Barbara Field, born into poverty with a rare condition that means she is entirely covered in hair. Given the precious gift of an education, she is offered the opportunity of a place in the luxurious and decadent court of King Charles II, as a “Natural Wonder” where people with extraordinary appearances mix with the aristocracy.
Barbara Field, born into poverty with a rare condition that means she is entirely covered in hair. Given the precious gift of an education, she is offered the opportunity of a place in the luxurious and decadent court of King Charles II, as a “Natural Wonder” where people with extraordinary appearances mix with the aristocracy.
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Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Veronica is brilliant, gifted and beautiful, but the handsome aristocrat she loves, Marco Venier, cannot marry her because she is penniless and of questionable family. So Veronica's mother, Paola, teaches her to become a courtesan, one of the exotic companions favored by the richest and most powerful Venetian men. Veronica courageously uses her charms to change destiny -- and to give herself a chance at true love.
After an abrupt and violent encounter with a French warship inflicts severe damage upon his ship, a captain of the British Royal Navy begins a chase over two oceans to capture or destroy the enemy, though he must weigh his commitment to duty and ferocious pursuit of glory against the safety of his devoted crew, including the ship's thoughtful surgeon, his best friend.
A story of love and life among the landed English gentry during the Georgian era. Mr. Bennet is a gentleman living in Hertfordshire with his overbearing wife and five daughters, but if he dies their house will be inherited by a distant cousin whom they have never met, so the family's future happiness and security is dependent on the daughters making good marriages.
The immature young ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Joseph, was extremely shy around women but (according to this film) was constantly being propositioned, lewdly or otherwise, by ambitious courtesans. When he was finally married to his Empress, the teen-aged Bavarian princess Sisi (Elizabeth), it seems that his relief knew no bounds, for he was now sure that he would never have to think about sex ever again. According to the filmmakers, this is the true history of that marriage. This story is a complete reversal of the romantic legend depicted in the popular 1955 film Sissi, which helped brighten the emerging stardom of Romy Schneider.
After the Germans flooded large parts of The Netherlands towards the end of WWII, the Brouwer family find themselves trapped in their attic surrounded by water. With their rations dwindling, tensions arise within the household.
In a beauty salon in Beirut the lives of five women cross paths. The beauty salon is a colorful and sensual microcosm where they share and entrust their hopes, fears and expectations.
Sergei, an aspiring musician, accidentally meets a deaf-mute girl, Natasha, and falls in love with her. He has to change a lot to prepare himself for a new relationship with a different and very vulnerable person. Natasha is like an alien or an alieness with whom Sergei has to find a completely new language to speak. Natasha tries hard to understand his musical world. The problem is that Natasha lost her hearing during the war and associates sounds with fear and pain. Even a symphony concert is torture for her.
Set in the 19th century, "Moeyo Ken" follows the life of Toshizo Hijikata. He was the vice-commander of the Shinsengumi and fought against the Meiji Restoration.
The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, whose chances at marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. When Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son from his first marriage, John and wife Fanny. But these circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's current wife, and daughters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.
Despite mixed emotions, Frederick Winterbourne tries to figure out the bright and bubbly Daisy Miller, only to be helped and hindered by false judgments from their fellow friends.
After a stormy night on the sea, a group of Estonian fishermen end up in a small coastal Finnish town. As they await the Soviet authorities to take them back home, some of the fishermen contemplate leaving their former lives in a Soviet era Estonia behind.
This film, adapted from a work of fiction by author Tracy Chevalier, tells a story about the events surrounding the creation of the painting "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. A young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works.
Composer Gustav von Aschenbach travels to Venice for health reasons. There, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent Polish boy named Tadzio who is staying with his family at the same Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido as Aschenbach.
Early 20th century in a remote place in Catalonia. Mila, a newly wed young woman is forced by her husband and some circumstances to move to a remote location in the mountains. Marital problems arise in this lonely atmosphere but Mila finds comfort in Gaietà, a shepherd who incarnates the values of land and nature. Based on the novel Solitud by Victor Català (1905).
A recent widow invites her husband's troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss.
Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.