Best Selling Historical DVDs

Young Albert enlists to serve in World War I after his beloved horse is sold to the cavalry. Albert's hopeful journey takes him out of England and across Europe as the war rages on. **Cover Artwork Not Final**

Tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel ...

A movie spun out of equal parts folk tale, fable and real-life legend about the mysterious, 1930s Tennessee hermit who famously threw his own rollicking funeral party while he was still alive. Awash in in humanity, warmth, insight, and wit, this excellent film stars Robert Duvall, who once again pro...

Two poor Chinese gold miners in Otago in 1895 dream of returning home after 12 years. Chan has a wife in China, as well as a child that he has not seen. One day they find enough gold to pay their debts and return home. Chan goes to town to buy supplies and pay the debts. He encounters prejudice, rel...

In 1912, the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic sails from Southampton with 2207 passengers on board. They excitedly dine and dance and the sea is incredibly calm. Then a look-out spots an iceberg looming up directly ahead. The boat steers away, but the submerged part of the berg rips a 300-foot gash under the wa...

Fully restored including a 30 minute retrospective documentary. This BAFTA and Emmy award-winning BBC series ranks as one of the greatest ever television adaptations. Returning to the original negatives the classic drama has now been painstakingly restored frame-by-frame. Colours are now rich and vi...

The story of an American spy who arrives in Shanghai during the winter of 1941 to discover his friend has been killed. Driven to investigate the murder, he is drawn into an ever increasing web of mystery, conspiracy and deceit. Shanghai is set in China just before Pearl Harbor when most of the count...

How did one woman save 2500 children? A sprawling retelling of the courageous young woman and her small band of friends who, against all odds, helped scores of Jewish children escape the Nazi occupied Warsaw Ghetto. This often heartbreaking and triumphant tale of the human spirit is anchored by a...

The two-part saga Return to Cranford opens to a struggling Cranford, a traditional English village that in autumn 1844 is airing the conflicts that accompany progress. Miss Matty Jenkyns (Judi Dench), after having closed her business in the last series, is happily babysitting the child of he...

In 140 AD, twenty years after the unexplained disappearance of the entire Ninth Legion in the mountains of Scotland, young centurion Marcus Aquila (Tatum) arrives from Rome to solve the mystery and restore the reputation of his father, the commander of the Ninth. Accompanied only by his British slav...

A classic adaptation of one of Jane Austen’s most admired novels, Jane Austen’s romantic masterpiece comes to DVD in a thrilling new production from the BBC. At the age of nineteen, Anne Elliot fell deeply in love with handsome young naval officer Frederick Wentworth. But with neither...

Hot-tempered, self-centered, part-Irish Southern beauty Scarlett O'Hara, played to the teeth by Vivien Leigh, loves the gentlemanly Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard). Smug, rebellious, honest blockade-running profiteer Rhett Butler, portrayed gracefully and naturally by Clark Gable, loves Scarlett. Ashl...

Anne Hathaway, Dame Maggie Smith and Julie Walters star in this period romantic drama and biographical portrait of the young Jane Austen, and the love affair Austen began as a 20-year-old with brilliant, roguish Irishman Tom Lefroy, that inspired her career as one of the world's great romantic write...

Inspired by the best-selling novel by Lisa See, this is the remarkable story of seven-year-old girls Snow Flower and Lily, in 19th Century China, who had their feet bound at the same age and on the same day, which sealed their fates together. In a parallel story in present day Shanghai, their descen...

A remarkable memoir of resilience, determination and love. Based on filmmaker Gaylene Preston's interviews with her father about his World War II experiences, reconstructed with actor Tony Barry as Ed Preston. Weaving strands of poetic imagined drama, and archival footage into the interview, Pres...

With their father away fighting in the Civil War, Joe, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their squabbles and tragedies. But the bond holds even when, later, men friends start to become a part of the household. ...

Albert Nobbs struggles to survive in late 19th century Ireland, where women aren't encouraged to be independent. Posing as a man, so she can work as a butler in Dublin's most posh hotel, Albert meets a handsome painter and looks to escape the lie she has been living.

History remembers Countess Bathory as the most sadistic murderess who ever lived - a monstrous killer of more than 650 innocent lives, delighting in the torture of her victims, tearing the flesh from their bodies with her bare teeth and bathing in their still warm blood in an unholy quest for immort...

This magnificent collection features contemporary adaptations of four Jane Austen novels - entertaining and modern costume dramas, whilst staying true to the plot. Pride and Prejudice Remastered (1995) plunges the viewer into a 19th century world of grand country estates and eligible bachelors. This...

1842. Cranford, a market town in the North West of England, is a place governed by etiquette, custom and above all, an intricate network of ladies. It seems that life has always been conducted according to their social rules, but Cranford is on the cusp of change. For spinsters Deborah Jenkyns, t...

Oliver Twist: Academy Award-winning writer James Goldman gives the immortal character of Dickens’ Oliver Twist a new dimension of realism in this outstanding adaptation. The story of an orphan boy in Victorian London who grows up through a hard life being befriended by both criminals and the rich on...

Atonement: Fledgling writer Briony Tallis, as a 13-year-old, irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's (Keira Knightley) lover (James McAvoy) of a crime he did not commit. Based on the British romance novel by Ian McEwan. Pride & Prejudice: The stor...

A decade of preparation and two years of filming went into the making of this all-time classic version of Leo Tolstoy's 20th-century masterpiece. The personal stories of many characters, love affairs and philosophies are woven throughout this massive and intricate tapestry of Russia during Napoleon'...

South Africa, 1901. The British war against the Boers has deteriorated into bitter guerrilla warfare. A unit of the Carbineers made up mainly of Australians, is ordered by there British High Command to fight the Boer on its terms and take no prisoners, an order which will prove fatal to a man the...

In The Railway Children [2000], Jenny Agutter (who played Bobbie in a 1970 film version) stars as Mother alongside Sir Richard Attenborough in a Masterpiece Theater television presentation of Edith Nesbit's popular novel. Set in Yorkshire at the dawn of the 20th century, The Railway Children is ...

The life story of Victorian England's most acclaimed writer, Charles Dickens, is beautifully reenacted in these thirteen intriguing episodes. Following his hardships and the poverty of his childhood, it traces his career in writing and his peak in popularity as a public performer on both sides of th...

Freedom begins with an act of defiance! Jewish brothers in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe escape into the Belarussian forests, where they join Russian resistance fighters and endeavor to build a village in order to protect themselves and about 1,000 Jewish non-combatants.

From visionary director Julie Taymor comes The Tempest - a visually stunning and innovative retelling of Shakespeare's masterpiece. Audiences will be rapt by the commanding Prospera (Helen Mirren) a mother and deposed queen as she wields magical powers to extract her revenge. Featuring an eclectic c...

Experience two ways through life. An extraordinary, award winning piece of film about the pathways we choose through life. Following the journey of a father (Brad Pitt) and son (Sean Penn), we see them negotiate memories, joys and inner demons along the path to maturity. Spanning the vivid warmth of...

Inspired by the best-selling novel, Brideshead Revisited is a riveting drama of forbidden love, power and betrayal, featuring stunning performances by Academy Award winner Emma Thompson (Best Actress, Howard s End, 1992) and Matthew Goode (The Lookout). When the charming aristocrat Sebastian inv...

From the Bafta Award winning writer of the critically acclaimed Our Friends in the North comes The Devil’s Whore, a sumptuous story of love, betrayal and renewal set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, a time when yesterday’s lovers could suddenly become tomorrow’s enemi...

The final part of Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life was two years in the making. The locations - Yemen, Ethiopia, Iran and Nepal - form a rich, exotic backdrop to these tales of slaves and kings, potions, betrayrals, demons and, most of all love and lovemaking in all its myriad forms. Engrossing, mys...

An adventure in obsession… Clint Eastwood stars in and directs the colourful tale of a flamboyant filmmaker's flair for danger and adventure while on location in Africa. Based on Peter Viertel's novel inspired by The African Queen.

Directed by recently exiled Polish-American director Roman Polanski, this lushly photographed Franco- British production of the Thomas Hardy novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, is a stunning portrayal of an innocent adrift in a hostile , chaotic world that earned an Academy Award for the young Natassj...

Time Life’s best-selling release, the lavish adaptations of Jane Austen’s timeless classics - Emma, Northanger Abbey & Mansfield Park - will be repackaged for the first time in a special collector’s edition perfectly timed for Mothers’ Day. Included in this special ed...

A drama lifted by moments of humour, The Last Station is a love story set during the last year of the life and turbulent marriage of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and his wife the Countess Sofya. Tolstoy, having rejected his title and embraced an ascetic life style, finds himself increasin...

A young Australian man arrives in a small New Zealand seaside town which is the spiritual home of local iwi. He's to meet family friends who know more about him than he knows about himself. He will also meet his daughter, and their relationship at first will be stormy. He will meet a taciturn Maori ...

Sometimes the Past Can Unlock the Future... Based on the best-selling novel by Tatiana de Rosnay, Sarah's Key is a touching, gripping and beautifully told drama featuring Kristin Scott Thomas in a Cesar-nominated performance. Paris, 1942. The Starzynski family - Wladyslaw, Rywka, ten-year-old ...

Copenhagen, 1944. Denmark is occupied by Nazi Germany. Flame and Citron are two legendary resistance fighters charged with liquidating Danish informers. By order of their commander, they now consent to kill Germans as well. But when Flame is asked to execute his girlfriend Ketty, an enigmatic Stockh...

4th century A.D. Egypt under the Roman Empire… Violent religious upheaval in the streets of Alexandria spills over into the city’s famous Library. Trapped inside its walls, the brilliant astronomer Hypatia and her disciples fight to save the wisdom of the Ancient World… Among the...