National Theatre Live: The Motive and the Cue

Topaz

1969

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1962. When a high-ranking Soviet official decides to change sides, a French intelligence agent is caught up in a cold, silent and bloody spy war in which his own family will play a decisive role.

The Country Girl

1954

An actor on the skids is given one more chance to regain his stardom, as well as his self-respect, yet his alcoholism may prevent that from happening.

The Aviator

2004

A biopic depicting the life of filmmaker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes from 1927 to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate, while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Isabella

2020

Based on true events, the short independent film, "Isabella" reenacts the sudden and emotional death of a dear family pet, showcasing how one family overcomes the heartache of their loss.

White Blessing

2017

White Blessing is motivational sports drama and based on a true story.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

2005

The story of journalist Edward R. Murrow's stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.

Pirates of Silicon Valley

1999

The story about the men who made the world of technology what it is today, their struggles during college, the founding of their companies, and the ingenious actions they took to build up the global corporate empires of Apple Computer Inc. and Microsoft Corporation.

Arena

1967

In one of the occupied European cities, the commandant of the garrison gathers a troupe of circus performers. Coming from different countries, they are in the humiliating position of people forced to serve their enslavers. Many of them, recruited from camps and workhouses, were quite content with their lot. Only after a chain of subsequent events, the artists raise an uprising. Unarmed people are not able to resist the arrived guards. They die, but at the cost of their lives they regain their lost human dignity.

Freedom

2024

Inspired by the true events of one of France's most notorious non-violent robbers, Bruno Sulak, in the 1980s. He led multiple heists, then captured public attention for his many daring escapes from police custody...always to reunite with his beloved lover and accomplice Annie, becoming both France's Public Enemy #1 and an icon of Freedom.

Girl, Interrupted

1999

Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

Hairspray

2007

Pleasantly plump teenager Tracy Turnblad auditions to be on Baltimore's most popular dance show - The Corny Collins Show - and lands a prime spot. Through her newfound fame, she becomes determined to help her friends and end the racial segregation that has been a staple of the show.

Maestro

Set against the backdrop of a 1960s jungle seaport in tropical Australia and the rich concert halls of wintry Vienna, talented eighteen year old pianist Paul Crabbe moves to an exotic outpost of far Northern Australia. There, he is forced to study under the only piano teacher his father can find – the eccentric, enigmatic Herr Keller, a Viennese refugee with a shadowed past. Living above a dilapidated hotel in the dripping heat of this seaport, Keller is known to the locals as 'Maestro', a broken, elegant drunkard. But who is he? Does he come from a lineage of great European pianists, or is he a fraud?