Merchant-Ivory Films

A butler who sacrificed body and soul to service in the years leading up to World War II realizes too late how misguided his loyalty was to his lordly employer.

Set in the early 20th century, class distinctions and troubled relations affect the relationship between two families and the ownership of a cherished British estate known as Howards End.

Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) shares a brief romance with George Emerson in Florence. Yet as she tries to move on with her life and look for marriage elsewhere, can she truly forget the events of that summer?

Two English school chums find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. To regain his place in society, Clive gives up Maurice and marries. While staying with Clive and his wife, Maurice discovers romance in the arms of the gamekeeper Alec.

Omar wants to write an authorized biography on a dead writer and travels to a farm in Uruguay to meet the trustees - the writer's brother, widow and cute mistress/mother of his daughter.

In 1930s Shanghai, a blind American diplomat develops a curious relationship with a young Russian refugee who works odd--and sometimes illicit--jobs to support members of her dead husband's aristocratic family.

Spanning 24 hours, "Heights" follows five New Yorkers challenged to choose their destiny before the sun comes up the next day.

French vs. American social customs and behaviors are observed in a story about an American visiting her sister and French brother-in-law and niece in Paris.

A hot young phone sex addict and his narcissistic opera diva mom. A dangerously agitated hustler and a half-dozen dangerously agitated hustlers who look just like him. A tittering neurotic who thinks she's Vanessa Redgrave and Vanessa Redgrave herself. Pot brownies, puke jokes, a gay dad, a flying lesbian, Jerry Hall, a dead body and a fetish for Brian DePalma movies! Anchoring the mayhem is Elisabeth Beaumont, an American opera star visiting Paris to perform "Turandot" and dabble in some belated mothering of her 23 year-old son Thomas. Thomas doesn't need mothering; he needs some good hot manhandling. And, in the best DePalma tradition, the quest for sex leads to voyeurism and voyeurism, leads to murder. From there, it's just a short path to therapy. Unfortunately, the psychiatrist that Thomas visits is a little on the dead side herself, and a nutty patient has taken her place.

In 1950s Trinidad, a frustrated writer supports himself as a masseur--and soon becomes a revered mystic and politico.

A man marries an heiress for her money even though he is actually in love with her friend.

A British family is trapped between culture, tradition, and the colonial sins of the past.

Staten Island cab-driver Bipin Raj picks up a passenger and mistakes her for a movie star; he tells her that his brother, Vikram Raj, is a Bollywood megastar with millions of fans and is currently living with him and his wife and two children. But all is not hunky-dory in the Raj household, for Mrs. Chandra Bipin Raj's initial thrill at meeting her megastar brother-in-law has simmered down and she is anxious for him to leave. Vikram Raj might have been a handsome man in his younger years, but now he is a grossly-overweight, macho, lazy alcoholic. But all is not lost: several ardent fans visit him and dance to his film songs, much to Chandra's exasperation. A few days later, Vikram claims that Al Pacino has phoned him and wants to meet to discuss a film script. The Raj family gives him a fond farewell. This short story, as well as the stories of a dress-designer, a drug-dealer working at a meat-shop, and a beauty queen's slacker husband, introduce people of diverse cultures living their separate yet inter-connected lives in this busy metropolis.

This fictionalized story, based on the family life of writer James Jones, is an emotionless slice-of-life story. Jones here is portrayed as Bill Willis, a former war hero and now successful author who obviously drinks too much and is starting to experience health problems.

An expatriated French novelist (Jeanne Moreau) returns to Paris when she learns that her childhood home is being placed on the auction block. What she doesn't count on is that she has to confront many old issues dating back to her childhood and bringing herself full circle to her present day life.

The passionate Merchant Ivory drama tells the story of Françoise Gilot (Natascha McElhone), the only lover of Pablo Picasso (Sir Anthony Hopkins) who was strong enough to withstand his ferocious cruelty, and move on with her life.

After an abandoned young woman in late 19th Century England is taken in by a rural couple with three handsome sons, tragic consequences result.

Widower Thomas Jefferson (3rd US president 1801-09) lives in Paris 1785-90 with his daughter. He has a pretty slave girl accompany his other daughter to France. He has an alleged affair with her resulting in children.

A poet of Urdu fame is struggling with his legacy while an aspiring poet and historian comes to document him like never before and in return becomes custodian of the great poets last verses.

A tangled triangle. In the rural South of the early 20th century, Miss Amelia is the town eccentric, selling corn liquor and dispensing medicine. She takes in her half-sister's son, a diminutive crook-back named Lymon. He suggests they open a café in the downstairs of her large house. Marvin Macy gets out of prison and returns to town; turns out he was married to Amelia but it wasn't consummated. He pleaded, then got angry. Is he back for revenge? Eventually, Amelia and Marvin stage a no-holds-barred fight in the café. Lymon's complicated response to Marvin and to Cousin Amelia figures in the resolution.

Set during World War II, an upper-class family begins to fall apart due to the conservative nature of the patriarch and the progressive values of his children.

Benadette Peters stars in this ironic film based on Tama Janowitz's best-selling collection of short stories that defined the downtown New York art scene of the 1980s

Fact-based account of a secret society of murderers, and of the man who exposed them in British India 1825.

Police Inspector Ghote lives a middle-class life in Bombay along with his wife, Pratima. He has been employed with the Bombay Police for many years. His wife is generally disgruntled and wants a better life. He is assigned to investigate the deadly assault on a Parsi man named Perfect, who is the Secretary of Lala Heera Lal, a wealthy man with underworld links. Inspector Ghote commences his investigation and is displeased when his superiors ask him to work with a Swedish Forensic Expert by the name of Axel Svennson. Axel is thrilled to get a closer look at the working of the Bombay Police, but also realizes that Ghote may not be one of their best police officers. When their friendship develops, he gets invited to Ghote's house, and gets to meet Pratima. Their investigation, though Prima Facie simple enough, takes them through turns and twists that both had not expected - including corridors of power and corruption - and finally to the conclusion and the unmasking of the culprit(s) behind this incident.

A young girl agrees to work in a center for girls who can't stay with their parents. She gets wrapped up in the plights of several of the girls, and tries to help them, but only gets herself into trouble with her parents and supervisor.