Roman Polanski

"Found" is the story of an innocent teenage boy raised up in the Appalachian Mountains on a small old fashioned homestead devoid of modern conveniences and tucked away from the broader culture at large. Through a sudden tragedy, he suddenly finds himself cast out, alone and adrift into our high-speed, hi-tech modern world until he meets a troubled family who takes him into their home for better or for worse. What he learns about himself and what others around him discover about themselves brings new meaning to the phrase "testing your faith" (James 1:2-4). The Brennan family consists of husband and wife Keith and Janelle, an aspiring writer who gave up a lucrative corporate career to pursue that writing, and a deputy sheriff, respectively, and their three children: mid-teen Toby, and adolescents Lisa and Jackson, the latter adopted. Their life is upended when Janelle is part of team involved in the case of Lila Whittaker, an aged and reclusive backwoods mountain woman, who has just died, evidence that she was taking care of an unknown child. In finding that child, sixteen year old Finch, Janelle becomes protective of him in wanting to keep to the promises she makes to him in he not understanding general social mores beyond what little he has read in the few books Lila had gotten for him in he never having left Bryers Rock Mountain. In knowing that the situation in which Child Protective Services is planning on placing him is not in Finch's best interest, Janelle comes up with the last minute plan to house Finch temporarily under the guise of being in the process of adopting him, that is until a more suitable permanent situation can be found. This situation does not sit well with Keith, who was not consulted prior to Janelle making this decision and who has an imminent deadline to submit materials to his publisher, and especially Toby, who already felt threatened by the entrance of Jackson into their family, let alone someone who he considers somewhat a peer and thus rival for his place in the family. The situation becomes more complex with the arrival onto the scene of Finch's biological mother, Jessica Haig, who came out of nowhere after sixteen years looking for custody, and who, to Janelle, doesn't pass the "smell test" in her coming back into Finch's life at this time as she is backed by who look to be high priced lawyers. —Huggo

Young orphan Oliver Twist (Barney Clark) is forcibly brought to a workhouse by the beadle Mr. Bumble (Jeremy Swift) in an unidentified town in England on his ninth birthday. At 9, Oliver was considered too old for the orphanage he was living in. The workhouse was a place for the poor and destitute to live and work in exchange for basic necessities. Oliver is put into a room with hundreds of boys who are asked to sift through old roles and pick out the threads that are not yet rotten. These threads are used to create new ropes which are deployed on English battle ships. Oliver and the other resident children are treated poorly and given very little food. Facing starvation, the boys select Oliver (through a short thread lottery) to ask for more food at the next meal, which he tentatively does. This results in Oliver being chastised, and the workhouse officials, who are wealthy, well-fed, hypocritical men, decide to get rid of him. The board of the workhouse put out an advertisement giving 5 pounds as an incentive to take Oliver away as an apprentice. A chimney sweeper responds to the Advertisement, and the board approves of transferring legal guardianship of Oliver to the chimney sweeper. When the matter goes to court, Oliver is in tears and the judge takes pity on him and refuses the transfer request. The judge instructs the workhouse to treat Oliver kindly. After nearly being sold as an apprentice to a cruel chimney sweep, Oliver is sent to Mr. Sowerberry (Michael Heath), a coffin-maker, whose wife (Gillian Hanna) and senior apprentice take an instant dislike to the newcomer. Oliver is meted out even more poor treatment, where Oliver is given cold food that was meant for the dog and given a place to sleep under Mr Sowerberry's desk. The older apprentice Noah is not happy to see Oliver who represents competition. Mr Sowerberry is kind to Oliver and starts to use him as pall bearer at children's funerals. Driven to despair by the atrocities, Oliver snaps and attacks Noah (Chris Overton), the snotty older apprentice, for having insulted his mother. Knowing his life with the Sowerberry's will only get worse, Oliver escapes on foot. With little food, Oliver determines to walk 70 miles to London. After he collapses from exhaustion, a kindly old woman gives him food and lodgings for the night. After a week of travel, he arrives at the city, barefoot and penniless. He meets Jack Dawkins (Harry Eden), or "The Artful Dodger," a boy-thief who takes Oliver to his home and hideout at Saffron Hill that he shares with many other young pickpockets and their eccentric elderly leader, Fagin (Ben Kingsley). Soon, Oliver is being groomed to join their gang. On his first outing with the pickpockets, two of the boys steal a man's handkerchief and Oliver is framed. However, he is proven innocent by an eyewitness, and the owner of the handkerchief (the wealthy Mr. Brownlow (Edward Hardwicke)) takes pity on Oliver, who had collapsed from a fever in the courtroom. Brownlow informally adopts Oliver, giving him new clothes and the promise of a good education. However, while out running an errand for Brownlow, Oliver is forcibly returned to the pickpocket gang by Fagin's associate, the evil Bill Sikes (Jamie Foreman), and the young prostitute Nancy (Leanne Rowe) who is in a complex and abusive relationship with Sikes. Fagin and Sikes are worried that Oliver would "peach," and tell the authorities about their criminal activity. Oliver is put under supervision until Bill Sikes discovers the boy's connection to the rich Mr. Brownlow. Sikes and his accomplice, Toby Crackit (Mark Strong), force Oliver to aid them in robbing Brownlow's house. They are discovered and Oliver is wounded in a brief shootout between Brownlow and Sikes. As the three escape, Bill decides to murder Oliver to ensure his silence, but falls into a nearby river before he can take action. Sikes survives his near drowning but is confined to bed with a heavy fever. Fagin, despite treating Oliver kindly, remains crime-focused and plots with Sikes to kill Oliver when Sikes has recovered. Nancy has a maternal love for Oliver and does not want to see him hurt, but she is controlled by the abusive Sikes. She drugs Bill and goes to Brownlow's house where she arranges to have him meet her on London Bridge at midnight so she can provide information about Oliver. At the meeting, Nancy cautiously reveals that Oliver is staying with Fagin, and that the authorities will easily find them. Brownlow leaves to call the police. The Artful Dodger, who had been sent by a suspicious Fagin to spy on Nancy, had heard everything and is bullied by Bill Sikes to give up the information. Sikes is furious at Nancy's betrayal and brutally beats her to death in their apartment. The next day, information about Oliver and Fagin appears in the newspaper, along with Nancy's murder and Sikes is a suspect. Sikes's ever-present dog, Bullseye, is a dead giveaway to his identity. After unsuccessfully trying to kill the dog, Sikes takes up residence with Toby Crackit. Fagin, Oliver, and the boys are hiding there too, after escaping their previous location before the police could find it. Bullseye escapes his master's cruelty and leads a group of police and locals to the group's hideout. Eventually, Dodger, outraged at Sikes for killing the good-heart person Nancy, reveals their location to authorities. Bill Sikes takes Oliver onto the roof, knowing they won't shoot if the boy is with him. When trying to scale the building using a rope, Sikes, distracted by his dog, loses his footing and accidentally hangs himself. Sometime later, Oliver is living comfortably with Mr. Brownlow again. Fagin was arrested (though the fate of the pickpockets is unknown), and Oliver wishes to visit him in jail. Brownlow takes him to the prison, where they find Fagin ranting and wailing in his cell. Oliver is distraught at Fagin's fate, as he had been something of a father figure to Oliver. As Mr. Brownlow escorts a tearful Oliver to a carriage, gallows are being set up in the courtyard. Townspeople begin to gather to watch Fagin's execution.

Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is a New York City rare-book dealer motivated solely by financial gain. He appraises old book collections and guides owners on their strategy to monetize them. But then, Corso cheats the owners and buys the best books from them for cheap, as they have no clue about their real value. Wealthy book collector Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) hires Corso to compare his recently acquired copy of the book The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, by seventeenth-century author Aristide Torchia, to the other two known to be in existence. Torchia is alleged to have written the book in collaboration with the Devil, and only three copies survived when he and his works were burned for heresy in 1666. Balkan informs Corso that only one of the 3 copies is genuine and is reputedly a version whose author was the devil himself. The book contains nine engravings that, when correctly interpreted and the legends properly spoken, will summon the Devil. Balkan suspects that his book might be a forgery and asks Corso to travel to Europe (where the other 2 copies are located) to determine whether his is genuine and to acquire the others for Balkan - at any cost, or by any means. Balkan gives his own copy of the book to Corso. During his travels, Corso comes into contact with a mysterious woman ("The Girl") who appears to be following him. Balkan's copy of The Nine Gates had previously belonged to bibliophile Andrew Telfer, who committed suicide soon after selling the book to Balkan. Moreover, Telfer's widow Liana (Lena Olin) wants the book back, as Telfer originally bought the book for her. Liana tells Corso that Telfer acquired the book in Spain and is surprised that he sold it to Balkan, as the book was his most treasured possession. Corso returns home to find is ransacked after he found the Girl at the library keeping an eye on him. Corso gives the book to his business partner Bernie to hide the book. Bernie says that the book is worth at least$1 million. Liana later comes over to Corso's apartment and seduces him, hoping he will sell the book to her. After they have sex, and he refuses to sell, she attacks him and knocks him unconscious. Liana was shown to have a tattoo of a coiled snake on her thigh, similar to the coiled snake figure on the front page of the book. The next day, Corso goes to a bookseller who is Corso's business partner and rare-book shop owner, Bernie (James Russo), whom Corso had asked to hide the book. Corso finds Bernie murdered and his corpse is posed to reflect one of the engravings in The Nine Gates, which, as in the image of The Hanged Man Tarot card, shows a man suspended by one foot upside down. Corso retrieves the book. Corso tries to back out of his deal with Balkan, but he refuses and asks Corso to proceed as planned. Corso travels to Toledo, Spain, to talk with the Ceniza brothers (Jose Lopez Rodero), book restorers who owned Balkan's copy before the Telfers. They say that while Telfer paid for the book, it was Liana who made him buy it. They point out to him three of the book's engravings signed "LCF", which, with their prompting, Corso understands means that Lucifer himself designed and cut them. The two show him that, of the book's nine engravings, only six are signed "AT"; the other three are signed "LCF" for Lucifer. Corso next goes by train to Sintra, Portugal, and visits Victor Fargas (Jack Taylor), whose copy of The Nine Gates Corso compares with Balkan's. To his surprise, Corso discovers that the signature "LCF" is found in three different engravings in the Fargas copy, which vary in detail from their counterparts in the Balkan copy. Corso relays his findings to Balkan and Balkan orders him to acquire Fargas' copy. The next morning a mysterious young woman The Girl (Emmanuelle Seigner), who has crossed paths with Corso since Balkan summoned him for this assignment, awakens Corso and leads him back to Fargas' house where he finds the old man murdered. Corso retrieves Fargas's burnt copy from the fireplace and finds the three "LCF" engravings torn out. In Paris, Corso visits the Baroness Kessler (Barbara Jefford), owner of the third copy of The Nine Gates. The Baroness initially refuses any contact with Corso once she realizes who his employer is. The Baroness says that after the death of Torchia, a secret society was formed to perpetuate his memory and to preserve the secrets of the book. The society was called the Silver Serpent. For centuries, they have met and worshiped the prince of Darkness, every year on the anniversary of Torchia's death. The Baroness says that Liana married Telfer for his money and restored her chateau. Corso is attacked while walking outside by Liana's bodyguard (Tony Amoni), only to be saved by The Girl who exhibits seemingly supernatural powers. Corso hides Balkan's book in his hotel room and asks the concierge of the hotel to locate Liana for him. Corso gets a call from Balkan and informs him about the last copy of the book with the Baroness. Corso returns and intrigues Kessler-a lifelong devotee of the study of the book-with evidence that the engravings differ across the three copies. Having gained access to Kessler's copy, he records three further differences. Corso finds that three different engravings in his copy are signed "LCF", and the engravings signed this way have subtle differences from those signed "AT". Corso is attacked, and the Baroness is strangled to death and her library set on fire. Corso returns to his hotel and discovers Balkan's copy is missing. Now believing that each copy of The Nine Gates is genuine, Corso suspects that the secret is a combination of the "LCF" versions of each of the nine engravings, distributed across all three copies of the book. Corso finds that Liana stole Balkan's copy from Corso's hotel room. He informs Balkan about the same. The Girl and Corso track Liana to her family's ancestral manor where a Satanic cult are conducting a ritual using Balkan's book. Balkan suddenly interrupts the ceremony, kills Liana, takes the engraving pages and his own intact copy, then flees. Corso abandons the Girl, presuming she was working for Balkan, and pursues Balkan but loses him when his car breaks down. Corso finds a clue in Kessler's belongings that directs him to a remote castle. Corso pursues Balkan to a remote castle, which was depicted in one of the engravings, and in a postcard that Corso found in Kessler's copy and finds Balkan preparing to open the nine gates. After a struggle, Balkan manages to trap Corso in a hole in the floor, thus immobilizing him and allowing Balkan to perform his summoning ritual unmolested-but with Corso as a 'witness'. Balkan recites a series of phrases related to each of the nine engravings, then douses the floor and himself with gasoline and sets it alight, believing himself immune to the flames. Balkan's invocation, however, appears to fail, and Balkan begins screaming in agony as his body starts to burn. Corso frees himself and, with Balkan engulfed in flames, puts Balkan out of his agony with a shot and escapes the fire. Sitting in Balkan's car, Corso is startled by the Girl, and she kisses him. The two are then shown having passionate sex on the ground while back-lit by the burning castle. The Girl's face and eyes seem to change as she writhes astride Corso in a state of crazed bliss. She tells him that Balkan failed because the ninth engraving Balkan had used was a forgery. When they stop for gasoline she vanishes but leaves Corso a note sending him to the Ceniza brothers. At their shop, Corso finds they have vanished, and the shop is being cleaned out. As workmen remove a large bookcase, a dust-covered paper floats down from the top. This is the authentic engraving, which depicts a woman who resembles the Girl that she is the daughter of Satan and that she is pregnant with his child. Corso, now with all nine authentic engravings in his possession, returns to the castle. The gates open on their own and emit a powerful bright light as Corso walks through, taking the journey through the Ninth Gate.

Trelkovsky (Roman Polanski), a quiet and unassuming Polish immigrant living in France, rents an apartment in Paris whose previous tenant, Egyptologist Simone Choule, attempted to commit suicide by throwing herself out the third-floor window and through a pane of glass below. He visits Choule in the hospital but finds her entirely in bandages and unable to talk. Whilst still at Choule's bedside, Trelkovsky meets Simone's friend, Stella (Isabelle Adjani), who has also come to visit. Stella begins talking to Simone, who becomes aware of her visitors. Initially showing some signs of agitation upon seeing them, Choule soon lets out a disturbing cry, then suddenly dies. It isn't clear which of the two has caused this reaction. Apparently unaware that Choule is now dead, Trelkovsky tries to comfort Stella but dares not say that he never knew Simone, instead pretending to be another friend. They leave together and go out for a drink and a movie (Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon), where they fondle each other. Outside the theatre they part ways. As Trelkovsky occupies the apartment he is chastised unreasonably by his neighbors and landlord, Monsieur Zy (Melvyn Douglas), for hosting a party with his friends from the clerical office where he works, apparently having a woman over, making too much noise in general, and not joining in on a petition against another neighbor. Trelkovsky attempts to adapt to his situation, but is increasingly disturbed by the apartment and its tenants. He frequently sees his neighbors standing motionless in the toilet room (which he can see from his own window), and discovers a hole in the wall with a human tooth stashed inside. He receives a visit and a letter from one Georges Badar (Rufus), who secretly loves Simone and has believed her to be alive and well. Trelkovsky updates and comforts the man and spends the night out with him drinking at various bars around the city. Gradually he changes his breakfast habits like Simone and shifts from Gauloises to Marlboro cigarettes. One evening, Trelkovsky has a run-in with Stella who is with some friends of hers at a local bar where they talk about the late Simone. After a gathering at friend's house, Stella invites Trelkovsky back to her apartment where she tries to seduce him. Trelkovsky is quite drunk and does not respond to her advances. He tells Stella about finding the human tooth in a wall in his apartment. He then tells a story about a man who lost his arm in an accident and wanted it buried. Trelkovsky instead passes out, leaving Stella to instead sleep beside him. The next day, Trelkovsky returns to his apartment where be becomes severely agitated and enraged when he sees that his apartment has been robbed, while his neighbors and the concierge (Shelley Winters) continue to berate him for making too much noise... despite the fact that he appears to tiptoe around the apartment and watches his TV set without sound. He complains about the robbery to Zy, but the landlord is unsympathetic and refuses to allow Trelkovsky to call the police for he wants the building to remain quiet and respectable. Over the next several days, Trelkvosky becomes hostile and paranoid in his day-to-day environment (snapping at his friends, slapping a child in a park) and his mental state progressively deteriorates as he isolates himself from society. One evening, he imagines himself being attacked by a derelict in the hallway of the lobby in his apartment building while imagining it to be one of his neighbors Madame Dioz (Jo Van Fleet). He buys a wig and woman's shoes and goes on to dress up (using Simone's dress which he had found in a cupboard) and sits still in his apartment in the dead of night. He begins to suspect that Zy and neighbors had driven the previous tenant, Simone, to commit suicide by harassing her, and in his increasingly twisted state of mind, believes that they are trying to subtly change him into Simone so that he too will kill himself. He has visions of his neighbors playing football with a human head in the apartment courtyard, and begins to see himself staring out of his own window and finds the toilet covered in hieroglyphs. After a night of drinking at a local bar, Trelkovsky runs off to Stella for comfort and sleeps over at her apartment and confides in her about his fear that his neighbors are trying to kill him, but she calmly tells him that it is all in his mind. The next morning, after Stella has left for work, he concludes that she too is in on his neighbors' conspiracy when a delivery man arrives outside her apartment with a packaged delivery. In his twisted mind, Trelkovsky looks through the peakhole of the front door and sees Zy there. After the delivery man leaves, Trelkvosky proceeds to wreak havoc in her apartment before departing, and steals her hidden supply of money. That evening, Trelkvosky is drinking at a local bar again when he makes the mistake of asking the barman where he can buy a gun. The barman and the manager throw him out of the bar from where the drunk Trelkvosky wanders into the street where he gets hit by a passing car driven by an elderly couple. The old man and woman stop and exit the car to check on him, and he is not wounded too seriously. An doctor appears and gives him a sedative injection due to his odd behavior. As a result, Trelkvosky perceives the elderly couple as landlord Zy and wife after which the couple return him to his apartment. By this point, a deranged Trelkovsky dresses up again as a woman and throws himself out the apartment window in the exact same manner of Simone Choule, before what he believes to be a clapping, cheering audience composed of his neighbors in the courtyard. The suicide attempt, in fact, wakes up his neighbors (whom Trelkovsky sees as humanoid monsters decending upon him). The neighbors arrive at the scene together with the police just in time for the wounded Trelkovsky to crawl up to his apartment and jump one more time. The end of the movie is enigmatic. Trelkovsky is bandaged up at the local hospital in the same fashion as Simone Choule in the very same hospital bed. When Trelkovsky looks up, two visitors come to visit him the next day. It happens to be Stella... and his own self standing before him in the exact same manner when Trelkvosky and Stella visited Simone in the hospital earlier. Trelkovsky then lets out the same disturbing scream that Simone had screamed. There is the possibility that this scene is not a flashback but that Trelkovsky is really Simone Choule and the whole supernatural cycle is about to start all over again.

While investigating a socialite`s husband, a private eye is swept into a storm of lies and a web of scandals that come crashing together for an unforgettable night in Chinatown.

A ruthlessly ambitious Scottish lord seizes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and a trio of witches. Roman Polanski's version of Shakespeare's tragedy about a Scottish lord who murders the king and ascends the throne. His wife then begins hallucinating as a result of her guilt complex and the dead king's son conspires to attack Macbeth and expose him for the murderer he is. —Jason Ihle <jrihl@conncoll.edu> A leader in the victorious army of the King of Scotland, Macbeth, has his ambition piqued when three witches prophesy that he will Thane of Cawdor and king. When the former comes true he believes it is his destiny to be king and sets out to achieve this. —grantss

This is supernatural tale of the unborn. After moving into a creepy old apartment in Manhattan with her husband Guy, Rosemary Woodhouse begins to experience odd, unpleasant things happening to her. Guy becomes enchanted with their nosy neighbors, Minnie and Roman Castevet, after the older couple`s ward commits suicide. Then Rosemary gets pregnant after a bad dream in which a horrible creature makes love to her. A caring Minnie keeps giving her some weird concoction for the pregnancy and Rosemary doesn`t feel at all well. The only solution is, as the tag-line says, to "pray for Rosemary`s baby

A fugitive and his partner invade a recluse's castle. A wounded criminal and his dying partner take refuge at a beachfront castle. The owners of the castle, a meek Englishman and his willful French wife, are initially the unwilling hosts to the criminals. Quickly, however, the relationships between the criminal, the wife, and the Englishman begin to shift in humorous and bizarre fashion. —Sean Taylor <Taylor@org.chem.ethz.ch> The wounded criminal Richard "Dicky" and his dying partner Albie seek for shelter in an old seaside castle full of chickens and owned by the eccentric and coward American George and his French wife Teresa. While waiting for the rescue of his boss, Albie dies and Dicky develops a strange relationship with the odd couple. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil With the taste of failure in his mouth; on the run from the police, and with a dying accomplice in his hands, the wounded brute gangster, Dickie, will eventually discover the perfect hideout: a magnificent and seemingly deserted castle by the sea, now home of the feeble ex-factory owner, George, and his frivolous French wife, Teresa. Home-invaded and forced to go along with Dickie's orders, the unlikely fellowship will wait for the next morning to get help; instead, an unexpected visit from the obnoxious Fairweathers and their friends will be, indeed, the last straw. In the end, penniless, manipulated, and on the verge of a glorious emotional breakdown, the always coward George must--for once in his life--find the courage to defend his fortress, and his remaining dignity. But, has he the strength to do it? —Nick Riganas