Sinéad Cusack

An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.

The playwright Brian Friel stands among the giants of Irish literature. From the 1980s onwards, he withdrew from media and public life. This film sets out to show, through family, friends, actors, directors, as well as via his own handwritten and typed letters, personal archive, and readings from some of his plays, how Brian Friel re-defined Irish theatre in the second half of the 20th century.

The comedy pioneer behind the Goon Show, Dr Strangelove and the Pink Panther series is explored in depth in this film, surveying his meteoric rise to fame and troubled personal life.

Considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written, King Lear sees two ageing fathers – one a King, one his courtier – reject the children who truly love them. Their blindness unleashes a tornado of pitiless ambition and treachery, as family and state are plunged into a violent power struggle with bitter ends.

A gothic fairytale following three generations of women struggling with the aftermath of a divorce.

An Englishman who grew up in London during World War II joins the military to fight in the Korean War.

A Harvard Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.

A man returns to the sea where he spent his childhood summers in search of peace following the death of his wife.

Perseus tries to live a quieter life as a village fisherman while - dangerously weakened by humanity's lack of devotion - the gods are losing control of the long-imprisoned Titans and their ferocious leader, Kronos.

Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.

Lucy Honeychurch and her nervous chaperone embark on a grand tour of Italy. Alongside sweeping landscapes, Lucy encounters a suspect group of characters — socialist Mr. Emerson and his working-class son George, in particular — who both surprise and intrigue her. When piqued interest turns to potential romance, Lucy is whisked home to England, where her attention turns to Cecil Vyse. But now, with a well-developed appetite for adventure, will Lucy make the daring choice when it comes to love?

A Russian teenager, living in London, dies during childbirth but leaves clues to a midwife in her journal, that could tie her child to a rape involving a violent Russian mob family.

After a chance encounter, a Dubliner is stalked by a murderous facsimile of himself.

In a world in which Great Britain has become a fascist state, a masked vigilante known only as “V” conducts guerrilla warfare against the oppressive British government. When V rescues a young woman from the secret police, he finds in her an ally with whom he can continue his fight to free the people of Britain.

A young girl attempts to kill a UN peacekeeper after the war in Croatia, leading to an investigation into the circumstances of their first meeting.

Summer Solstice is a collection of love stories about, and for, people of all different ages and generations. Each character's tale connects, weaving in and out of the others, mirroring and countering them so that, as the long hot summer draws to its close, each is forced to examine their lives and decide to whom their loyalties lie or else risk loosing everything they hold so dear.

What led Arthur Conan Doyle to create, and then destroy the world famous detective, Sherlock Holmes? This compelling drama explores the dark secrets that surround the author and his creation.

It's true that a hotel can hardly look more impressive and be more beautifully situated than Rhives Castle, but all beginnings are difficult. The young manager Carrie, who wants to lead the house to new splendor, has to realize this as well. That's why she worries a lot when she realizes that she is pregnant. What will her financier and life partner Sam say about this? As a newspaper publisher, he has his hands full trying to dissuade bestselling author Alexia White from suing for defamation: one of his employees accused her of plagiarism. The writer has it in her hands to financially destroy him and Carrie. Carrie's jealousy and the pressure from his bank don't make Sam's negotiations with the woman whose honor has been violated any easier.

Lucy Gannon (Soldier, Soldier, Bramwell, Trip Trap) has written Dad, the poignant story of Larry James (Richard Briers), a cheery and independent 86-year-old who has been caring single-handedly for his beloved wife Jeannie James (Jean Heywood) who has Alzheimer's disease. When Larry falls and breaks an ankle his life with Jeannie abruptly changes forever. Jeannie is moved into residential care and Larry goes to stay with his son Oliver (Kevin Whately), his daughter-in-law Sandy (Sinead Cusack) and their teenage daughter Millie (Hannah Daniel). But love and consideration wear thin as father and son have to learn to live together all over again.

When Elfrida Philips abandons London for a country village, she settles in quickly. She is very poor, but has a tiny cottage, her four-legged friend Horace, and friendships of good neighbors. Tragedy upsets her newfound tranquillity, and she takes refuge in a rambling house with a new gentleman friend in Corrydale. But the group proves to be greater than the sum of its ill-fitting parts, and as the solstice passes, and as Christmas approaches, the healing power of love, begins to work its magic. (Filmed at Dunrobin Castle, Golspie, Sutherland)

A love story set in 1930s England that follows 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, and the fortunes of her eccentric family, struggling to survive in a decaying English castle. Based on Dodie Smith's 1948 novel with the same name.

16-year-old Emma has a dream - her boyfriend Tommy, has a completely different one. Emma is less at the slow small town life; Tommy wants to get married and buy houses like everyone else.

When a meddlesome mother enrolls in university with her son, old and new worlds collide with awesome consequences.

When Marie, a widow in Provence with two daughters, locks her bedroom door and goes to sleep, she dreams about Marty, a literary agent in Manhattan who dreams equally vividly about Marie. The women look alike. Marie meets William who begins to court her. Marty meets Aaron, an accountant, becomes his friend and then his lover. Both women tell their lovers about their dream life. William is jealous, Aaron is accepting. Even though they've become lovers, Marie won't fall asleep next to William. Marie goes on holiday with William to Paris, and Marty wakes up with an ashtray from the hotel on her night stand. Are they the same person? What will unlock reality

Twenty years ago, Tony Egan's sister went to America. Nobody ever heard of her again. But now, the message of her death arrives in her town of birth. Only days later, her only son Chad arrives, too. Obviously, his mother took a black husband. Soon, Chad falls for Aislin, who has a bit of a crush on him too. But there is an old conflict going on between her father and Chad's uncle. This conflict resurfaces and begins to draw circles, wider and wider.

A biopic by the dramatist Trevor Griffiths of Aneurin "Nye" Bevan, the British Labour politician who founded the country's National Health Service in the 1940s.

Lucy Harmon, an American teenager is arriving in the lush Tuscan countryside to be sculpted by a family friend who lives in a beautiful villa. Lucy visited there four years earlier and exchanged a kiss with an Italian boy with whom she hopes to become reacquainted.

While restoring a fifteenth-century painting Julia reveals a hidden Latin phrase. A series of murders begin to rock her small world of art experts, patrons and restorers, and she finds that the mystery of the painting is interwoven with the mystery of the deaths around her.

Catania, Sicilia 1854. A serious epidemic of cholera is hitting the region. Maria a 16 years old novice leaves her convent and returns her home to avoid contamination. Here she finds a difficult situation, in fact her stepmother and her half-sisters prevent Maria to live the normal life of a teenager. In their minds Maria is the promised "bride of God" and a regular life for her is inappropriate. Nino, her handsome neighbor, falls in love for Maria who isn't indifferent to him. But when Maria comes back to her convent the way to become nun is compelled. Now Maria can understand Sister Agata, and realizes she became mad cause a lost and impossible love like the one between Maria and Nino.

The McAllister family house is the setting for Gerry and Ellie's grapples with work, children and how to get the bathroom fixed. Both have reached the stage where reason cannot be heard above the ticking clock of experience and ambition. When temptation comes, how will they react?

After the death of her husband, the mother of Julie, Jack, Sue and Tom begins to suffer from a mysterious illness. Aware that she is going to have to go into hospital she opens a bank account for the children, so that they can be financially self-sufficient and will be able to avoid being taken into care by the authorities. Unfortunately she also dies and Julie and Jack (the older, teenage children) decide to hide her body in the basement so that they can have free reign of their household. Soon Tom has taken to dressing as a girl whilst Sue has become increasingly reticent, confiding only to her diary, meanwhile Jack and Julie sense an attraction developing for each other. However Julie's new beau, Derek, threatens to unearth the many dark secrets within this family as he becomes increasingly suspicious of Jack.

Growing up in a household incapable of showing love and affection, Margaret's life is transformed when Lydia, a worldly teenage maid, arrives.

A slightly ironical description of the colony of German artists in Los Angeles, who had to leave their country during the Nazi-regime. A young playwriter (von Horvath) joins them and finds out, that there are gaps between the artistical attitudes and the real live behavior of authors like Thomas or Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger or Bertold Brecht.

The story of a mentally anguished high school history teacher going through a complete reassessment of his life. His method for reassessing his life is to narrate it to his class and interweave in it three generations of his family's history.

Lily lives on a remote smallholding in County Donegal. She keeps herself to herself. But a game of hide-and-seek exposes a secret.

Produced for Scottish television, Venus Peter was financed by the Orkney Islands Council. The title character is transformed into a "sea child" when he is baptized with salt water. Though his family tries hard to accustom him to life on land, Peter (Gordon R. Strachan) yearns to go to sea -- or, at the very least, to escape his cloistered community. He finds a kindred spirit in Princess Paloma (Juliet Cadzow), the village "looney," who, alas, is eventually carted away to an institution. Briefly fascinated by poetry and music, thanks to his lovely teacher Miss Balsibie (Sinead Cusack), Peter is disillusioned when he finds his teacher in the arms of her lover (and out of her clothing). The final blow to Peter's idealism comes when his grandfather's ship is repossessed. Despite the bleakness of his surroundings and his seemingly dead-end existence, however, Peter never completely lets go of his dreams, and the film ends on a positive note.

A man's family comes for his 77th birthday and while he loves all of his children and their children, he and his children don't exactly connect. However, he connects with his grandchildren. And he tells them what he wants for his birthday and they do what they can to give it to him.

As incomparable in swordplay and wordplay as he is, the gallant soldier, philosopher, and poet Cyrano de Bergerac is as timid as a schoolboy before the fair Roxanne. Derek Jacobi delivers an electrifying award-winning portrayal of Rostand's legendary log-nosed swordsman in this highly acclaimed production from the world's premier theatre troupe, The Royal Shakespeare Company. The bold Cyrano boasts he can defeat a hundred men in a swordfight, but because of his grotesque nose lacks the confidence to court the woman he loves. Yet so entranced with Roxanne is Cyrano that he uses the eloquence of his poetry to woo her for a rival.

Viola and Sebastian are lookalike twins, separated by a shipwreck. Viola lands in Illyria, where she disguises herself like her brother and goes into the service of the Duke Orsino. Orsino sends her to help him woo the Lady Olivia, who doesn't want the Duke, but finds that she likes the new messenger the Duke's sending. Then, of course, Viola's brother shows up, and merry hell breaks loose. Meanwhile, Olivia's uncle and his cohorts are trying to find some way to get back at Olivia's officious majordomo, Malvolio.

Digby Geste joins his brother, Beau, in the Foreign Legion following the theft of a priceless family heirloom.

A scholarly king and his three companions swear off the society of women for three years, only to have a diplomatic visit from a French princess and her three ladies-in-waiting thwart their intentions.

A man comes into a pub and boasts that he has just killed his father. Instead of condemning him for the crime, the locals revel in his story and praise him for his deed, with the daughter of the landlord falling for this "dashing hero". Things take an even more surprising turn, when the father enters the pub. Based on John Millington Synge's play The Playboy of the Western World.

Horowitz in Dublin (1973) - A forgotton curio filled with time capsule footage of the Irish capital, seemingly a pilot for a Brannigan-style series starring Harvey Lembeck a world away from either Bilko or Beach Party as a New York cop in Dublin, with Sinead and Cyril Cusack plus Al lettieri and Cesare Danova, plus the likes of Liam Redmond, Martin Dempsey and Tom Hickey. Seeing Lembeck surronded by Jacob's biscuit products is certainly a sight. Future Fair City regular Clive Geraghty plays the heroic sidekick. Was there an Irish Sunday Express in real life?

A group of terrorists posing as plumbers set up base at a school for the blind. The students remain blissfully unaware while the terrorists plan the assassination of a politician who will soon be passing the school on a parade route. Only one student, Sally, suspects that the men upstairs may be dangerous...

A British family takes revenge into its own hands in avenging their recently slain daughter.

Based upon the Celtic legend Tam Lin, a young man is bewitched by a beautiful, heartless, aging sorceress to become her lover. When his attention wanders to a lovely girl, he is doomed to ritual sacrifice by the sorceress.

Fresh-faced young Michael Rimmer worms his way into an opinion poll company and is soon running the place. He uses this as a springboard to get into politics and in the mini-skirted flared-trousered world of 1970 Britain starts to rise through the Tory ranks.

A businessman blackmails his young secretary into spending a weekend with him.

A made for TV movie of the Charles Dickens' classic novel, turns Dickens' picaresque tale into an extended flashback, with David Copperfield Robin Phillips as a young man, brooding on a deserted beach, recalling his youth. The characters are all trotted out in choppy flashbacks as David remembers his life as a young orphan, brought to London and passed around from relatives, to guardians, to boarding school.

When a reluctant bride-to-be's fiance drops dead, she insists on going ahead with the wedding anyway - much to the bewilderment of her friends and family.