Directed by Martin Rosen • 1978 • United Kingdom
Starring John Hurt, Richard Briers, Michael Graham-Cox
With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what had been thought nearly impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Richard Briers, and Denholm Elliott, WATERSHIP DOWN is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.
Up Next in By the Book
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Empire of Passion
Directed by Nagisa Oshima • 1978 • Japan
Starring Tatsuya Fuji, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Takahiro TamuraWith an arresting mix of eroticism and horror, Oshima plunges the viewer into a nightmarish tale of guilt and retribution in EMPIRE OF PASSION (AI NO BOREI). Set in a Japanese village at the end of ...
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Stalker
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1979 • Russian Federation
Andrei Tarkovsky’s final Soviet feature is a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic postapocalyptic landscape, and a rarefied cinematic experience like no other. A hired guide—the Stalker—leads a writer and a professor into the heart...
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The Tin Drum
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff • 1979 • Germany
Starring David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela WinklerOskar is born in Germany in 1924 with an advanced intellect. Repulsed by the hypocrisy of adults and the irresponsibility of society, he refuses to grow older after his third birthday. While the c...
