John Thaw

DIs Jack Regan & George Carter have a simple mission, to catch villains - and they don't care if they have to tread on their superiors' toes or ignore police procedure to do it.

When one of his informants is murdered, Detective Inspector Jack Regan is drawn into a deadly political game. He is soon a marked man and, after being framed, is suspended from duty.

Accused of murder after a woman he briefly knew vanishes, an Englishman living on the island of Rhodes sets out to find her and uncovers a conspiracy.

When his estranged daughter dies, an older man finds his parenting skills stretched to the limit by the willful granddaughter he never knew existed.

Both poetic and polemical, Doris Lessing exploded onto the literary scene with her first novel in 1950. Set in her native Rhodesia, it boldly lifted the lid on themes of psychology, racism, feminism and colonialism.

After a decade of suspended animation, the eminent Dr. Phibes heads to Egypt to invoke a magical incantation to resurrect his dead wife.

Directed by Sir Richard Attenborough and starring Robert Downey, Jr. and an extraordinary cast, Chaplin is a loving, grand scale portrait of the Little Tramp's amazing life and times. His poverty-stricken childhood in England comes to life, along with his friendships with Mack Sennett and Douglas Fairbanks, his many wives and scandalous affairs, and his relentless pursuit.

The tension and terror that is present-day South Africa is powerfully portrayed in director Richard Attenborough's sweeping story of black activist Stephen Biko (Denzel Washington) and a liberal white newspaper editor who risks his own life to bring Biko's message to the world.