Secrets & Lies

May 24, 1996

2h 22m

★ 7.6

Roxanne drives her mother crazy. Maurice never speaks to his niece. Cynthia has a shock for her family. Monica can't talk to her husband. Hortense has never met her mother.

Overview

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.

Genres

Drama

Production Companies

CiBy 2000

Channel Four Films

Thin Man Films

Secrets & Lies Trailers

Cast

Cynthia Rose Purley

Brenda Blethyn

Hortense Cumberbatch

Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Maurice Purley

Timothy Spall

Monica Purley

Phyllis Logan

Roxanne Purley

Claire Rushbrook

Paul

Lee Ross

The Social Worker

Lesley Manville

Jane

Elizabeth Berrington

Dionne

Michele Austin

Stuart

Ron Cook

Hortense's Brother

Trevor Laird

Hortense's Brother

Brian Bovell

As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.

7.3

Blow-Up

Dec 18, 1966

A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.

8.0

The Hidden Fortress

Dec 28, 1958

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

7.6

Elevator to the Gallows

Jan 29, 1958

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, the husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

8.2

The Prestige

Oct 17, 2006

A mysterious story of two magicians whose intense rivalry leads them on a life-long battle for supremacy -- full of obsession, deceit and jealousy with dangerous and deadly consequences.

7.4

The Remains of the Day

Nov 5, 1993

A rule-bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.

6.3

The Good Shepherd

Dec 11, 2006

Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young man who values honor and discretion, qualities that help him to be recruited for a career in the newly founded OSS. His dedication to his work does not come without a price though, leading him to sacrifice his ideals and eventually his family.

6.0

Breaking and Entering

Dec 15, 2006

Set in a blighted, inner-city neighbourhood of London, Breaking and Entering examines an affair which unfolds between a successful British landscape architect and Amira, a Bosnian woman – the mother of a troubled teen son – who was widowed by the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

7.2

Don't Worry, I'm Fine

Sep 6, 2006

A 19-year-old searches for her twin brother after he runs away from home, following a fight with their father.

7.1

Notes on a Scandal

Dec 25, 2006

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.

6.8

Monster's Ball

Jun 7, 2001

A prison guard begins a tentative romance with the unsuspecting widow of a man whose execution he presided over.

6.5

The Discovery of Heaven

Oct 1, 2001

Disappointed with humanity, God wants to revoke his contract with humanity and wants to take back the stone tablets containing the ten commandments. To this end an angel is sent out to affect the personal lives of three humans so an appropriate child may be conceived.

7.8

Rififi

Apr 13, 1955

Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony turns down a quick job his friend Jo offers him, until he discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter during Tony's absence. Expanding a minor smash-and-grab into a full-scale jewel heist, Tony and his crew appear to get away clean, but their actions after the job is completed threaten the lives of everyone involved.

6.1

The Jazz Singer

Oct 6, 1927

A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the original film musical.

8.0

The Gold Rush

Jul 13, 1925

A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.

7.5

Spartacus

Oct 13, 1960

The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.

8.3

Paths of Glory

Oct 25, 1957

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

7.6

Sweet Smell of Success

Jul 4, 1957

New York City newspaper writer J.J. Hunsecker holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column, but one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist Steve Dallas. Hunsecker strongly disapproves of the romance and recruits publicist Sidney Falco to find a way to split the couple, no matter how ruthless the method.