Women's DVD Library
To borrow a DVD, contact Hannah Bass, the Women’s Officer, and she will deliver it to your pigeon hole!
Email: mhb36
Phone: 07988825794
(Men can borrow DVDs too!)
Full list of DVDs available below.
ALL ABOUT EVE
Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxtor, Marilyn Monroe
Synopsis: Black and white classic that won the 1950 best film Oscar, where a young actress manoeuvres her way into the life of her idol.
ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER
Starring: Cecilia Roth, Penelope Cruz
Synopsis: When a single mother’s only son dies on his seventeenth birthday, she decides to find his transvestite father and tell him about the son he never knew he had. A moving film by Pedro Almodovar.
BEACHES
Starring: Bette Midler, Barbara Hershey
Synopsis: A turbulent but powerful friendship develops over the years between a privileged debutante and a struggling entertainer
BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM
Starring: Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightely, Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Synopsis: Wannabe footballer Jess joins the local girls team against her parents’ wishes
BLACK BOOK
Starring: Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch
Synopsis: A Jewish singer infiltrates the Nazi headquarters occupying the Netherlands
BRICK LANE
Starring: Tannishtha Chatterjee
Synopsis: Based on Monica Ali's novel, the story of a woman who moves to London from Bangladesh after her arranged marriage and embarks on an affair with a younger man
CAMBRIDGE SPIES
Starring: Tom Hollander, Rupert Penry-Jones, Imelda Staunton
Synopsis: BBC TV series about four young men at Cambridge in 1934, recruited to spy for the Soviet Union over twenty years
CLUELESS
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy -
Synopsis: The original ‘Mean Girls’ - Beverly Hills does Jane Austen's 'Emma'
THE COLOUR PURPLE
Starring: Whoopie Goldberg
Synopsis: Directed by Steven Spielberg and received 11 Oscar nominations. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Alice Walker, following the life of Celie, an uneducated woman living in the American rural south
DONNIE DARKO
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze
Synopsis: Cult classic about a teenage boy plagued by visions of an enormous bunny rabbit who compels him to commit crimes, after he narrowly escapes a bizarre accident
ERIN BROKOVICH
Starring: Julia Roberts, Aaron Eckhart
Synopsis: Roberts won Best Actress for her role as a gutsy single lawyer who no one takes seriously until she takes them down
FIRE
Starring: Nandita Das, Shabana Azmi
Synopsis: Deepa Mehta’s film about an arranged marriage that exposes family secrets and lies in New Delhi
4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS
Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu
Synopsis: Palme D'Or winning drama about two friends seeking an abortion in communist era Romania
FRIDA
Starring: Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Antonio Banderas
Synopsis: A biography of the artist Frida Kahlo, who used the pain of her crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage to create her extraordinary work
THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR
Starring: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison
Synopsis: Black and white romance between a widow and the ghost that lives in her new house
GHOST WORLD
Starring: Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson
Synopsis: Cult indie classic about two friends who are too cool and deal accordingly
GIRL INTERRUPTED
Starring: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie (who won an Oscar for the role), Brittany Murphy
Synopsis: Based on the true story of a questionably diagnosed girl sent to a psychiatric hospital where she befriends a charismatic sociopath
HEATHERS
Starring: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty
Synopsis: The original ‘Mean Girls’, a deliciously dark comedy about popular kids and faked teenage suicides in an American High School
HISTORICAL ROM COMS (3 PACK):
1. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Starring: Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfayden
Synopsis: Regency period mother tries to marry off her five daughters with varying success
2. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes
Synopsis: Imaginative romantic comedy telling the story behind the writing of Romeo and Juliet as Shakespeare falls for girl dressed as boy
3. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Starring: Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet
Synopsis: Another Austen classic, directed by Ang Lee, where two sisters try to marry themselves off with varying success
THE HOURS
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore
Synopsis: Award-winning drama about Virginia Woolf, and how her novel ‘Mrs Dalloway’ affects generations of women dealing with suicide
LADY CHATTERLEY
Starring: Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coulloch
Synopsis: Award-winning French adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's famous novel about a woman trapped in a passionless marriage who finds love with the gamekeeper. Lots of 18-rated sexy time...
LEON
Starring: a teenage Natalie Portman
Synopsis: An unlikely friendship between a twelve year old girl from a dysfunctional family, and one of the world’s deadliest assassins
LILYA 4-EVER
Starring: Oksana Akinshina
Synopsis: Russian film about an abandoned girl who becomes friends with a local boy before falling into prostitution
LUST, CAUTION
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Joan Chen
Synopsis: Ang Lee’s espionage thriller set in World War Two Shanghai, about a young women caught up in a radical assassination plot
MAGNOLIA
Starring: Tom Cruise, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore
Synopsis: One day, a dying father, a young wife, a caretaker, a famous lost son, a loved-up police officer, a child genius, an ex-child genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter all get caught up in one story of coincidence
MATILDA AND MADELINE BOX SET (2 PACK):
1. MATILDA
Starring: Mara Wilson, Danny DeVito, Pam Ferris
Synopsis: Roald Dahl’s story of an extraordinarily gifted little girl, ignored by her parents and bullied by the terrifying headmistress Miss Trunchbull until she learns to turn the tables on them
2. MADELINE
Starring: Hatty Jones, Frances McDormand, Nigel Hawthorne
Synopsis: Based on the children’s picture books by Ludwig Bemelmans, the story of mischievous Madeline and her eleven friends living in a school in Paris
MAXIMUM ‘80S COLLECTION (2 PACK):
1. WORKING GIRL
Starring: Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver, Harrison Ford
Synopsis: Comedy where working girl gets ahead by pilfering her bitchy boss' job and getting a makeover
2. 9 TO 5
Starring: Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda
Synopsis: Comedy, two secretaries and an office manager take revenge on their sexist boss
MEAN GIRLS
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey
Synopsis: Darkly comic teen movie where the high school newcomer decides to bring down the ruling clique of mean girls from the inside
MONA LISA SMILE
Starring: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Synopsis: Gutsy art teacher tries to get 50s girls school into 70s feminism.
MONSTER
Starring: Charlize Theron (who won the Oscar for Best Actress), Christina Ricci
Synopsis: Based on the true story of America's first female serial killer, Aileen Wuornos
MYSTERIOUS SKIN
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbett
Synopsis: The crossed paths of a boy obsessed with his abduction by aliens and a teenage hustler with sex on the brain
MY SISTER’S KEEPER
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Joan Cusack
Synopsis: A child conceived to be a donor for her leukaemia-suffering sister demands the right to control her body
NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Starring: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett
Synopsis: An obsessive friendship begins between two women when one female teacher is revealed to be having an affair with a teenage pupil. Based on the novel by Zoe Heller
OFFSIDE
Starring: Sima Mobarak Shahi
Synopsis: Iranian female football fans, fighting to watch a match in a country that bans women from sporting events, by dressing up as boys...
PAN’S LABYRINTH
Starring: Ivana Banquero
Synopsis: Award-winning Spanish fantasy film about a young girl confronting monsters during the Spanish Civil War
PEPI, LUCI, BOM
Starring: Carmen Maura, Eva Silva, Olvido Gara
Synopsis: A gang of girl friends take revenge on a rape in Madrid’s punk-era, in this film by Pedro Almodovar
QUIET DAYS IN CLICHY
Starring: Paul Valjean, Wayne Rodda
Synopsis: Directed by Jens Jorgen Thorsen and based on Henry Miller’s long-banned erotic novel, the story of two young men shagging their way through Paris and its prostitutes
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
Starring: Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio
Synopsis: A wife’s desire to pursue her dreams disrupts the seemingly perfect life of a couple in 1950s suburbia
SEX: THE ANNABEL CHONG STORY
Starring: Annabel Chong
Synopsis: Documentary about the girl who aimed to set the record for the most sex in one day, going on to have sex with 251 men in ten hours
TANK GIRL
Starring: Naomi Watts
Synopsis: Based on the cult British comic strip about a tank-riding anti-heroine who takes on a mega-corporation controlling the world’s water supply in a wacky vision of 2033
VERA DRAKE
Starring: Imelda Staunton
Synopsis: Directed by Mike Leigh and winner of the Best Film category at the Venice Film Festival, a drama about a housewife in 1950s London who helps young women end their unwanted pregnancies in secret
THE VIRGIN SUICIDES
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett
Synopsis: Directed by the first Oscar-nominated female director, Sofia Coppola, the story of five sisters in 1970s America recollected by the now grown-up boys from their neighbourhood.
VOLVER
Starring: Penelope Cruz
Synopsis: Directed by Pedro Almodovar, a Spanish comedy drama where two sisters are revisited by their mother's ghost.
WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?
Starring: Carmen Maura
Synopsis: An early comedy by Pedro Almodovar, about a woman’s struggle to hold a madcap family together in a tough urban environment
WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
Starring: Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas
Synopsis: A pregnant actress is diverted from suicide among