Pearls

Wild River

May 1960 •English

A young bureaucrat for the Tennessee Valley Authority goes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of a stubborn octogenarian from her home on an island in the river, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.

Bad Seed

July 1934 •French

A young man-about-Paris, cut off from his father's money, falls in with a picaresque gang of car thieves.

The Group

March 1966 •English

It's 1933, and eight young women are friends and members of the upper- class group at a private girl's school, about to graduate and start their own lives. The film documents the years between their graduation and the beginning of the World War in Europe, and shows, in a serialized style, their romances and marriages, their searches for careers or meaning in their lives, their highs and their lows.

Hyde Park on Hudson

December 2012 •English

The story of the love affair between FDR and his distant cousin Margaret Stuckley, centered around the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the United Kingdom visited upstate New York.

The Boys in the Boat

December 2023 •English

The triumphant underdog story of the University of Washington men's rowing team, who stunned the world by competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Olověný chléb

April 1954 •Czech

Cloud Atlas

October 2012 •English

A set of six nested stories spanning time between the 19th century and a distant post-apocalyptic future. Cloud Atlas explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Action, mystery and romance weave through the story as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. Based on the award winning novel by David Mitchell. Directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis.

The General Died at Dawn

November 1936 •English

China, 1930s, during the ravaging civil war. General Pen entrusts O'Hara, an intrepid American adventurer, with the mission of providing a large sum of money to Mr. Wu with the task of buying weapons in Shanghai to help end General Yang's tyranny that keeps an entire province under his ruthless iron boot.

Hemingway & Gellhorn

August 2012 •English

Writer Ernest Hemingway begins a romance with fellow scribe Martha Gellhorn.

Winter People

April 1989 •English

Wayland Jackson (Russell), a widower with a young daughter, moves to a small, impoverished mountain village in North Carolina, circa 1934. They are taken in by Collie Wright (McGillis), a single mother with an illegitimate baby, and she and Wayland soon fall in love. Trouble starts when the identity of her baby's father is revealed.

My Darling of the Mountains

May 2008 •Japanese

In the mountain hot springs of Izu, Japan, a love triangle is waiting to happen. It is the late 1930s when the paths of a stunning woman fleeing Tokyo, a handsome bachelor and a blind masseur cross.

Winter Journey

November 2019 •Danish

Tucson, Arizona, September 1996. At the request of his son Martin, George Goldsmith tells him of his past in Nazi Germany as a member of a family of Jewish musicians and the strange history of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, a Jewish organization sponsored by Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels.

Yellow Earth

August 1984 •Chinese

A communist soldier is sent to a remote region of China in order to collect folk songs. Staying with a peasant family (a widower with two small children), he discovers a community whose way of life is completely alien to him, but he gradually wins their trust…

Harlow

May 1965 •English

Loosely based biography of 1930s star Jean Harlow as she begins her climb to stardom. One of two "Harlow" film biographies that appeared in 1965, this one stars Carol Lynley in the title role that begins as Jean Harlow, a bit player in Laurel and Hardy comedies, is invited to test for director Jonathan Martin for the lead in Howard Hughes's "Hell's Angels." She is an instantaneous sensation, and in a series of films devoted more to her body than her talent, she becomes Hollywood's "Platinum Blonde."

Inside the Third Reich

May 1982 •English

A dramatization of the life of Albert Speer, Hitler's young architect and onetime confidant, and his meteoric rise into the Nazi hierarchy. Based upon Speer's own monograph of the same title.

Rytmus 1934

November 1980 •Czech

Lawless

August 2012 •English

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

Five Days One Summer

November 1982 •English

A 1930s Scottish doctor (Sean Connery) goes climbing in the Alps with an infatuated niece (Betsy Brantley) he passes off as his wife.

Gable and Lombard

February 1976 •English

A biography about the love affair between 1930s Hollywood superstars Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.

Big Time Gambling Boss

January 1968 •Japanese

Tokyo, 1934. The boss of the clan that controls gambling agonizes and some of his followers propose to Nakai to take his place, but he refuses the offer.