Howards End (1992)

Film4, 3.55pm ★★★★★

This is Merchant Ivory’s finest film: a subtle, rich adaptation of EM Forster’s dissection of 1900s British social class. Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson play sisters whose romances with, respectively, a penniless clerk (Samuel West) and a wealthy capitalist (Anthony Hopkins) cause consternation – and tragedy. Thompson was deservedly awarded one of the film’s three winning Oscars.