress, Dame Helen Mirren gives a spellbinding performance in The Queen, the provocative story behind one of the most public tragedies of our time - the sudden death of Princess Diana. In the wake of Diana's death, the very private and tradition-bound Queen Elizabeth II (Mirren) finds herself in conflict with the new Prime Minister, the slickly modern and image-conscious Tony Blair. The Queen, also starring Academy Award® nominee James Cromwell (Best Supporting Actor, Babe, 1995), takes you inside the private chambers of the Royal Family and the British government for a captivating look at a vulnerable human being in her darkest hour, as a nation grieving for its People's Princess waits to see what its leaders will do. Suspenseful, heartfelt and riveting, it's a fascinating story you won't soon forget.


The Grifters

Stephen Frears

Academy Award®-winning actress, Anjelica Huston (Best Supporting Actress, Prizzi's Honor), John Cusack (Martian Child) and Annette Bening (American Beauty) star in this acclaimed hit, directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen), where seduction and betrayal could lead to murder! When small-time cheat Roy Dillon (Cusack) winds up in the hospital following an unsuccessful scam, it sets up a confrontation between his estranged mother Lilly (Huston) and sexy girlfriend Myra (Bening). Both Lilly and Myra are ruthless confidence artists playing the con game in a league far above Roy...and always looking for their next victim! The question soon becomes who's conning who as Roy finds himself caught in a complicated web of passion and mistrust!


Dirty Pretty Things

Stephen Frears

From Stephen Frears, the Oscar nominated director of The Grifters (Best Director, 1990) and Dangerous Liaisons; Dirty Pretty Things stars Audrey Tautou (Amelie) in a harrowing tale of struggle and survival for two immigrants who learn that everything is for sale in London's secret underworld. Part of an invisible working class, Nigerian exile Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Turkish chambermaid Senay (Tautou) toil at a west London hotel that is full of illegal activity. Then late one night Okwe makes a shocking discovery, which creates an impossible dilemma and tests the limits of all they know. Honored with numerous European film awards and nominations - including wins at the London Critics Circle Film Awards and the Venice Film Festival - you'll find this gritty urban thriller to be thoroughly engrossing and impossible to forget.


Cheri

Stephen Frears

Indulge in Cheri, the seductive and provocative drama about a scandalous love affair, set during the opulent decadence of preWorld War 1 Paris starring award winners Michelle Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates. The ravishing Lea, famed courtesan to the rich and famous, is contemplating her retirement, when her archrival (Bates) as her to teach her spoiled 19 year old son Cheri about women. It's an adventure that becomes a heated and passionate affair that results in power struggles over sex, money, age, and society and unexpectedly, love itself as a boy who refuses to grow up collides with a woman who realizes she cannot stay young forever.


The Program (2015)

Stephen Frears

This is the true story of the meteoric rise and fall of Lance Armstrong, one of the most celebrated and controversial men in recent history. When sports journalist David Walsh becomes convinced that Armstrong's performances during the Tour de France victories are fueled by banned substances, he starts hunting for evidence that will expose Armstrong.


Lay the Favorite

Stephen Frears

Bruce Willis and Vince Vaughn star in this touching comedy about a Las Vegas gambler who hires a stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold as his good luck charm but ends up on the wrong side of the law after she falls into the arms of a rival bookie.


Victoria & Abdul

Stephen Frears

The extraordinary true story of an unexpected friendship in the later years of Queen Victoria's (Academy Award® winner Judi Dench) remarkable rule. When Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), a young clerk, travels from India to participate in the Queen's Golden Jubilee, he is surprised to find favor with the Queen herself. As the Queen questions the constrictions of her long-held position, the two forge an unlikely and devoted alliance with a loyalty to one another that her household and inner circle all attempt to destroy. As the friendship deepens, the Queen begins to see a changing world through new eyes and joyfully reclaims her humanity.


Philomena

Stephen Frears

Judi Dench stars in the story of Philomena Lee, mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock and given up for adoption. Nearly 50 years later, Philomena meets Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), a former BBC reporter looking for his next big story. Together, they embark on a journey to locate her long lost son. As the pieces of the puzzle come together, the unlikely travel companions form a comic and heartwarming friendship. Based on the 2009 investigative book by Martin Sixsmith ‘The Lost Child of Philomena Lee’, the film adaptation has been hailed as “a triumph for Judi Dench. Brilliant. A performance of grace, nuance and cinematic heroism.” (Mary Corliss, TIME MAGAZINE)


Florence Foster Jenkins

Stephen Frears

Based on the incredible true story, Meryl Streep delivers a hilarious and touching performance as a New York socialite who dreams of becoming a great opera singer. While the voice she hears in her head is beautiful, to everyone else it is hilariously awful. Her husband and biggest fan, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) is determined to protect his beloved Florence from the truth. But when Florence stages a huge concert at Carnegie Hall, he faces his greatest challenge to make sure her performance hits all the right notes.


Fail Safe (2000)

Stephen Frears

Cold War tensions climb to a fever pitch when a U.S. bomber is accidentally ordered to drop a nuclear warhead on Moscow.


Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight

Stephen Frears

He was one of boxing's all-time greats, but Muhammad Ali's biggest challenge took place far from the ring--in the United States Supreme Court, where the justices debated the outcome of his 1971 conscientious-objector appeal during the Vietnam War. This riveting drama from HBO Films goes behind closed doors as Justice John Harlan II (Christopher Plummer) finds himself at odds with the status quo - and his old friend Chief Justice Warren Burger (Frank Langella) - after his perspective is challenged by his new clerk, Kevin Connolly (Benjamin Walker). This compelling film explores the intricate politics behind these historic decisions in a time of rapid social and cultural transformation in America. Directed by Stephen Frears; written by Shawn Slovo.


Gumshoe

Stephen Frears

Ginley (Albert Finney) is a nightclub bingo caller eager for a career change. On his thirty-first birthday, he advertises himself as a private eye in the newspaper. He dons a trench coat, and begins engaging others in rapid-fire dialogue as if he were Humphrey Bogart, or some Dashiell Hammett creation. Soon after, Ginley is phoned by a fat man, who gives him a package containing a gun, a photograph, and a large sum of money. Eventually Ginley is investigating a case involving smuggling of weapons as well as drugs. Ginley also finds himself at odds with his unsupportive brother, who offers Ginley payment to break off his investigations. Eventually Ginley learns of his brother-in-law's involvement in the crimes at hand. Ginley faces a series of daunting tasks: solving the crimes, bringing justice to the smugglers (and a murderer), as well as maintaining his safety and sanity in the process.


Tamara Drewe

Stephen Frears

A young newspaper columnist who returns to the country village of her youth and stirs up dark passions among the locals.


My Beautiful Laundrette

Stephen Frears

Two London youths, one a Pakastani, the other a white punk, meet after several years apart. Together they accept a business proposition from the Pakistani's uncle to open a laundromat. They re-vamp it into a video and neon palace rivaling some of the New York clubs. These friends also become lovers, learning about class, sex and life.


Hero (1992)

Stephen Frears

When her plane crashes into a Chicago bridge, ace reporter Gale Gayley (Geena Davis) is saved by a mysterious hero. Joining Davis in this heart-warming Capra-esque comedy are Dustin Hoffman as the unlikely hero, and Andy Garcia as the homeless vet who impersonates him.


The Van

Stephen Frears

The story takes place in Barrytown, North Dublin in December of 1989. After just having received his pink-slip, Bimbo hits upon an idea: he'll buy a fish'n'chips van with his severance pay. His intrepid pal Weslie unearths a van at a reasonable price and Bimbo has his premises. It is dangerous, disgusting, beyond filthy and "like the inside of a leper," says Bimbo, but it does have four wheels and an engine. Bimbo offers to make Larry, his oldest and closest friend (and a fully paid member of the unemployed), a partner. Despite hair-raising encounters with hostile customers and supercilious officials, the van is an instant success.  But as business prospers, their friendship falters. Their uneasy relationship produces only mutual resentment and it threatens to turn violent; and an unhappy Bimbo makes a quixotic last bid, desperate, drunken - and daft - to put things back the way they were.


Mary Reilly

Stephen Frears

The classic horror story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde gets a chilling new twist when seen through the eyes of Dr. Jekyll's devoted maid Mary Reilly. Julia Roberts and John Malkovich, along with the writer and director of Dangerous Liasons, take terror to a new level as the immortal conflict between good and evil is played out in the soul of one man. Equally attracted to her kind employer Dr. Jekyll and his mysterious assistant Mr. Hyde, Mary Reilly must confront her own dangerous desires if she is to survive humanity's greatest evil.


Dangerous Liaisons

Stephen Frears

Three Academy Awards(R) went to this sly, seductive tale about the fatal attraction linking 18th century French aristocrats Glenn Close, John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer. From the international stage hit.


High Fidelity

Stephen Frears

From the guys who brought you Grosse Pointe Blank comes the absolutely hilarious High Fidelity. John Cusack (Being John Malkovich) stars as Rob Gordon, the owner of a semi-failing record store located on one of the back streets of Chicago. He sells music the old-fashioned way -- on vinyl, with two wacky clerks, the hysterically funny rock snob Barry (Jack Black) and the more quietly opinionated underachiever Dick (Todd Louiso). But Rob's business isn't the only thing in his life that's floundering -- his needle skips the love groove when his longtime girlfriend Laura (newcomer Iben Hjejle) walks out on him. And this forces him to examine his past failed attempts at romance the only way he knows how! For a rocking fun time, give High Fidelity a spin. It's sure to make your all-time top five list for comedies -- with a bullet.