With his grizzled moustache and chiselled features, Charles Bronson is the embodiment of a slightly archaic, brooding and almost reactionary virility. But who is he really? Often hired to play marginalised Native American or Mexican characters before he was typecast as the image of a lone killer, Bronson was a major figure in the popular cinema of the 1960s and 70s and his stony-faced, physical acting and career are worthy of a second look.
Michel ZlotowskiSelf - Narrator (voice)
Charles BronsonSelf (archive footage)
The incredible story of the mythical Russian-American actor and filmmaker Yul Brynner (1920-85), the most exotic sex-symbol since Rudolph Valentino; the story of the atypical destiny of an international nomad: from the Parisian cabarets to the stages of Broadway and the Hollywood studios. The rise to fame of a multidisciplinary genius who became a king of the screen.
How did Marilyn Monroe become one of the greatest sex symbols of all time? What drove a prudish little Californian girl, who was not especially pretty nor exceptionally talented, to become this incredibly striking platinum blonde superstar? How did she become the icon capable of balancing innocence with raw sensuality, whilst continuing to captivate the masses to this day? How did she achieve this? And what price did she pay?
Multi-talented, Paul Newman is one of the greatest American actors of all time. With his silhouette of a Greek statue and his unreal blue eyes, he embodied the quintessential Hollywood star. But he never seemed satisfied. The son of a Jewish sporting goods retailer who despises him and a Catholic mother who adores him, driven by self-doubt and an inherited need for approval from his childhood, he has worked throughout his fifty-year career to break the image of the pretty boy. He made his first experiences in the famous Actors Studio. The breakthrough as a screen star came in 1958 with "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". From then on he preferred characters on the edge of the American dream. With archive images and film excerpts, the documentary paints a portrait of a socio-politically committed man with many facets and also pays tribute to the role of his wife Joanne Woodward.
Biography on the famous writer-director, Billy Wilder.
From his childhood in Poland to his adolescence in Nice to his years as a student in Paris and his tough training as a pilot during World War II, this tragi-comedy tells the romantic story of Romain Gary, one of the most famous French novelists and sole writer to have won the Goncourt Prize for French literature two times.
Dalida was an international star, selling over 140 million records in 10 languages. But behind her glittering career and dramatic and tragic personal life, was her ever supportive younger brother Orlando. The documentary sheds light on the professional and personal relationship between the music icon and her producer, between sister and brother.
The life of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey during a day of bullfighting, from the moment he dresses up to the moment he undresses.
Kim Novak never dreamed on being a star, but she became one. Most famous for her enigmatic performance in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), the Chicago-born actress never quite fitted into the Hollywood mould and wanted to do things her own way.
Tony Curtis, the man who influenced Elvis Presley and James Dean. A sex symbol, a matinee idol, a powerful and magnetic actor, Tony Curtis was the original movie star.
Professor Alice Roberts follows a decade-long historical quest to reveal a hidden secret of the famous bluestones of Stonehenge. Using cutting-edge research, a dedicated team of archaeologists led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson have painstakingly compiled evidence to fill in a 400-year gap in our knowledge of the bluestones, and to show that the original stones of Britain’s most iconic monument had a previous life. Alice joins Mike as they put together the final pieces of the puzzle, not just revealing where the stones came from, how they were moved from Wales to England or even who dragged them all the way, but also solving one of the toughest challenges that archaeologists face.
This documentary about legendary French chanteuse Edith Piaf begins at her birth (which was helped along by a cop), travels through her turbulent romantic history, follows her to the pinnacle of her success and reports on her death. Piaf was queen of the torch song, her plaintive wail speaking volumes of the tragedy and joy she'd faced. Hers wasn't exactly, in the words of one of her famous songs, "La Vie En Rose," but it was quite a life.
From the moment Tom Daley leaps off the diving board, he has 1.6 seconds to showcase what can be achieved when you spend over two decades of your life putting in blood, sweat and tears in the pursuit of athletic perfection. This documentary, named after those pivotal seconds and in collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery, Eurosport, and the Olympic Channel, tells the incredible life story of five-time Olympic medalist Tom Daley (OBE).
The filmmaker, Alexandros Papathanasiou, travels to Crete to meet Lefteris Eliakis, a guerrilla fighter during the Greek Civil War and a political prisoner for two decades. This insightful portrait conjures the ghosts of the Greek Civil War – the maverick people, revolutionary politics, and breathtaking events that have shaped today’s Greece.
Jean Rochefort, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Philippe Noiret - This is the story of a bunch of friends. Comedian buddies. Actors who dreamed of the Conservatory and the National Theater of Paris. The theater was their ideal, cinema will be their paradise. Their friend Jean-Paul Belmondo, the relaxed Parisian, who failed the entrance exam, will make sparks fly. Rochefort, Marielle and Noiret, the three provincials, will climb the steps of recognition one by one. From the little cabarets on the Left Bank to the TV shows of the Buttes-Chaumont pioneers. From the second roles to the first and from the B movies to the classics.
He was known as Trinita, but his name was Mario Girotti. The spaghetti western genre was born with the duo formed by the Italian-German actor and Carlo Pedersoli, alias Bud Spencer. Haunted by the bombing of Dresden, which he experienced at the age of 4, he refused to glorify violence or take himself seriously. An encounter with Terence Hill, who overcame his shyness and torment through cinema.
The adventurous life of Natacha Rambova (1897-1966), an American artist, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy, who reincarnated herself countless times: false Russian dancer, silent film actress, scenographer and costume designer, writer, spiritist, Egyptologist, indefatigable traveler, mysterious and curious; an amazing 20th century woman who created the myth of Rudolph Valentino.
In 1973, at age 39, Brigitte Bardot decides to stop her acting career at the height of her fame to dedicate herself to Animal welfare and protection. Her rebellious nature finds in this cause a genuine expression of who she really is. This intimate portrait including exclusive interviews provides a unique account of her journey as a movie icon turning into a radical advocate for wildlife protection ahead of her time.