Subgenre Sampler
Epic: 203 Films to Buy & Rent
Green Dolphin Street (1947)
- Dir. Victor Saville
Feat. Lana Turner, Van Heflin, Donna Reed…
- One of the biggest box office hits of its time, this sweeping colonial melodrama of unrequited lovers who migrate to Aotearoa in the 1850s has dated…
Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
- Dir. Gabriel Pascal
Feat. Vivien Leigh, Stewart Granger, Claude Rains…
- The oft–told tale of the First Roman Emperor and the Queen of Egpyt, here adapted from George Bernard Shaw's play. Stagey filming is offset by…
An American Romance (1944)
- Dir. King Vidor
Feat. Brian Donlevy, Ann Richards, Walter Abel…
- Ambitious technicolour drama from director King Vidor about a European immigrant to the USA, who builds his fortune in the automobile industry, and…
Ivan the Terrible Pts. 1 & 2 (1943)
- Dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Feat. Nikolai Cherkassov, Serafima Birman, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya
- Spectacularly staged chronicle of the life of Czar Ivan IV, and his struggle to consolidate the Russian empire in the 16th Century. One of the…
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The (1943)
- Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Feat. Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook
- The numerous off–beat adventures of a British soldier are chronicled over a period of three wars, with Deborah Kerr playing all three of the…
Munchhausen (1943)
- Dir. Josef von Baky
Feat. Hans Albers
- This adaptation of the Rudolph Raspe novel about the extraordinary tall–tales of a German baron is a genuine oddity, both historically and…
Arabian Nights (1942)
- Dir. John Rawlins
Feat. Jon Hall, Maria Montez, Sabu…
- Lavish sets and costumes distinguish this story of two brothers competing for the throne of Turkey and the hand of the fiery dancing girl played by…
Loyal 47 Ronin, The (47 Ronin) (1941)
- Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
Feat. Yoshizaburo Arashi
- Sombre rendition of a famous Japanese legend that's both quietly dignified and overtly nationalistic, tooled as propaganda during the height of…
Howards Of Virginia, The (1940)
- Dir. Frank Lloyd
Feat. Cary Grant, Martha Scott, Sir Cedric Hardwicke
- Cary Grant rather bumbles through this melodrama set during the American Revolution, playing a rugged surveyor who marries aristocrat and royalist…
Beau Geste (1939)
- Dir. William A. Wellman
Feat. Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston…
- Classic Hollywood gallantry with, Gary Cooper as the eldest of three brothers who run away to join the French Foreign Legion, only to clash bayonets…