three secrets (1950)

"You know what he said to me? That I wasn't a woman."
When a newspaper reveals that the only survivor of a plane crash was a five year old adopted boy, three disperate women start to wonder if the child could be theirs. Each in turn flashes back to the circumstances that led to them giving up their son and journey to the crash site to find the truth.
An absorbing melodrama packed with name actors, including, Eleanor Parker Patricia Neal & Ruth Roman.

district 9 (2009)

"You half-breed piece of shit!"
Aliens arrive in spaceships over South Africa. Being malnourished, and considered of low intelligence they are give refuge status and housed in an slum township known as district 9. Soon tensions start to rise within the human population and the decision is made to move the aliens to a secure township well away from Johannesburg forcably. To do so the government use a private security and weapons company. Heading one of the teams is Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), who accidentally sprays himself with an alien toxin, during an eviction. This causes his DNA to fuse with that of the aliens. An event that the company takes great interest in as he could be the key to controlling and using alien weaponry. Once they start to experiment on him Wikes realises he has to escape or die, and goes on the run within district 9.
Produced in a psuedo-documentary style, this is a thought provoking take on what is an alien, and race in general.

a taste of honey (1961)

"You don't look forty. You look a sort of well-preserved sixty."
Salford in the 1960's and Jo (Rita Tushingham) is an shy and awkward teenager, with a promiscuous near alcoholic, domineering mother, Helen (Dora Bryan). Her life changes when she falls pregnant with a black sailors child and has to find an apartment and create her own life for herself, out of her mothers shadow. To help her she hooks up with Geoffrey (Murray Melvin), a shy and lonely gay man, (in a time when to be homosexual was illegal). But their brief taste of happiness is short-lived as Helen butts in and ends their idyll.
Another groundbreaking early 60's drama, with more than a hint of comedy along the way.

saturday night and sunday morning (1960)

"I don't know, work tomorrow."
Arthur (Albert Finney) is an angry young man, English style. Young, belligerent, cocky and full of money, he's taking on the world in his own inimitable style. His kicks include bedding Brenda (Rachel Roberts), the wife of a fellow factory worker, but his world tips when she announces that she is pregnant. This marks a turning point as Arthur his attention moves to the younger and unattached Doreen (Shirley Anne Field), but she is intent on settling down and pressures Arthur to do so. Will she wear down his angry young man persona and get him to move onto a life of conformity, a life he so loudly despises?
Shocking stuff for its time, this is still a hard hitting drama with much to say about the daily grind. Its to the films credit that the central character cares only about himself and his contempt for everyone around him; a nasty piece of work, that despite yourself, (or maybe because of Albert Finney), we take to.