8 Movies Starring Lindsay Duncan

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A young boy tries to cope with rural life circa 1950s and his fantasies become a way to interpret events. After his father tells him stories of vampires, he becomes convinced that the widow up the road is a vampire, and tries to find ways of discouraging his brother from seeing her. He must deal with an abusive mother, a father with a charge of molestation, a band of youths creating havoc, and an unforgiving environment in general.

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When Bill Chrashank loses his arm in a car accident, the arm of an executed death row inmate is grafted on in its place. The only problem, as Bill soon discovers, is that the arm is possessed by a force he cannot control.

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At 10, Fanny Price, a poor relation, goes to live at Mansfield Park, the estate of her aunt's husband, Sir Thomas. Clever, studious, and a writer with an ironic imagination and fine moral compass, she becomes especially close to Edmund, Thomas's younger son. Fanny is soon possessed of beauty as well as a keen mind and comes to the attention of a neighbor, Henry Crawford. Thomas promotes this match, but to his displeasure, Fanny has a mind of her own, asking Henry to prove himself worthy. As Edmund courts Henry's sister and as light shines on the link between Thomas's fortunes and New World slavery, Fanny must assess Henry's character and assert her heart as well as her wit.

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Based on Charles Dickens' novel, this adaptation traces the childhood of an orphan whose mother dies giving birth to him in an English work-house in the 1820s. Little Oliver Twist, already abused, starved and overworked, is apprenticed to an undertaker and runs away to London after being bullied by an older apprentice. There, he is taken in by Fagin, a fence and thief-trainer, and his gang of pickpockets. He is befriended by Nancy, a good-hearted prostitute, and meets her lover, the brutal housebreaker Bill Sikes. But attempts by the gang to discredit him result in his being taken in by Mr. Brownlow, a wealthy and charitable man, who proves the catalyst for Oliver's discovery of his background and identity. Here Alan Bleasdale's dramatisation differs from Dickens' novel, in that Oliver does not fall into Brownlow's hands by coincidence, and we already know his back story: he's the child of a young woman named Agnes Fleming and her married lover, Edwin Leeford, who dies while on a trip to Rome to claim an inheritance he hopes will permit him to settle enough money on his estranged wife and their adolescent son, then retire somewhere with Agnes and her child. Edwin was married as a very young man to an ambitious older woman to suit both their families; they separated acrimoniously and she took their son, Edward, who was seriously injured in an accident as a child and left with several physical and emotional disorders as a result. Mrs. Leeford and Edward despise each other but she bullies him into helping her with her schemes and eventually he takes them up himself when he needs more money than his father's will permits him. Assuming the name Monks and descending into the London underworld, he contracts Fagin to find and educate Oliver, who can only inherit the Leeford fortune if he is of good character and behaviour. As in the novel, Nancy's affection for Oliver is crucial for him, but costly for her.

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Frances Mayes is a San Francisco based literature professor, literary reviewer and author, who is struggling in writing her latest book. Her outwardly perfect and stable life takes a turn when her husband files for divorce as he wants to marry the woman with who he is having an affair, the infidelity and marital problem of which Frances was unaware. As Frances was supporting him as he was writing his own book, he sues for alimony despite Frances not being wealthy herself. And he wants to keep the house. Frances eventually accepts her best friend Patti's offer of a vacation, a gay tour of Tuscany which Patti and her lesbian partner Grace originally purchased for themselves before Patti found out that she is pregnant. The gift is a means to escape dealing with the divorce, from which Patti feels Frances may never recover emotionally without some intervention. Feeling that Patti's assessment may be correct in that she has too much emotional baggage ever to return to San Francisco, Frances, while in Tuscany, impulsively ditches the tour to purchase an aged villa, which ends up being a fixer-upper. Frances has many obstacles in eking out a productive and happy life in her new surroundings, that happy life which she hopes will eventually include rediscovering romantic love. In a discussion with sympathetic real estate agent Signor Martini, Frances outlines what emotionally she wants to accomplish with the villa, despite none of those items in a substantive material sense currently being in her life. In response, Martini tells her the story of a set of railroad tracks that were laid between Vienna and Venice before an engine that could make the trek being built, a train which now regularly travels the route. The question becomes whether Frances, in going through the process, will be laying another Vienna to Venice track, and if so whether that end product emotionally will be exactly as she envisions.

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Biopic of Lord Longford, known for many years for his work with prisoners and prisoners rights in general. The film focuses on Longford's work on behalf of Myra Hindley convicted, along with her boyfriend Ian Brady, of several child murders. Hindley is nothing short of notorious and even Longord's wife is shocked when he announces that he will visit her in prison. When Prime Minister Harold Wilson removes him as the Government Leader in the House of Lords soon after his visits to Hindley are made public, Longford continues to work for her release. A devout convert to Roman Catholicism, Longford sees hope for Hindley when he learns that she too once converted to Catholicism. In the end, his campaign to get her released on parole is for naught when she reveals that other murders took place. Longford stood by his convictions however and never regretted the good work he had done over a great many years.

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In 1931 budding author Christopher Isherwood goes to Berlin at the invitation of his friend W. H. Auden for the gay sex that abounds in the city. Whilst working as an English teacher his housemates include bewigged old queen Gerald Hamilton and would-be actress Jean Ross, who sings tunelessly in a seedy cabaret club. They and others he meets get put into his stories. After a fling with sexy rent boy Caspar, he falls for street sweeper Heinz, paying medical bills for the boy's sickly mother, to the disapproval of her other son, Nazi Gerhardt. With Fascism rapidly rising Christopher returns to London with Heinz but is unable to prevent his return to Germany when his visa expires. Years later Christopher, now a successful writer, returns to Berlin for a final meeting with Heinz, now married with children.

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A British couple return to Paris many years after their honeymoon there in an attempt to rejuvenate their marriage.