Cavalcade

Cavalcade (1933) is Frank Lloyd's sweeping period drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. The film walks through three decades of English life — from the last night of 1899 into the early 1930s — as seen by one well-off London household, the Marryots.

Jane and Robert toast the new century full of hope, but history gives no quarter. Their home is touched by the Boer War, the passing of Queen Victoria, the loss of the Titanic, and then the Great War, which grinds down the very generation they cherish. Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook play the couple aging before our eyes, sending sons off and watching their settled, comfortable world slip away. The screenplay grew out of Noël Coward's stage play, and you can feel that theatrical bone structure in its rhythm.

At the 1934 ceremony the picture carried off three Oscars, the top prize and a directing statue for Lloyd among them. It plays as museum-piece cinema now — grand, a touch naive — yet as a portrait of how Britons pictured their own century, it still holds interest. Worth a look if you're drawn to early sound-era Hollywood and old-fashioned costume saga. Stream Cavalcade (1933) online on iFILM.