La Dolce Vita (Drama, 1960)

A playboy tabloid columnist, Marcello, aspires to be a serious journalist. This film follows a week in his life, drifting through Rome in a world of extravagance and excess. Starlet Anita Ekberg's midnight dip in the Trevi fountain is the film's most iconic scene.

Precious (Drama, 2009)

Set in the late 1980s in New York's Harlem, and based on a novel, Precious, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen is pregnant with her second child. She is eventually offered a chance to transfer to an alternative school.

▪️Gabourey Sidibe
▪️Mo'Nique

#Film #Drama

Pride and Prejudice (Classic, Literature, Historical Fiction, 1813)

This popular novel by Jane Austen is set during the Georgian era. It's about the romance between the intelligent, opinionated Elizabeth Bennett and the handsome, wealthy, proud Mr Darcy.

#Literature #JaneAusten #Classic

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (Psychological Horror Thriller Film, 1962)

Based on a novel, this horror film is about Jane, an aging child star, who torments her wheelbound sister, a former movie star, in their family mansion.

▪️Bette Davis
▪️Joan Crawford

#PsychologicalHorror #Thriller #Film

How to Say Babylon (Memoir, 2023)

Safiya Sinclair is raised under her father’s strict patriarchal rule, silenced and controlled. As a reggae musician whose fury shapes the household, he denies the women autonomy until Safiya breaks free, reclaiming her voice.

#Memoir #autobiography #WomenWhoWrite

The Help (Drama, 2011)

Set during the 1960s civil rights movement, this drama follows an inspiring author who pens a powerful book capturing African-American maids’ perspectives on the White families they serve. It’s based on a bestselling novel of the same name.

▪️Viola Davis
▪️Emma Stone

#Drama

The Light Between the Oceans (Period Drama, 2016)

This drama is based on a novel. A couple, living on an Australian island as lighthouse keepers, find a baby in a drifting boat and raise her as their own. Later, they discover the child’s biological mother.

▪️Michael Fassbender
▪️Alicia Vikander

A Taste of Honey (Drama, 1961)

This kitchen-sink drama, set in Salford, is an adaptation of a play of the same name. 17-year-old Josephine ("Jo"), who is pregnant, is left to fend for herself when her mother remarries.

▪️Rita Tushingham
▪️Dora Bryan
▪️Robert Stephens

#Drama #KitchenSinkDrama

Educated (Memoir, 2018)

American author Tara Westover chronicles her escape from an isolated and controlling upbringing. With no formal schooling, she eventually gains a PhD in history from Cambridge University.

#Memoir #SurvivalAndVoice #TaraWestover

My Week with Marilyn (Biography Drama, 2011)

This fact-based drama depicts Colin Clarke's brief relationship with Marilyn Monroe. While working on Laurence Olivier's production, he also gets to witness the tense interactions between Olivier and Monroe.

▪️Michelle Williams
▪️Eddie Redmayne

The Mayor of Casterbridge (Classic Fiction, 1886)

Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge opens with Michael Henchard, a drunken hay trusser, selling his wife and child. Years later, sober and repentant, he rises to become mayor, but past choices unravel his hard-won respectability.

#Classic

Under the Bridge (Biography Crime Drama, 2024)

This fact-based Canadian drama tells the story of 14-year-old Indian-Canadian Reena Virk who rebels against her parents and seeks friendship from three teenage girls. She ends up getting killed in the most horrific way.

▪️Lily Gladstone
▪️Riley Keough

The Grass is Singing (1950)

Doris Lessing's novel is set in Southern Rhodesia. Mary, who is content with her life, overhears gossip about her unmarried status. She then marries and moves to a farm. But her overt racism drives away staff. Moses returns as her only servant when tragedy unfolds.

The Pet Sematary (Horror, 1983)

In Stephen King's horror classic, a family moves to a rural home near a pet “sematary” where animals killed on the road are buried. But deeper in the woods lies a darker graveyard with sinister power.

#GothicHorror #PsychologicalHorror
#SupernaturalFiction

10 Rillington Place (Biography, Crime Drama, 1971)

Fact-based crime drama about serial killer John Christie, who committed his crimes in the London terraced house of the same name, and the miscarriage of justice involving Timothy Evans.

▪️ Richard Attenborough
▪️ Judy Geeson

#CrimeDrama

I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing (autobiography, 1969)

Angelou’s memoir traces her early years rooted in kinship, shadowed by racism, and marked by a traumatic assault at eight. A powerful, story of survival and selfhood.

#MayaAngelou #ComingOfAge #Memoir #Autobiography

An Inspector Calls (Crime Drama, Mystery, 1954)

Based on J B Priestley's play, a police inspector pays a visit to a wealthy family to question them about a young working-class woman who has committed suicide.

▪️ Alastair Sim
▪️ Arthur Young
▪️ Olga Lindo

#AlastairSim #CrimeDrama #MysteryDrama

War and Peace (TV mini series, 2016)

Kind but awkward Pierre, the illegitimate son of Russia's richest man, dreams of making a difference. Natasha longs for genuine love, while Andrei, disillusioned by shallow society, yearns for deeper meaning.

▪️Paul Dano
▪️James Norton
▪️Lily James

#classic