Directed by David Lean • 1945 • United Kingdom
Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard
After a chance meeting on a train platform, a married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) begin a muted but passionate, and ultimately doomed, love affair. With its evocatively fog-enshrouded setting, swooning Rachmaninoff score, and pair of remarkable performances (Johnson was nominated for an Oscar), this film, directed by David Lean and based on Noël Coward’s play “Still Life” deftly explores the thrill, pain, and tenderness of an illicit romance, and has influenced many a cinematic brief encounter since its release.
Up Next in Love Stories
-
Desert Hearts
Directed by Donna Deitch • 1985 • United States
Starring Helen Shaver, Patricia CharbonneauDonna Deitch's swooning and sensual first narrative feature, DESERT HEARTS, was groundbreaking upon its release in 1985: a love story about two women, made entirely independently, on a shoestring budget, ...
-
Certified Copy
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 2010 • Italy
Starring Juliette Binoche, William ShimellThe great Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami travels to Tuscany for a luminous and provocative romance in which nothing is as it appears. What seems at first to be a straightforward tale of two people—played by...
-
Days of Being Wild
Directed by Wong Kar Wai • 1990 • Hong Kong
Starring Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing, Andy Lau Tak Wah, Maggie Cheung Man YukThe breakthrough sophomore feature by Wong Kar Wai represents the first full flowering of his swooning signature style. The initial entry in a loosely connected, ongoing cycle th...
