David Lean

During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.

Dir. David Lean · With Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif

The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

Dir. David Lean · With William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins

Returning home from a shopping trip to a nearby town, bored suburban housewife Laura Jesson is thrown by happenstance into an acquaintance with virtuous doctor Alec Harvey. Their casual friendship soon develops during their weekly visits into something more emotionally fulfilling than either expected, and they must wrestle with the potential havoc their deepening relationship would have on their lives and the lives of those they love.

Dir. David Lean · With Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

Dir. David Lean · With Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin

A widower refuses to let his three daughters marry in order to avoid paying settlements, so they'll just have to outsmart him.

Dir. David Lean · With Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda De Banzie

When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.

Dir. David Lean · With John Howard Davies, Robert Newton, Alec Guinness

In the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, a married schoolteacher in a small Irish village has an affair with a troubled British officer.

Dir. David Lean · With Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, Christopher Jones

In this Dickens adaptation, orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.

Dir. David Lean · With John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Tony Wager

While holding a séance for skeptical novelist Charles Condomine, self-proclaimed 'spiritualist medium' Madame Arcati inadvertently summons the spirit of his deceased first wife Elvira, leading to an increasingly complex love triangle with Ruth, his current wife of five years.

Dir. David Lean · With Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond

Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.

Dir. David Lean · With Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft

The story of the HMS Torrin, from its construction to its sinking in the Mediterranean during action in World War II. The ship’s first and only commanding officer is Captain E.V. Kinross, who trains his men not only to be loyal to him and the country, but—most importantly—to themselves.

Dir. Noël Coward, David Lean · With Noël Coward, John Mills, Bernard Miles

Middle-aged Ohio secretary Jane Hudson has never found love and has nearly resigned herself to spending the rest of her life alone. But before she does, she uses her savings to finance a summer in romantic Venice, where she finally meets the man of her dreams, the elegant Renato Di Rossi.

Dir. David Lean · With Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Isa Miranda