war-horse
The critically acclaimed and international smash-hit play returns to cinemas for the first time this November to mark Remembrance Day.
At the outbreak of World War One, Albert’s beloved horse, Joey, is sold to the Cavalry and shipped to France. Though still not old enough to enlist he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.
Now seen by more than 8 million people around the world, this powerfully moving and imaginative drama is a show of phenomenal inventiveness. At its heart are astonishing life-size puppets by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, who bring breathing, galloping, charging horses to thrilling life on stage.
A National Theatre Production
BBFC rating 12A
cyrano-de-bergerac
James McAvoy (X-Men, Atonement) returns to the stage in an inventive new adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac.
Fierce with a pen and notorious in combat, Cyrano almost has it all - if only he could win the heart of his true love Roxane. There’s just one big problem: he has a nose as huge as his heart. Will a society engulfed by narcissism get the better of Cyrano - or can his mastery of language set Roxane’s world alight?
Filmed live on stage from London's West End, this classic play will be brought to life with linguistic ingenuity to celebrate Cyrano’s powerful and resonant resistance against overwhelming odds.
From The Jamie Lloyd Company
BBFC rating: 15
king-lear
See Ian McKellen’s ‘extraordinarily moving portrayal’ (Independent) of King Lear.
Considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written, King Lear sees two ageing fathers – one a King, one his courtier – reject the children who truly love them. Their blindness unleashes a tornado of pitiless ambition and treachery, as family and state are plunged into a violent power struggle with bitter ends.
Captured live from London’s West End in 2018, Jonathan Munby directs this contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s tender, violent, moving and shocking play.
From Chichester Festival Theatre
BBFC rating: 12A
coriolanus
Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers, The Night Manager) plays the title role in Shakespeare’s searing tragedy of political manipulation and revenge.
When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But he has enemies at home too.
As famine threatens the city, the citizens’ hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field, Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.
Directed by Josie Rourke (Les Liaisons Dangereuses), and filmed live on stage in 2014, Coriolanus now returns exclusively to the big screen.
A Donmar Warehouse production
BBFC rating 12A
frankenstein
Directed by Academy Award®-winner Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire), Frankenstein features Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange, Hamlet, Sherlock) and Jonny Lee Miller (Elementary, Trainspotting) alternating between the roles of Victor Frankenstein and his creation.
Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein’s bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the increasingly desperate and vengeful Creature determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.
Filmed live on-stage in 2011, this thrilling production became an international sensation, experienced by almost half a million people in cinemas around the world.
A National Theatre production
BBFC Rating 15
hansard
See two-time Olivier Award winners, Lindsay Duncan (Birdman, About Time) and Alex Jennings (The Lady in the Van, The Queen), captured live on-stage at the National Theatre in London.
It’s a summer’s morning in 1988. Tory politician Robin Hesketh has returned home to the idyllic Cotswold house he shares with his wife of 30 years, Diana. But all is not as blissful as it seems. Diana has a stinking hangover, a fox is destroying the garden, and secrets are being dug up all over the place. As the day draws on, what starts as gentle ribbing and the familiar rhythms of marital sparring quickly turns to blood-sport.
Simon Godwin (Antony & Cleopatra) directs this witty and devastating portrait of the governing class.
A National Theatre production
BBFC rating 12A
a-view-from-the-bridge
Filmed live on-stage from London’s West End, Arthur Miller’s dark and passionate play A View from the Bridge returns exclusively to cinema screens.
Ivo Van Hove (All About Eve, Network) directs Mark Strong (The Imitation Game; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Nicola Walker (The Split, Last Tango in Halifax) in this ‘magnetic, electrifying, astonishingly bold’ production (Evening Standard).
the-lehman-trilogy
The story of a family and a company that changed the world, told in three parts in a single play.
Academy Award-winner Sam Mendes (Skyfall, The Ferryman) directs Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles who play the Lehman brothers, their sons and grandsons. Filmed live on stage in Londn's West End.
On a cold September morning in 1844 a young man from Bavaria stands on a New York dockside. Dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers and an American epic begins. 163 years later, the firm they establish – Lehman Brothers – spectacularly collapses into bankruptcy, and triggers the largest financial crisis in history.
A co-production from National Theatre and Neal Street Productions
BBFC rating 12A
no-mans-land
Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart star in this glorious revival of Harold Pinter’s classic comedy, filmed live on stage from the West End in London.
One summer's evening, two ageing writers, Hirst and Spooner, meet in a Hampstead pub and continue their drinking into the night at Hirst's stately house nearby. As the pair become increasingly inebriated, and their stories increasingly unbelievable, the lively conversation soon turns into a revealing power game, further complicated by the return home of two sinister younger men.
From Playful Productions
BBFC rating 15