1 season available

The Story of Film: An Odyssey

TVPG • Documentaries • TV Series • 2011

The Story of Film: An Odyssey is an unprecedented cinematic event, an epic journey through the history of world cinema that is a treat for movie lover...more

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1 season available (15 episodes)

1 season available

(15 episodes)

New subscribers only.

Episodes

Season1

Episode 1

Birth of the Cinema

The opening of The Story of Film: An Odyssey shows the birth of a great new art form, the movies. Filmed in the very buildings where the first movies were made, it shows that ideas and passion have always driven film, more than money and marketing.

Episode 2

The Hollywood Dream

This is the fascinating story of the movies in the roaring 20s. We see how Hollywood became a glittering entertainment industry and how star directors like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton emerged.

Episode 3

The Golden Age of World Cinema

The 1920s were a golden age for world cinema. In this part, we visit Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai and Tokyo to discover the places where movie makers were pushing the boundaries of the medium.

Episode 4

The Arrival of Sound

In chapter 4, we see how the coming of sound in the 1930s upended everything. We watch the birth of new types of film: screwball comedies, gangster pictures, horror films, westerns and musicals.

Episode 5

Post-War Cinema

This chapter of The Story of Film shows how the trauma of war made cinema more daring. The story starts in Italy, and then we go to Hollywood, discover Orson Welles and chart the darkening of American film and the drama of the McCarthy era.

Episode 6

Sex & Melodrama

This chapter explores the story of sex and melodrama in 50s movies. We discover James Dean, On The Waterfront and the era's glossy weepies, but also travel to Egypt, India, China, Mexico, Britain and Japan to find movies were also full of passion.

Episode 7

European New Wave

This is the explosive story of film in the late 50s and 60s. We discover how French filmmakers planted a bomb under the movies and see how the new wave it caused swept across Europe.

Episode 8

New Directors, New Form

This is the story of the dazzling 1960s in cinema around the world. As the new wave in cinema sweeps around the world, we discover the films of Roman Polanski, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Nagisa Oshima.

Episode 9

American Cinema of the 70s

This is the remarkable story of American cinema of the late 60s and 70s. Paul Schrader discusses his screenplay for Taxi Driver, Robert Towne explores the dark ideas in Chinatown, and Charles Burnett talks about the birth of Black American cinema.

Episode 10

Movies to Change the World

This is the story of the movies that tried to change the world in the 70s. We start in Germany, head to Britain, travel to Italy, see the birth of new Australian cinema, and then arrive in Japan, which was making the most moving films in the world.

Episode 11

The Arrival of Multiplexes and Asian Mainstream

Star Wars, Jaws and The Exorcist created the multiplexes, but they were also innovative. The Story of Film: Chapter 11 explains how, and then travels to India to show how Bollywood was doing new things in the 70s.

Episode 12

Fight the Power: Protest in Film

This is the story of how brave filmmakers spoke truth to power. American independent director John Sayles talks exclusively about these years. In Beijing, we discover the blossoming of Chinese cinema before the Tiananmen crackdown.

Episode 13

New Boundaries: World Cinema in Africa, Asia & Latin America

Few saw it coming, but cinema around the world in the 90s entered a golden age. The story starts in Iran, where we meet Abbas Kiarostami, who rethought movie making and made it more real.

Episode 14

New American Independents & the Digital Revolution

This is the story of the brilliant, flashy, playful movies in the English-speaking world in the 90s. We look at Tarantino’s dialogue and the edginess of the Coen brothers. Then we plunge into the digital world to see how it changed the movies forever.

Episode 15

Cinema Today and the Future

In the final part of The Story of Film, movies come full circle. They get more serious after 9/11; Romanian movies come to the fore; Inception turns film into a game. Then the The Story of Film goes beyond the present to look at film in the future.