Historical Romance

The story of independent, beautiful and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene (

Kate Croy's (Helena Bonham Carter's) mother was born to wealth and privilege, but she threw it all away to marry Kate's Father (Sir Michael Gambon), a penniless opium addict who admits to having stolen from his wife. After her mother's death, Kate is offered an opportunity to return to the life her mother gave up. There is one condition, however: Kate must sever all of her old ties, not only to her father, but also to her lover, the muck-raking journalist Merton Densher (Linus Roache), whom she has promised marriage. Kate reluctantly agrees to this, and in the meantime becomes friendly with "the world's richest orphan", Milly Theale (Alison Elliott), an American making the Grand Tour. Desperate to see Kate, Merton crashes a party that she and Milly are attending, and Milly is attracted to him. When Kate learns that Milly is dying, she comes up with a plan to have her cake and eat it too, but all does not go as planned.

Charlotte (Cate Blanchett), a young Scottish woman, who has studied in France, is living in London during World War II. Within a few weeks she falls in love with a young pilot and is recruited by the Secret Service to act as a courier for the French Resistance. However, her mission behind enemy lines becomes a personal mission to find her lover who has been shot down. Assigned to a Communist Resistance group, she encounters acts of betrayal from sometimes unexpected sources, but meets the violence of war and her own disappointment with hope.

The year is 1795 and young Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) is a feisty twenty-year-old and emerging writer who already sees a world beyond class and commerce, beyond pride and prejudice, and dreams of doing what was then nearly unthinkable, marrying for love. Naturally, her parents are searching for a wealthy, well-appointed husband to assure their daughter's future social standing. They are eyeing Mr. Wisley (Laurence Fox), nephew to the very formidable, not to mention very rich, local aristocrat Lady Gresham (Dame Maggie Smith), as a prospective match. But when Jane meets the roguish and decidedly non-aristocratic Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy), sparks soon fly along with the sharp repartee. His intellect and arrogance raise her ire, then knock her head over heels. Now, the couple, whose flirtation flies in the face of the sense and sensibility of the age, is faced with a terrible dilemma. If they attempt to marry, they will risk everything that matters - family, friends, and fortune.

During World War II, the organisation "The Women's Land Army" recruited women to work on British farms while the men were off to war. Three such "land girls" of different social backgrounds - quiet Stella, young hairdresser Prue, and Cambridge graduate Ag - become best friends in spite of their different backgrounds.

Georgiana Spencer became Duchess of Devonshire on her marriage to the Duke in 1774, at the height of the Georgian period, a period of fashion, decadence, and political change. Spirited and adored by the public at large she quickly found her marriage to be a disappointment, defined by her duty to produce a male heir and the Duke's philandering and callous indifference to her. She befriends Lady Bess but finds she is once again betrayed by her husband who wields his power with the three eventually living uncomfortably together. Against this background, and with the pressures of an unfaithful husband, strict social pressures and constant public scrutiny, Georgiana falls passionately in love with Charles Grey, a rising young Whig politician. However, despite his ongoing liaison with Lady Bess, the Duke refuses to allow her to continue the affair and threatens to take her children from her.

On a rainy night in 1933, the young, rebellious and provocative heiress of a French champagne magnate, Gilda Bessé, storms into the quiet life of the timid Oxford undergraduate, Guy Malyon, taking him by surprise. And before he knows it, Guy is love-smitten, and taken in the Parisian apartment of the now famous photographer, Gilda, living under the same roof with her muse and Spanish political idealist, Mia. However, as Spain gradually succumbs to the Nationalists, Mia and Guy's commitment to the cause of the Spanish Republic will threaten to break up their bohemian and almost idyllic coexistence. In the end, as

When Mr. Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson) dies, he must leave the bulk of his estate to the son by his first marriage, which leaves his second wife and their three daughters Elinor (Dame Emma Thompson), Marianne (Kate Winslet), and Margaret (Emilie François), in straitened circumstances. They are taken in by a kindly cousin, but their lack of fortune affects the marriageability of practical Elinor and romantic Marianne. When Elinor forms an attachment for the wealthy Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant), his family disapproves and separates them. And though Mrs. Jennings (Elizabeth Spriggs) tries to match the worthy (and rich) Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman) to her, Marianne finds the dashing and fiery John Willoughby (Greg Wise) more to her taste. Both relationships are sorely tried.

Late 19th century England; Jude, an intelligent but unworldly stonemason, looks to escape rural poverty by gaining a university education. Toward this goal, when his wife Arabella leaves him, he moves to Christminster where he meets and falls recklessly in love with Sue, his beautiful and intelligent cousin. Though the two realize their destinies are intertwined, when he reveals his previous marriage, she is deeply hurt and in a perverse act of retaliation, marries another man. Broke and denied entrance to the university, he returns to his hometown. Some time later, at the funeral for their common aunt, Sue reveals to Jude that she's desperately unhappy. Soon an illicit romance begins between them until Sue's husband steps aside finally allowing Jude and Sue to be together openly. The two have children and live together as an unmarried couple. Though they must endure social and financial hardship, the two finally find happiness together, until tragedy strikes.

June 1940. German troops are advancing on Paris. Odile, a widowed teacher, succumbs to the widespread panic and, with her two children, joins the exodus from the city. Philippe is on the cusp of adolescence, Little Cathy knows only that they are going South. After fifty kilometres, a German plane attacks, decimating the helpless refugees. Odile and her children lose everything. A shaven-headed youth appears from nowhere and leads them away from the carnage. His name is Yvan, he's seventeen years old. Cut off from the rest of the world and living in confined quarters, Odile and Yvan find themselves confronted with their own desires.

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska) goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Edward Rochester (Michael Fassbender). Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

A correspondence begins between Juliet Ashton (Lily James) and members of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, with them sharing their experiences of Nazi-occupied Guernsey Island. When an idea for a book catches Juliet, she goes to visit the island, making life-long friends and taking life changing steps along the way. This book is told by way of letters, and as the reader, you become enchanted by the writers of them and the love Juliet comes to feel for each of the Islanders; Dawsey Adams (Michiel Huisman), Amelia Maugery (Dame Penelope Wilton), Isola Pribby (Katherine Parkinson), Eben Ramsey (Sir Tom Courtenay), Kit (Florence Keen), and Elizabeth McKenna (Jessica Brown Findlay).

An affair between the second in line to Britain's throne and the princess of the feuding Irish spells doom for the young lovers.

In a small town in the West of France, during the German Occupation, a room is requisitioned by a Wehrmacht captain, Werner von Ebrennac. The house where he now stays is inhabited by young Jeanne, who makes a living by giving piano lessons, and by her grandfather. Quite upset, the two "hosts" decide to resist the occupier by never speaking a word to him. Now Werner is a lover of France and its culture, and he tries to persuade them that a rapprochement between Germany and France would be beneficial for the two nations. Quite unexpectedly Jeanne, little by little, falls in love with Werner. At the same time, the francophile officer loses his illusions, realizing at last that what Nazi Germany actually wants is to thrall France and to stifle its culture...

Two feisty, free-spirited women are connected by the brilliant, charismatic poet who loves them both. The passion and pathos of legendary poet Dylan Thomas is told through the lives of two extraordinary women. Vera Phillips and Dylan were teenage loves; fast forward ten years and the two reconnect in London. She's working as a singer whilst he's churning out scripts for government propaganda films and living off the last in a long line of infatuated women. The two former lovers feel the thunderbolt once more, but Thomas is now married to the adventurous Caitlin. Despite their love-rival status, the women form a surprising friendship. Caitlin indulges in her own infidelities, and recognises a similar adventurous spirit in her husband. But she knows his connection with Vera is something different, not to mention dangerous. Romantic turmoil continues in Vera's life. She marries her devoted admirer William Killick, but she can't deny the chemistry between herself and Dylan, nor does she want to - even if this means betraying Caitlin. When William is posted abroad, and a pregnant Vera returns to Wales with her married friends, the battle between her heart and head becomes more intense. William returns a changed man, but neither is Vera the carefree cabaret girl he married. Neighbourhood gossip fuels her husband's jealousy towards his rival. Enraged, William stages a violent attack on Dylan - an attack that forces Vera to choose between the men in her life and the friend that she loves. Desire and guilt are complicated by love and friendship in this real-life tale set in beautiful London and the majestic Welsh countryside.

The story is based on Jane Austen's novel about five sisters - Jane (Rosamund Pike), Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), Mary (Talulah Riley), Kitty (Carey Mulligan), and Lydia Bennet (Jena Malone) - in Georgian England. Their lives are turned upside down when wealthy young Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) and his best friend, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), arrive in their neighborhood.

October 1944 in war torn Italy. Hana (Juliette Binoche), a French-Canadian nurse working in a mobile army medical unit, feels like everything she loves in life dies on her. Because of the difficulty traveling and the dangers, especially as the landscape is still heavily booby-trapped with mines, Hana volunteers to stay behind at a church to care solely for a dying semi-amnesiac patient, who is badly burned and disfigured. She agrees to catch up to the rest of the unit after he dies. All the patient remembers is that he is English, and that he is married. Their solitude is disrupted with the arrival at the church of fellow Canadian David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), part of the Intelligence Service, who is certain that he knows the patient as a man who cooperated with the Germans. Caravaggio believes that the patient's memory is largely intact, and that he is running away from his past, in part, or in its entirety. The patient does open up about his past, all surrounding his work as a cartographer in North Africa, which was interrupted by the war. He may not be running from his work as a spy for the Germans as Caravaggio believes, but rather the memory of an affair he had with married Katharine Clifton (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas), the love of his life, and the memory of a promise not totally fulfilled. Hana may also test her theory of her fates with love and death as she embarks on a relationship of her own with Kip Singh (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh from India, whose unit has camped on the now overgrown lawn of the church. Their work entails sweeping for and diffusing mines, the discovery of one such mine which had earlier saved her life.

It's 1955. Frank and April Wheeler, are in the 'seven year itch' of their marriage; they're not happy. April has forgone her dream of being an actress, and Frank hates his job. One day, April suggests they move to Paris as a means to rejuvenate their life.