Bottle

59:09

As the red carpet season reaches its climax, Mark Kermode turns his keen eye and sharp wit on past winners of the most prestigious awards of all. What gave them the edge over their rivals? Mark shows that, despite their apparent differences, Oscar-winning films have more in common than you might think. Certain kinds of film recur, such as war, social justice and the all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza. But, as Mark explains, it’s not just about your choice of subject; it's how you treat it that counts. In a special show that ranges from the earliest awards winners to the most recent victors, Mark reveals the films that laid down the template for cinematic glory, celebrates the classics that have endured and savours some of the movies’ most acclaimed performances.

Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema • 2019 • Creativity

49:26

Vincent van Gogh's life has long captured the imagination, but who was he really? Tim Marlow delves into his fascinating and sometimes deeply troubled world.

S2E2 • Great Art • 2018 • Creativity

56:54

Pierre Soulages, the painter of the anti-image, who uses a palette of black, is the subject of this fascinating documentary. The preeminent painter of contemporary France, his paintings are stark and plain and painted with unconventional materials.

9 • Behind the Artist • 2016 • Creativity

49:24

Focuses on the sell-out exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts, depicting the craft of one of the all-time great artists, the 'father of modern art', Edouard Manet. Spanning this enigmatic and, at times, controversial artist's career, the programme gives a fascinating exploration and detailed biography of the momentous painter and his environment in a rapidly changing 19th-century Paris.

S2E4 • Great Art • 2018 • Creativity

51:50

M.C. Escher is among the most intriguing of artists. In 1956 he challenged the laws of perspective with his graphic Print Gallery and his uncompleted master-piece quickly became the most puzzling enigma of modern art. Fifty years later, can mathematician Hendrik Lenstra complete it? Should he?

2007 • Creativity

59:08

Mark turns to horror and shows how film-makers have devilishly deployed a range of cinematic tricks to exploit our deepest, darkest and most elemental fears. He explores the recurring elements of horror, including the journey, the jump scare, the scary place, the monster and the chase. He reveals how they have been refined and reinvented in films as diverse as the silent classic The Phantom of the Opera, low-budget cult shockers The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Evil Dead, and Oscar-winners The Silence of the Lambs and Get Out. Mark analyses the importance of archetypal figures such as the clown, the savant and the 'final girl'. And of course, he celebrates his beloved Exorcist films by examining two unforgettable but very different shock moments in The Exorcist and The Exorcist III. Ultimately, Mark argues, horror is the most cinematic of genres, because no other kind of film deploys images and sound to such powerful and primal effect.

Part 5 • Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema • 2018 • Creativity