HandMade Films
20 Episodes
Cofounded by former Beatle George Harrison in 1978, the storied production studio and distribution company HandMade Films gave new life to British cinema in the 1980s, taking chances on risky projects and first-time directors to bring audiences future classics like THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, WITHNAIL AND I, and Terry Gilliam’s TIME BANDITS. Guided by the idiosyncratic visions of artists like Neil Jordan (MONA LISA), Nicolas Roeg (TRACK 29), and Bob Hoskins (THE RAGGEDY RAWNEY), the projects that HandMade championed were not always financially successful, but, in an era increasingly dominated by blockbusters and franchises, they struck a blow for fiercely original storytelling and creative independence.
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01:08Episode 1
HandMade Films Teaser
Episode 1
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1:54:24Episode 2
The Long Good Friday
Episode 2
Directed by John Mackenzie • 1980 • United Kingdom
Starring Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Dave KingA combustible performance from Bob Hoskins is the fuse that lights this underworld saga, a landmark of British crime cinema. Hoskins plays Harold Shand, an ambitious London mobster who, just as he at...
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1:56:11Episode 3
Time Bandits
Episode 3
Directed by Terry Gilliam • 1981 • United Kingdom
Starring John Cleese, Sean Connery, Shelley DuvallIn this fantastic voyage through time and space from Terry Gilliam, a boy named Kevin (Craig Warnock) escapes his gadget-obsessed parents to join a band of time-traveling dwarfs. Armed with a map...
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1:47:45Episode 4
Withnail and I
Episode 4
Directed by Bruce Robinson • 1986 • United Kingdom
Starring Paul McGann, Richard E. Grant, Richard GriffithsLondon. The 1960s. Two unemployed actors—acerbic, elegantly wasted Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and the anxiety-ridden “I” (Paul McGann)—drown their frustrations in booze, pills, and light...
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Track 29
Episode 5
Directed by Nicolas Roeg • 1988 • United Kingdom
Starring Theresa Russell, Gary Oldman, Christopher LloydThe ever-provocative Nicolas Roeg brings his flair for the strange, the kinky, and the surreal to this outré Oedipal psychodrama. Unhappily married to a neglectful husband (Christopher Lloy...
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Mona Lisa
Episode 6
Directed by Neil Jordan • 1986 • United Kingdom
Starring Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Michael CaineThe brilliant breakthrough film by writer-director Neil Jordan journeys into the dark heart of the London underworld to weave a gripping, noir-infused love story. Bob Hoskins received a multitude of ...
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1:34:25Episode 7
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
Episode 7
Directed by Bruce Robinson • 1988 • United Kingdom, United States
Starring Richard E. Grant, Rachel Ward, Richard WilsonRichard E. Grant is the endlessly suave Dennis Bagley, a high-strung advertising executive whose shoulder sprouts an evil, talking boil. The boil speaks only to Bagley, is sil...
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1:31:10Episode 8
Powwow Highway
Episode 8
Directed by Jonathan Wacks • 1989 • United Kingdom, United States
Starring A Martinez, Gary Farmer, Joanelle RomeroThe road-movie genre gets a lyrical twist shot through with Native American spirituality in this bittersweet portrait of two Cheyenne men on a journey through the American West and...
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1:56:45Episode 9
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
Episode 9
Directed by Jack Clayton • 1987 • United Kingdom
Starring Maggie Smith, Bob Hoskins, Wendy HillerMaggie Smith delivers a tremendously moving performance as a woman grappling with loneliness, love, and faith in this sensitive character study adapted from the novel by Brian Moore. Middle-aged spi...
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1:36:46Episode 10
A Private Function
Episode 10
Directed by Malcolm Mowbray • 1984 • United Kingdom
Starring Maggie Smith, Michael Palin, Bill PatersonHarkening back to the classic Ealing comedies, this shrewd social satire (scripted by Alan Bennett) features marvelous performances from Maggie Smith and Michael Palin as Joyce and Gilbert Chi...
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1:43:29Episode 11
The Raggedy Rawney
Episode 11
Directed by Bob Hoskins • 1988 • United Kingdom
Starring Dexter Fletcher, Bob Hoskins, Zoë NathensonAcclaimed actor Bob Hoskins made a striking directorial debut with this curiously captivating fable that plays freely with gender, fantasy, and magic. Stationed somewhere in Eastern Europe, a you...
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1:39:49Episode 12
Intimate Relations
Episode 12
Directed by Philip Goodhew • 1996 • United Kingdom
Starring Rupert Graves, Julie Walters, Laura SadlerA most unusual love triangle takes shape in this diabolically dark comedy based on a shocking true crime. In a small town in 1950s England, sailor Harold Guppy (Rupert Graves) takes a room in t...
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Bullshot
Episode 13
Directed by Dick Clement • 1983 • United Kingdom
Starring Alan Shearman, Ronald E. House, Diz WhiteThis goofily good-natured slapstick parody of the popular gentleman-adventurer series Bulldog Drummond (played on film, perhaps most famously, by Ronald Colman in the 1930s) brings us the decidedl...
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1:34:13Episode 14
Five Corners
Episode 14
Directed by Tony Bill • 1987 • United States
Starring Jodie Foster, John Turturro, Tim RobbinsYouthful idealism collides with matter-of-fact violence in a working-class Bronx neighborhood in the early 1960s in this captivatingly offbeat urban mosaic featuring an extraordinary ensemble cast. A w...
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1:28:28Episode 15
Cold Dog Soup
Episode 15
Directed by Alan Metter • 1990 • United Kingdom
Starring Randy Quaid, Frank Whaley, Christine HarnosA Zen taxi driver, a dead dog, and one memorably surreal night . . . This singularly eccentric black comedy casts Randy Quaid as the enigmatic, koan-spouting cabbie whose fare for the night (Fran...
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Scrubbers
Episode 16
Directed by Mai Zetterling • 1982 • United Kingdom
Starring Chrissie Cotterill, Amanda York, Elizabeth EdmondsSomething of a companion to Alan Clarke’s youth-in-revolt bombshell SCUM (both were written by playwright Roy Minton), SCRUBBERS is a viscerally gritty immersion into the harrowing worl...
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1:53:11Episode 17
Privates on Parade
Episode 17
Directed by Michael Blakemore • 1983 • United Kingdom
Starring John Cleese, Denis Quilley, Patrick PearsonThis gloriously gay adaptation of the play by Peter Nichols centers on the exploits of SADUSEA (it’s pronounced “sad you see”)—the Song and Dance Unit, Southeast Asia, a theatrical troupe s...
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Water
Episode 18
Directed by Dick Clement • 1985 • United Kingdom
Starring Michael Caine, Valerie Perrine, Bill PerskyA typically sharp comic performance from Michael Caine is at the center of this nutty satire of Britain’s colonial exploits (partially inspired by the then-recent invasion of the Falkland Island...
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1:35:21Episode 19
Checking Out
Episode 19
Directed by David Leland • 1989 • United States
Starring Jeff Daniels, Melanie Mayron, Michael Tucker“Why don’t Italians like barbecues?” When his best friend drops dead in the middle of telling this groaner, it brings about an existential fear of death for successful airline executive and fami...
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1:37:26Episode 20
An Accidental Studio
Episode 20
Directed by Bill Jones, Kim Leggatt, and Ben Timlett • 2019 • United Kingdom
Starring Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, George HarrisonThis heartfelt tribute to the little studio that could charts the unlikely rise of HandMade Films—the independent producer/distributor that revitalized the 1980s Br...