Ryan's Daughter (1970)
Drama | Romance
Set in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, a married woman in a small Irish village has an affair with a troubled British officer.
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, Christopher Jones, John Mills, Leo McKern, Sarah Miles
Director: David Lean
A Passage to India (1984)
Adventure | Drama | History
Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.
Starring: Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox, Alec Guinness, Nigel Havers
Director: David Lean
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Drama | Romance | War
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during the First World War and then the October Revolution.
Starring: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Tom Courtenay
Director: David Lean
Oliver Twist (1948)
Adventure | Crime | Drama
Based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist is about an orphan boy who runs away from a workhouse and meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. Oliver is taken in by the pickpocket and he joins a household of young boys who are trained to steal for their master. This version of Oliver Twist is topped by Alec Guinness's masterly performance of arch-thug Fagin.
Starring: Alec Guinness, Robert Newton, Kay Walsh, John Howard Davies, Henry Stephenson, Francis L. Sullivan
Director: David Lean
Hobson's Choice (1954)
Comedy | Drama | Romance
Lancashire bootmaker Henry Horatio Hobson (Charles Laughton) keeps a tight rein on his three daughters, until his eldest, Maggie (Brenda De Banzie), marries his assistant Willie Mossop (John Mills) and sets him up in his own bootmaking firm. To Hobson's consternation, Willie has soon become his father-in-law's main business rival.
Starring: Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda de Banzie, Daphne Anderson, Prunella Scales, Richard Wattis
Director: David Lean
Summertime (1955)
Drama | Romance
A lonely American woman unexpectedly finds romance in Venice, Italy.
Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Isa Miranda, Darren McGavin
Director: David Lean
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Adventure | Biography | Drama | History | War
The dramatic portrait of the famed British officer's journey to the Middle East, Lawrence of Arabia is one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved films of all time. Assigned to Arabia during World War I, Lawrence courageously unites the warring Arab factions into a strong guerrilla front and leads them to brilliant victories in treacherous desert battlefields, where they eventually defeat the ruling Turkish Empire.
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Omar Sharif, José Ferrer
Director: David Lean
This Happy Breed (1944)
Comedy | Drama
Robert Newton and Celia Johnson are surpassingly affecting as Frank and Ethel Gibbons, a couple with three children whose modest household is touched by joy and tragedy from the tail end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second.
Starring: Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, Amy Veness, Stanley Holloway, John Mills
Director: David Lean
In Which We Serve (1942)
Drama | War
An action drama about a group of Royal Navy sailors fighting the Germans in the Mediterranean.
Starring: Noel Coward, John Mills, Derek Elphinstone
Director: Noel Coward, David Lean
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Adventure | Drama | War
A group of British POWs is forced to build a bridge in Burma for the Japanese. Led by Colonel Nicholson, they not only build the bridge but organise the whole building program and are proud of the final result. However, unbeknownst to the POWs, a British commando team has been given a mission to destroy it.
Starring: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa, Geoffrey Horne
Director: David Lean
Blithe Spirit (1945)
Comedy | Fantasy
In David Lean's adaptation of Noel Coward's three-act farce, an English mystery novelist invites a medium over for dinner in the hopes of gathering enough material for his latest book, as well as exposing her as a charlatan. However, a series of incidents occur during the course of the evening, which result in a chain of supernatural events being set in motion which wreak havoc on his present marriage, while bringing to light serious flaws in his previous one.
Starring: Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond, Margaret Rutherford
Director: David Lean
Brief Encounter (1945)
Drama | Romance
A love affair which was not meant to be is the basis for this real-life look into the extra-marital attractions which develop between married couples.
Starring: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Everley Gregg
Director: David Lean
