24 Movies Starring Ian Holm

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Paul Baumer is a young German who, along with his graduating high school classmates, enlist in the German Imperial Army during the First World War. Originally thinking war would be a great adventure, Paul and his friends discover exactly the opposite as the war drags on and one by one the members of the class are killed in action until only Paul remains.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

A shipping disaster in the 19th Century has stranded a man and woman in the wilds of Africa. The lady is pregnant, and gives birth to a son in their tree house. Soon after, a family of apes stumble across the house and in the ensuing panic, both parents are killed. A female ape takes the tiny boy as a replacement for her own dead infant, and raises him as her son. Twenty years later, Captaine Phillippe D'Arnot discovers the man who thinks he is an ape. Evidence in the tree house leads him to believe that he is the direct descendant of the Earl of Greystoke, and thus takes it upon himself to return the man to civilization.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Sam Lowry is a harried technocrat in a futuristic society that is needlessly convoluted and inefficient. He dreams of a life where he can fly away from technology and overpowering bureaucracy, and spend eternity with the woman of his dreams. While trying to rectify the wrongful arrest of one Harry Buttle, Lowry meets the woman he is always chasing in his dreams, Jill Layton. Meanwhile, the bureaucracy has fingered him responsible for a rash of terrorist bombings, and both Sam and Jill's lives are put in danger.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Ruth Ellis lives with her 10-year old son Andy next to a night club. One night she meets David Blakely, and they start a love affair. However, for David with his upper-class background it is impossible to uphold the relationship. He breaks up with her, something which makes Ellis, obsessed by him, very upset...

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Exploring the somewhat darker and more mysterious side of the Lewis Carroll's classic book, the movie follows Alice Liddell (the book's inspiration) as an old woman who is haunted by the characters she was once so amused by. As she thinks back on it, she starts to see her relationship with the shy author/professor in a new way and realizes the vast change between the young Alice and the old.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Having recently turned fifty, Marion feels that she has led a so far blessed life. The well-respected Dean of Philosophy at a women's college, she is currently on sabbatical to write her latest book. Although her first husband Sam died tragically fourteen years ago from a mixture of alcohol and pills, she has recently remarried to Ken, who, married at the time, pursued her, while Ken's writer friend, Larry, also professed his love for her. She has a good relationship with her step-daughter Laura, seemingly better than Laura has with either Ken or Laura's own volatile mother, Kathy. Between her and her brother Paul, Marion always had the attention of their academic father. And she and Ken have a wide circle of friends with who they regularly and willingly socialize. But a series of incidents with these people in her life makes Marion wonder about the decisions that she's made, most specifically whether her cerebral and judgmental nature has been alienating to those around her. One of these incidents is the surprise reunion she has with her best childhood friend, an actress named Claire. But arguably the most illuminating incidents involve encounters with Hope, a despondent patient of her workspace neighbor psychiatrist, whose therapy sessions Marion can hear through the building's ventilation system. The questions become if Marion will fully be able to comprehend the extent to which these decisions have negatively affected her life and relationships, and if so if she can make the necessary changes at this stage in her life path to be more fulfilled.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Kafka, an insurance worker gets embroiled in an underground group after a co-worker is murdered. The underground group is responsible for bombings all over town, attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society. He eventually penetrates the secret organization and must confront them.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Not an adaptation of beat writer William S. Burrough's novel but a mix of biography and an interpretation of his drug- induced writing processes combined with elements of his work in this paranoid fantasy about Bill Lee, a writer who accidentally shoots his wife, whose typewriter transforms into a cockroach and who becomes involved in a mysterious plot in North African port called Interzone. Wonderfully bizarre, not unlike Burrough's books.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Dr. Dempsey, an American scientist who has become a skeptic after a disastrous wrong call, isn't exactly enthusiastic to be sent by his well-funded employer to Scotland to (dis)prove the existence of the Loch Ness monster, but has no choice. He finds the locals stubborn, 'primitive' and all but hospitable, not in the least because the Nessie legend is the only tourist attraction, but still gets romantically attracted by his independent inn-keeper Laura, and both her kid and his enthusiastic local assistant end up making him face a small family of Nessie-dinosaurs, but is this to be made public?

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

In the twenty-third century, the universe is threatened by evil. The only hope for mankind is the Fifth Element, who comes to Earth every five thousand years to protect the humans with four stones of the four elements: fire, water, Earth and air. A Mondoshawan spacecraft is bringing The Fifth Element back to Earth but it is destroyed by the evil Mangalores. However, a team of scientists use the DNA of the remains of the Fifth Element to rebuild the perfect being called Leeloo. She escapes from the laboratory and stumbles upon the taxi driver and former elite commando major Korben Dallas that helps her to escape from the police. Leeloo tells him that she must meet Father Vito Cornelius to accomplish her mission. Meanwhile, the Evil uses the greedy and cruel Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg and a team of mercenary Mangalores to retrieve the stones and avoid the protection of Leeloo. But the skilled Korben Dallas has fallen in love with Leeloo and decides to help her to retrieve the stones.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Sean Casey is the newest member of the district attorneys office and he is close to uncovering a police scandal that might involve his father Liam, who works for the NYPD. Then his father is critically wounded in a stake-out, Sean is chosen to prosecute the case.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

A small community is torn apart by a tragic accident which kills most of the town's children. A lawyer visits the victims' parents in order to profit from the tragedy by stirring up the their anger and launching a class action suit against anyone they can blame. The community is paralyzed by its anger and cannot let go. All but one young girl, left in a wheelchair after the accident, who finds the courage to lead the way toward healing.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

It is 1888 in London, and the unfortunate poor lead horrifying lives in the city's deadliest slum, Whitechapel. Harassed by gangs and forced to walk the streets for a living, Mary Kelly and her small group of companions trudge on through this daily misery, their only consolation being that things can't get any worse. Yet things somehow do when their friend Ann is kidnapped and they are drawn into a conspiracy with links higher up than they could possibly imagine. The kidnapping is soon followed by the gruesome murder of another woman, Polly, and it becomes apparent that they are being hunted down, one by one. Sinister even by Whitechapel standards, the murder grabs the attention of Inspector Fred Abberline, a brilliant yet troubled man whose police work is often aided by his psychic abilities. Abberline becomes deeply involved with the case, which takes on personal meaning to him when he and Mary begin to fall in love. But as he gets closer to the truth Whitechapel becomes more and more dangerous for Abberline, Mary, and the other girls. Whoever is responsible for the grisly acts is not going to give up his secret without a fight....will they be able to survive the avenging force that has been sent after them from hell?

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Allegra Geller, the leading game designer in the world, is testing her new virtual reality game, eXistenZ with a focus group. As they begin, she is attacked by a fanatic assassin employing a bizarre organic gun. She flees with a young marketing trainee, Ted Pikul, who is suddenly assigned as her bodyguard. Unfortunately, her pod, an organic gaming device that contains the only copy of the eXistenZ game program, is damaged. To inspect it, she talks Ted into accepting a gameport in his own body so he can play the game with her. The events leading up to this, and the resulting game lead the pair on a strange adventure where reality and their actions are impossible to determine from either their own or the game's perspective.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

A Jewish girl in 19th century London dreams of becoming a stage actress.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

A satire of Stalinist Russia, Animal Farm tells of the revolt of the animals of Manor Farm against their human masters. Led by the pigs Snowball (Lenin) and Napoleon (Stalin), the animals attempt to create a utopian society. Soon, however, Napoleon gets a taste for power, drives out Snowball, and establishes a totalitarian regime as brutal and corrupt as any human society. Manor Farm becomes a world where all animals are equal--but some are more equal than others.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Wisconsin Death Trip is an intimate, shocking and sometimes hilarious account of the disasters that befell one small town in Wisconsin during the final decade of the 19th century. The film is inspired by Michael Lesy's book of the same name which was first published in 1973. Lesy discovered a striking archive of black and white photographs in the town of Black River Falls dating from the 1890s and married a selection of these images to extracts from the town's newspaper from the same decade. The effect was surprising and disturbing. The town of Black River Falls seems gripped by some peculiar malaise and the weekly news is dominated by bizarre tales of madness, eccentricity and violence amongst the local population. Suicide and murder are commonplace. People in the town are haunted by ghosts, possessed by devils and terrorized by teenage outlaws and arsonists. Like the book, the film is constructed entirely from authentic news reports from the Black River Falls' newspaper with occasional excerpts from the records of the nearby Mendota Asylum for the Insane. The film also makes use of the haunting black and white photographs taken by the resident portrait photographer of Black River Falls at the end of the 19th century. Contemporary color documentary footage of the town today is also included at the end of each section of the film that take place over the course of four seasons.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Napoleon, exiled, devises a plan to retake the throne. He'll swap places with commoner Eugene Lenormand, sneak into Paris, then Lenormand will reveal himself and Napoleon will regain his throne. Things don't go at all well; first, the journey proves more difficult than expected, but more disastrously, Lenormand enjoys himself too much to reveal the deception. Napoleon adjusts somewhat uneasily to the life of a commoner while waiting, while Lenormand gorges on rich food.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

This documentary chronicles the life of Kurt Gerron, a German Jew who rose to prominence as an actor and director in prewar Germany and was eventually coerced by the Nazis into making a film portraying the concentration camp called Terezin (or Theresienstadt) seem like an ideal community of relocated Jews. A well-crafted documentary adeptly narrated by actor Ian Holm, "Prisoner of Paradise" is a fresh reminder that we should never forget what happened.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

A rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great French chef despite his family's wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. When fate places Remy in the sewers of Paris, he finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. Despite the apparent dangers of being an unlikely - and certainly unwanted - visitor in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant, Remy's passion for cooking soon sets into motion a hilarious and exciting rat race that turns the culinary world of Paris upside down.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Paris, 2054: a dark motion-captured world of shadows and right angles. Ilona Tasuiev, a brilliant young scientist, is kidnapped, and her employer, Avalon, a major health and beauty corporation, wants her found. Karas, a jaded police captain, is assigned to find her, fast. He seeks help from her sister, Bislane, and they are soon uncovering identify theft, missing files, and hints that something back in 2006 may explain what's going on. Ilona's mentor, Avalon's vice president, a Japanese researcher, an underworld boss, and Bislane's drug connection all figure in the mix. So does an attraction between Karas and Bislane. What's behind the kidnapping? Who's the victim?

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Jake Singer is at loose ends in NYC, and neck deep in psychoanalysis with the outrageous Dr. Morales when he meets the enigmatic and beautiful widow Allegra Marshall.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Fullplot:

In 1066, King Edward The Confessor of England dies leaving his crown to Anglo-Saxon Harold Godwinson. In doing this, King Edward disregards his earlier promises to give the throne of England to one of his legitimate successors from among his Flemish, Viking or Norman relatives.As a result of this unwise decision, a contest for the English crown begins. While an Armada of Viking ships under Viking King Hardrada invades the north of England, a Norman invasion, led by William Duke of Normandy, strikes the south. Caught in a giant pincer movement, the new English king Harold Godwinson and his small army must rush to the north to deal with the Viking invasion while planning an eventual mad dash to the south to face the Normans. The fate of Anglo-Saxon England hangs into balance.