56 UpMovies like 56 Up
- Key Features:
- Documentary, Social class, Life cycle, Coming-of-age, Social commentary, Human condition, Longitudinal study, Fate vs. free will, Personal growth, British society, Personal stories
- Tone:
- serious, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Documentary enthusiasts, Viewers interested in social commentary, Audiences seeking thought-provoking films
- Emotional Arc:
- Optimism → Reflection
56 Up

When a cross-section of seven-year-olds were interviewed for 7 Up in 1964 it was immediately evident that their social backgrounds influenced their attitudes towards life. While the upper class children were confident and self-assured, those from middle and working class backgrounds were resigned to a challenging life of hard work. This premise was put to the test every seven years when the same group were interviewed about the progression of their lives. 49 years in the making, the changes that occurred to the original 14 make for fascinating television and are in many ways the stories of all our lives. From success and disappointment, marriage and childbirth, to poverty and illness, nearly every facet of life has been captured on film. Now, at the age of 56, the group are once more brought together and, with the benefit of hindsight, assess whether their lives have been ruled by circumstance or self-determination.
56 Up
After another 7 year wait, director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born children from Seven Up! and 7 Plus Seven. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.

49 Up is the seventh film in a series of landmark documentaries that began 42 years ago when UK-based Granada's World in Action team, inspired by the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man," interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-old children from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Michael Apted, a researcher for the original film, has returned to interview the "children" every seven years since, at ages 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now again at age 49.In this latest chapter, more life-changing decisions are revealed, more shocking announcements made and more of the original group take part than ever before, speaking out on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, career, class and prejudice.

A group of British children aged 7 from widely ranging backgrounds are interviewed about a range of subjects. The filmmakers plan to re-interview them at 7 year intervals to track how their lives and attitudes change as they age.

Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.

Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.

After a 7 year wait, director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born children from Seven Up! The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.

Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.

Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.

Carl Fredricksen spent his entire life dreaming of exploring the globe and experiencing life to its fullest. But at age 78, life seems to have passed him by, until a twist of fate (and a persistent 8-year old Wilderness Explorer named Russell) gives him a new lease on life.

A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.

In an English boys' boarding school, social hierarchy reigns supreme and power remains in the hands of distanced and ineffectual teachers and callously vicious prefects in the Upper Sixth. Three Lower Sixth students, Wallace, Johnny and leader Mick Travis decide on a shocking course of action to redress the balance of privilege once and for all.

A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.

A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.

The life of a working-class boy in Rome through the '70s and '80s, choosing his own path with his friends and family.

On the outskirts of Birmingham and the margins of society the Billingham family perform extreme rituals and break social taboos as they muddle through a life decided by factors beyond their control. At times shocking and laced with an unsettling humor, three episodes unfold as a powerful evocation of the experience of growing up in a Black Country council flat.

People of different age, profession and social status answer two simple questions: who they are and what they want from life.

In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that because of privatization, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it is clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords.

Story about the remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator and a chaotic homeless man, whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison.

A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.

From childhood to fatherhood, Piero learns things the hard way while growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Livorno.

London, 1953. Mr. Williams, a veteran civil servant, is an important cog within the city's bureaucracy as it struggles to rebuild in the aftermath of World War II. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at home, his life has long felt empty and meaningless. Then a devastating medical diagnosis forces him to take stock, and to try and grasp some fulfilment before it passes permanently beyond reach.

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

Tom, 16, is a sensitive teenager who is about to enter a new high school after being expelled. He intends to find his place, make friends and seduce the girl he loves. Tom needs the support of his older brother, Leo, a true mentor, who is working to make him a “cool kid”. However, Leo's fraternal benevolence hides a destructive temperament... Will Tom be able to grow up finding his own path?

Follows three social outcasts -- two geeks and a cynic -- as they attempt to navigate a time-travel conundrum in the middle of a British pub.

A radical student is adopted by a group of young New Yorkers, serves as a catalyst to alter his and their lives. Gathering in a Manhattan apartment, the group of friends meet to discuss social mobility, Fourier's socialism and play bridge in their cocoon of upper-class society - until they are joined by a man with a critical view of their way of life.

More and more parents take competitive behavior towards the teachers of their children: deny votes and programs, vaneggiano of likes, dislikes, and conspiracies. So, instead of helping in the training of their children, they become insurmountable obstacles to their growth. Presumptuously they think: "We know better than anyone else our children and we know what they are worth and how and what you have to teach."

Tano is 16-years-old and is already sitting in jail. In 48 hours he’s a free man and off to the wedding of his brother. In the two days he recounts his neighborhood in a section of Sevilla.

Indolent aristocrat Tony employs competent Barrett as his manservant and all seems to be going well until Barrett persuades Tony to hire his sister as a live-in maid.

Four stagnant high school teachers decide to test out a theory that maintaining a constant level of intoxication will improve their overall lives.

A disillusioned, angry university graduate comes to terms with his grudge against middle-class life and values.

Yokohama, 1963. Japan is picking itself up from the devastation of World War II and preparing to host the 1964 Olympics—and the mood is one of both optimism and conflict as the young generation struggles to throw off the shackles of a troubled past. Against this backdrop of hope and change, a friendship begins to blossom between high school students Umi and Shun—but a buried secret from their past emerges to cast a shadow on the future and pull them apart.

The drama is centered on four friends and business partners who in one evening are forced to find a way to save their company and themselves. The impossible decision they face is agreeing on who will be the one to sacrifice their freedom to save the others from personal and financial demise. It is a race against time that will put their friendship and sanity to the test. Who will take the fall?

Emma and Anaïs are best friends and yet everything in their life seems to set them apart, their social backgrounds but also their personalities. From the age of thirteen to eighteen, Adolescentes follows the two teenagers during these years where radical transformations and first times punctuate daily life. Through their personal stories, the film offers a rare portrait of France and its recent history.

Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.

This historical drama is an account of the early life of British politician Winston Churchill, including his childhood years, his time as a war correspondent in Africa, and culminating with his first election to Parliament.

India. Smita is an untouchable. She dreams of seeing her daughter escape her miserable condition and enter school. Italy. Giulia works in her father’s workshop. When he has an accident, she discovers that the family business is ruined. Canada. Sarah, a successful lawyer, is about to be promoted to the head of her firm when she learns that she is ill. Three lives, three women, three continents. Three battles to fight. Although they don’t know each other, Smita, Giulia and Sarah are unknowingly linked by their most intimate and singular bond.

In 1970s England, three blue-collar friends spend their days joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls. Freddie wants to leave their working-class world but cool, charismatic Bruce and lovable loser Snork are happy with life the way it is. When Freddie gets a new job as a door-to-door salesman and bumps into his old school sweetheart Julie, the gang are forced to make choices that will change their lives for ever.

Grand Canyon revolved around six residents from different backgrounds whose lives intertwine in modern-day Los Angeles. At the center of the film is the unlikely friendship of two men from different races and classes brought together when one finds himself in jeopardy in the other's rough neighborhood.

As everyone knows, children make no difference between social classes, skin colors or religions. But then why does Corentin, Paul and Sofia's nine-year-old son, only have friends like him at Bagnolet's school? And when his friends all leave for a private school in Paris, his parents are frightened. From now on, Corentin is the only one in his class. But the only what?

After being sent to a detention centre, a teenage skinhead clashes with the social workers who want to conform him to the status quo.

Six high school friends in their 40s who haven't seen each other in nearly 20 years rekindle their younger selves after a court cancels their diploma, forcing them to repeat the final high school exam.

Naive Stanley Windrush looks for a career in a family business. Much to his dismay, he finds work at a munitions factory where he has to start from the bottom, while both the management and the labor union use him as a tool in their fight for power.

Chronicles three years of a middle-class family seemingly caught up in their daily routines, troubled only by minor incidents. Behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, however, they're planning something much more sinister.

Fifteen-year-old Mia is in a constant state of war with her family and the world around her. When she meets her party-girl mother’s charming new boyfriend Connor, she is amazed to find he returns her attention, and believes he might help her start to make sense of her life.

Through interviews filmed over four years, Noam Chomsky unpacks the principles that have brought us to the crossroads of historically unprecedented inequality – tracing a half-century of policies designed to favor the most wealthy at the expense of the majority – while also looking back on his own life of activism and political participation. He provides penetrating insight into what may well be the lasting legacy of our time – the death of the middle class, and swan song of functioning democracy.

Elisabeth and John John are raised in the same city, yet they live light years apart, separated economically, socially and culturally. That is until the day they start in the same high school class.

The Wild Chicks are slowly growing out of their youthful gang years and have to face the worries of growing up on the sidelines of a big class trip before graduation.

African-American student Malik is on a track scholarship; academics are not his strong suit, and he goes in thinking that his athletic abilities will earn him a free ride through college. Fudge, a "professional student" who has been at Columbus for six years so far, becomes friendly with Malik and challenges his views about race and politics in America.

Born with a rare condition that makes him age four times faster than normal, ten-year-old Jack Powell looks like a forty-year-old man. After years of homeschooling, he enters public school for the first time, eager to make friends and live like any other kid—only to discover that growing up too fast means learning some of life’s hardest lessons early.

The story of boxer Rocky Graziano's rise from juvenile delinquent to world champ.

Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles while wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry's glass ceiling. Both of them were to find unlikely hope and unexpected challenges in the form of a Saturday tea-time drama. Allied with a team of unusual but brilliant people, they went on to create the longest running science fiction series ever made.

In 1993, Max was 13 when he was offered his first camera. For 25 years he will not stop filming. The bunch of friends, the loves, the successes, the failures. From the 90s to the 2010s, it is the portrait of a whole generation that is emerging through its objective.

Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship.

Ian begins a relationship with Drew's daughter, who works in the financial sector. The couple gets involved in a tragic accident that will change their lives forever. At the same time, the accident has a major impact on both their families who, despite the class difference, cross paths.

A saga of class relations and changing times in an Edwardian England on the brink of modernity, the film centers on liberal Margaret Schlegel, who, along with her sister Helen, becomes involved with two couples: wealthy, conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth, and the downwardly mobile working-class Leonard Bast and his mistress Jackie.

After losing a finger in a work accident, an Italian worker becomes increasingly involved in political and revolutionary groups.

Georges has Down syndrome, living at a mental-institution, Harry is a busy businessman, giving lectures for young aspiring salesmen. He is successful in his business life, but his social life is a disaster since his wife left him and took their two children with her. This weekend his children came by train to meet him, but Harry, working as always, forgot to pick them up. Neither his wife or his children want to see him again and he is driving around on the country roads, anguished and angry. He almost runs over Georges, on the run from the institution since everybody else went home with their parents except him, whose mother is dead. Harry tries to get rid of Georges but he won't leave his new friend. Eventually a special friendship forms between the two of them, a friendship which makes Harry a different person.

In a highly secured vault deep within the walls of Vatican City, the Catholic Church holds thousands of old films and video footage documenting exorcisms/supposed exorcisms and other unexplained religious phenomena they feel the world is not ready to see. This is the first tape - Case 83-G - stolen from these archives and exposed to the public by an anonymous source.

The story of life on our planet by the man who has seen more of the natural world than any other. In more than 90 years, Attenborough has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of our planet and documenting the living world in all its variety and wonder. Addressing the biggest challenges facing life on our planet, the film offers a powerful message of hope for future generations.

Michael Moore comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).

Camille, a naïve schoolgirl, meets an intriguing influence in Joelle, a slightly older and much more experienced spirit. Camille follows her new friend through the discovery of sex and the darker side of life. As the film progresses, Camille discovers AIDS and the fear that she may have picked up the disease in her early encounters.

After serving jail time for a mysterious crime, Bill and Karl get out of jail and become preoccupied with figuring out who turned them in to the police. On top of that, the "family business" is on the rocks, and the motley crew of criminals who operate out of Down Terrace aren't feeling terribly trusting of one another. It might look like an ordinary house, but at Down Terrace, the walls are closing in..

Two first-year students at Oxford University join a secret society and learn that their reputations can be made or destroyed over the course of one evening.

Three generations of a French family open up about their sexual experiences and desires after young Romain is caught masturbating in his biology class.

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.

"Good son" Franck returns to his hometown to do a trainee managerial internship in the Human Resources department of the factory where his anxious, taciturn father has worked for 23 years.

The true story of a working class boy who moves to the nation's financial capital at a young age and becomes one the most influential politicians in Brazilian history.

Filippo is a star on the Italian TV. He works for a documentary series about wild animals and nature. He is sent to Tenerife (Spain) to shot an issue about the local stork. It is the 13th of August. After he did his job is time to leave, but the ferry couldn't operate. He has to spend the night in the island. The day after is again the 13th of August, and Filippo live again the same day for different times. Something has to change to exit the paranoid and unrealistic situation.

A Yorkshire coal mine is threatened with closure and the only hope is for the men to enter their Grimley Colliery Brass Band into a national competition. They believe they have no hope until Gloria appears carrying her Flugelhorn. At first mocked for being a woman, she soon becomes the only chance for the band to win.

A successful Indian scientist returns home to his village to take his nanny back to America with him, and in the process rediscovers his roots.

The story of the Black Panthers is often told in a scatter of repackaged parts, often depicting tragic, mythic accounts of violence and criminal activity; but this is an essential story, vibrant, human; a living and breathing chronicle of a pivotal movement that birthed a new revolutionary culture in America.

Ricky and his family have been fighting an uphill struggle against debt since the 2008 financial crash. An opportunity to wrestle back some independence appears with a shiny new van and the chance to run a franchise as a self-employed delivery driver. It's hard work, and his wife's job as a carer is no easier. The family unit is strong but when both are pulled in different directions everything comes to breaking point.

The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, whose chances at marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. When Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son from his first marriage, John and wife Fanny. But these circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's current wife, and daughters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.

12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids, and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.

Pio and Amedeo are inseparable friends, or at least they were until they graduated from high school, at which point each one was faced with the question: move up north or stay in the south?

A reality TV program selects six contestants to participate in a free-for-all, no holds barred deathmatch, where they must skillfully outwit and kill each other in order to be the last person alive.

When the Universe decides what it wants, it's pointless to resist. With his family's life at stake, Joseph Steadman finds himself the unwilling test subject of a maniacal scientist in a battle that could save the world – or destroy it.

We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…

Hapless Henry Palfrey is patronised by his self-important chief clerk at work, ignored by restaurant waiters, conned by shady second-hand car salesmen, and, worst of all, endlessly wrong-footed by unspeakably rotten cad Raymond Delauney who has set his cap at April, new love of Palfrey's life. In desperation Henry enrolls at the College of Lifemanship to learn how to best such bounders and win the girl.

When her mother sends her on a quest to complete a teenage bucket list, a young woman uncovers family secrets, finds romance — and rediscovers herself.

Young Nigel Slater has big culinary aspirations, even though all his mother knows how to make is toast. When his mother dies, relations grow strained between Nigel and his father, especially when he remarries a woman who wins his heart with a lemon meringue pie. Nigel enters culinary school, starts working in a pub, and finds himself competing with his stepmother - both in the kitchen and for his father's attention.

A policeman who spies on the lives of others, an important banker married to a housewife who poses as a noblewoman. A precarious young masseuse and an electrician madly in love. Very different lives that end up intertwining. But also extremely complicated and troubled lives ... Even if, after all, life is a wonderful thing ...

Four lost souls—a disgraced TV presenter, a foul-mouthed teen, an isolated single mother, and a solipsistic muso—decide to end their lives on the same night, New Year's Eve. When this disillusioned quartet of strangers meet unintentionally at the same suicide hotspot, a London high-rise with the well-earned nickname Topper's Tower, they mutually agree to call off their plans for six weeks, forming an unconventional, dysfunctional family. They become media sensations as the Topper House Four and search together for the reasons to keep on living.

On the eve of his 78th birthday, the ailing, alcoholic writer Clive Langham spends a painful and sleepless night mentally composing and recomposing scenes for a novel in which characters based on his own family are shaped by his fantasies and memories, alongside his caustic commentary on their behaviour.

A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.

In Northern England in the early 1960s, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.

Three generations of the rowdy Cutler family live as outlaws in some of Britain's richest countryside – hunting hares, ram-raiding stately homes, and taunting the police. Struggling to retain a way of life fast becoming extinct, Chad Cutler ends up caught between his father's archaic principles and trying to do right by his kids, whilst the full force of the law is finally catching up with him.

A short kid from a Canadian army base becomes the international pop culture darling of the 1980s—only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. What happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease?

A resourceful 12-year-old, who secretly lives alone in her flat in a working-class suburb of London, makes money stealing bikes with her best friend Ali and keeps the social workers off her back by pretending to live with an uncle. But when her estranged father turns up out of the blue, she's forced to confront reality.

At the dawn of the 20th century, following their father's arrest on suspicion of betraying state secrets, the three Waterbury children—Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter—move with their mother to Yorkshire, where they find themselves involved in unexpected dramas along the railway by their new home.

A boy's Bar Mitzvah looks set to be a disaster when it coincides with the 1966 World Cup Final.

In the past 40 years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer, and destroyed impoverished communities at home and abroad. Yet drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever. Where did we go wrong?

Instead of adhering to the norms of their South Central neighborhood, a group of skater boys opt to bus into Hollywood and Beverly Hills, where they attract local rich girls - and plenty of trouble with the police, jealous boyfriends, and nervous parents.

The lives and turbulent adventures of a bunch of fourteen-year-old teenagers, through the eyes of three young girls - Sarah, Jade and Louise - with one last year to go before high school.



