ITVX has announced a new major partnership with StudioCanal that will see the streamer as many as 1,000 hours of new content added to the streaming service.
StudioCanal Presents will be available as part of ITVX Premium, which costs from £5.99 per month.
400 films will be added to the streamer, as well as dozens of new TV series such as Hannibal, the prequel series to The Silence of the Lambs, and all eight episodes of acclaimed French police thriller Spiral.
Given that StudioCanal owns the world’s third-largest film library, and has acquired parts of film libraries from major studios including Spyglass Entertainment, Miramax, Studio Ghibli, and EMI Films this comes as extremely exciting news.
While we’re still waiting on the full list, here is our selection of nine of the best films coming to the streamer.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949 - 4K Restoration)
Kind Hearts and Coronets is without a doubt one of the greatest films of all time. Dennis Price stars as Louis Mazzini, a man whose mother was disowned by her very wealthy family and who has therefore lost his direct right to his inheritance. When he grows up he hatches a mad plot to kill off the eight family members who now stand between him and his fortune. Somehow, Mazzini is absolutely delightful as he goes about his assassinations and the plot is made all the funnier by Alec Guinness playing all eight members of the D’Ascoyne family.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
David Lynch’s surrealist neo-noir starring Naomi Watts and Laura Harring has become a cult classic, praised by viewers and critics alike: one critic went so far as to call it a “delirious masterpiece” and it topped the BBC’s list of 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century. Watts stars as Betty Elms, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles who befriends Rita (Harring), a woman who has been in a car accident on Mulholland Drive and is suffering from amnesia. The story, which becomes stranger by the minute, follows what happens as the duo try and work out Rita’s real identity.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
This dark fantasy horror film from Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was nominated for six Oscars and won three in 2007. The story, which is set in Spain in 1944, five years after the Spanish Civil War, follows 11-year-old Ofelia who is drawn into a mystical Labyrinth which helps her to escape from her brutal stepfather, a Captain in Franco’s army who is hunting the guerillas fighting against the fascist regime. The New York Times said: “Guillermo Del Toro, unapologetically and unpretentiously swears allegiance to a pop-fantasy tradition that encompasses comic books, science fiction and horror movies, but fan-boy pastiche is the last thing on his mind.”
Stardust (2007)
This barmy fairytale stars a luminous Claire Danes as fallen star Yvaine, who becomes hot property the second she falls to earth. Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) captures her and plans to take her to impress his snooty girlfriend Victoria Forester (Sienna Miller), while Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) heads a trio of witches who are after the star so they can eat her heart to recover their youth. Three princely brothers (Mark Strong, Jason Flemyng and Rupert Everett) are also trying to find the star, because whoever does will be crowned king. And there’s Robert de Niro as a cross-dressing pirate. Quirky and tonnes of fun, Stardust is a romantic fantasy which all the family can watch.
Mother (2009)
Bong Joon-ho is best known for his Oscar-winning upstairs-downstairs drama, Parasite, but the Korean director has been making excellent films for decades. One of his best works is Mother, which follows the actions of a debt-laden, widowed mother whose neurodivergent son is accused of murdering a high school girl. In an attempt to clear his name, she starts to investigate the murder herself. As with all of Bong’s films Mother has an undertone of (the darkest) humour while succeeding as a nail-biting thriller.
The Bling Ring (2010)
Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring retells the true story of a group of celebrity-obsessed teens who started to rob the homes of Hollywood personalities. Starring Emma Watson alongside Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Taissa Farmiga, and Claire Julien, the film, as The Guardian put it, “puts you right inside the opium den of celeb-worship”. Coppola filmed in the actual home of Paris Hilton, one of the real-life victims of the burglaries. The thieves would end up stealing as much as $3 million in cash and possessions before they got caught.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
One of the slickest, most chilling spy thriller films ever made, Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John le Carré’s novel makes for a terrifying watch. An all-star cast that includes Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds and John Hurt play senior British intelligence agents during the Cold War in the Seventies. But one of them is a mole, and Smiley (Oldman) is called out of retirement to try and discover who it is.
Paddington (2014)
There are few films as lovely as Paddington – the celluloid equivalent of a long hug with your mum. Ben Whishaw is the voice of the orphan bear, who is in London after an earthquake has destroyed his home in the deep jungles of Peru. He is taken in by the Brown family (Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins play mum and dad) who quickly become fond of him. But evil taxidermist Millicent Clyde (Nicole Kidman) plans to stuff him. Paddington, as affable as is bear-manely possible, ends up bringing the Browns closer together, after initially making a bit of a mess.
Macbeth (2015)
Justin Kurzel’s exquisite production of Macbeth stars Michael Fassbender as the murderous thane, Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth, Paddy Considine as Banquo, and Sean Harris as Macduff. The intense film, which is so stylised that it sometimes feels like a hideous fever dream, has a stunning score composed by Kurzel’s brother, Jed. The script uses Shakespeare’s original language which adds further discord against the highly-aesthetic, sometimes blatantly computerised, sequences.
