James R | On 28, Jan 2017

Heard of BFI Player? Well, there’s also BFI Player+, a subscription service that offers an all-you-can-eat selection of hand-picked classics.

Every Friday, Mark Kermode highlights one of the collection’s titles with a video introduction. This week, it’s Short Term 12. Oscar winning Brie Larson stars in this 2013 drama about a care-worker confronted by a troubled teen, whose case history provokes a reminder of her own past.

“This isn’t a film that hits beats you over the head, but one that creeps up and knocks you out with a visual beauty and characters you enjoy spending time with,” we wrote in our review. “An absolute must-watch.” (You can read our full review of the film here.)

What else is new? Here are the latest titles on BFI Player+ this week:

Ran

“It’s how the world is made. Men prefer sorrow over joy. Suffering over peace.” A study of mankind’s ability to wage war with itself, Kurosawa’s epic adaptation of King Lear takes Shakespeare’s family drama and blows it up to an almost impossibly big scale. At its heart, the simple foolishness of one dad’s inability to see the impending chaos around him. Three arrows bundled together cannot be broken, he teaches them – but, as one son proves, they can. All it takes is a bit of brute force. This is ambitious, audacious and breathtaking cinema. Read our full review.

Le Mepris

Jean-Luc Godard’s caustic look at compromised creativity in the filmmaking world has superb images, music and acting from Piccoli, Bardot and Palance

A Bout de Souffle (Breathless)

Jean-Luc Godard’s extraordinary debut feature, an insouciant and iconoclastic crime film that paved the way for the French New Wave.

The Devil Rides Out

Dennis Wheatley’s occult tale is given the Hammer treatment.

Peeping Tom

Michael Powell’s dark, disturbing, once controversial tale of a shy camera technician who films women as he kills them is now regarded as a classic

Whisky Galore!

Classic Ealing comedy about the mayhem that ensues when a Scotch-laden ship runs aground off the coast of the Outer Hebrides.

Black Girl

The first major work by African master Ousmane Sembène, about a Senegalese maid’s despair, brims with both New Wave vitality and African heart.

 

A BFI Player+ subscription costs £4.99 a month with a 30-day free trial. For more information, visit http://player.bfi.org.uk.
 

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