Bernardo Bertolucci

After her husband is arrested in Africa, Shandurai flees to an enchanting villa in Rome where she gains employment working for an eccentric recluse and falls in love.

In Mussolini's Italy, repressed Jean-Louis Trintignant, trying to purge memories of a youthful, homosexual episode--and murder--joins the Fascists in a desperate attempt to fit in. As the reluctant Judas motors to his personal Gethsemane (the assassination of his leftist mentor), he flashes back to a dance party for the blind; an insane asylum in a stadium; and wife Stefania Sandrelli and lover Dominique Sanda dancing the tango in a working class...

This is the explosive story of film in the late 50s and 60s. The great movie star Claudia Cardinale talks exclusively about Federico Fellini. In Denmark, Lars Von Trier describes his admiration for Ingmar Bergman, and Bernardo Bertolucci remembers his work with Pier Paolo Pasolini. We discover how French filmmakers planted a bomb under the movies and see how the new wave it caused swept across Europe.

In part 4, we see how the coming of sound in the 1930s upended everything. We watch the birth of new types of film: screwball comedies, gangster pictures,horror films, westerns and musicals, and discover a master of most of them: Howard Hawks. Far away from Hollywood, in England Alfred Hitchcock hits his stride and French directors become masters of mood. And we discover that three of the great films of 1939 – The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind...

This part explores the story of sex and melodrama in the movies of the 50s. We discover James Dean, On the Waterfront and the glossy weepies of the time, but also travel to Egypt, India, China, Mexico, Britain and Japan to find that movies there were also full of rage and passion. Features exclusive interviews with the people who worked with Satyajit Ray, with legendary actress Kyoko Kagawa--who starred in films by Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu,...

Few saw it coming, but cinema around the world in the 90s entered a golden age. The story starts in Iran, where we meet Abbas Kiarostami, who rethought movie making and made it more real. Then we meet Shinya Tsukamoto, who laid the ground for the bold new Japanese horror cinema. From Tokyo, the story moves to Paris where one of the world's greatest directors, Claire Denis, talks exclusively about her work. The story ends in Mexico with the blossoming...

With Ronald Reagan in the White House and Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street, the 1980s were the years of protest in the movies. This is the story of how brave filmmakers spoke truth to power. American independent director John Sayles talks exclusively about these years. In Beijing we discover the blossoming of Chinese cinema before the Tian'anmen crackdown. In the Soviet Union, the past wells up in astonishing films, and in Poland the master director...

Star Wars, Jaws and The Exorcist created the multiplexes, but they were also innovative. The Story of Film: Part 11 explains how, and then travels to India where the world's most famous movie star, Amitabh Bachchan, shows how Bollywood was doing new things in the 70s. And we discover that Bruce Lee movies in Hong Kong kickstarted the kinetic films of Hong Kong, where Master Yuen Wo Ping talks exclusively about his action movies and his wire fu choreography...

This is the story of the brilliant, flashy, playful movies in the English-speaking world in the 90s. We look at what was new in Tarantino's dialogue and the edge of the Coen brothers. The writer of Starship Troopers and Robocop talks exclusively about their irony. In Australia, Baz Luhrmann talks about Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge and we plunge into the digital world to see how it changed the movies forever.

This is the fascinating story of the movies in the roaring 20s. We see how Hollywood became a glittering entertainment industry and how star directors like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton emerged. But the gloss and fantasy was challenged by movie makers like Robert Flaherty, Eric Von Stroheim and Carl Theodor Dreyer, who wanted films to be more serious and mature. Filmed in Hollywood, Denmark and Moscow, this part looks at the battle over the soul...