LONDON, England?The British capital isn?t just a cultural melting pot and a theater haven, it?s also a cinematic mecca that boasts of venues that constantly screen films from all over the world. Here are some of the movies that recently caught our fancy:

Julian Schnabel?s acclaimed French feature, ?The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,? which won the Best Director plums at Cannes and the Golden Globes and also gave lead actor Mathieu Amalric a Best Actor Cesar recently, is based on the autobiographical book by former Elle editor in chief, Jean-Dominique Bauby, written after he suffered a massive stroke that left his whole body paralyzed?except his left eye!

Solitary world

To describe his solitary world, he ?dictated? his story one letter after another by using an ingenious but tedious eye-blinking system. Fourteen months after the accident?and two days after the publication of his book?he passed away.

Justin Chadwick?s ?The Other Boleyn Girl? chronicles how two sisters, Mary and Anne Boleyn (Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, respectively, in powerful performances), vie for the amorous affections of Britain?s King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) to save the family?s dwindling coffers.

With a script by Peter Morgan (?The Queen,? ?The Last King of Scotland?), it dramatized how the calculating Anne convinced the besotted king to dissolve his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, break away from the Catholic Church that excommunicated him, and create the Church of England in the 16th century. Merely 1,000 days after she married Henry and was subsequently proclaimed queen, she was found guilty of adultery, incest and treason?and was beheaded at the Tower of London!

Male heir

The Tudor line?s grip of power was threatened by the lack of a male heir. Interestingly, it was Boleyn?s daughter with Henry, Elizabeth, who eventually took over the monarchy and ushered in the country?s Golden Age. Along with Queen Elizabeth II, she became one of the kingdom?s longest-reigning monarchs!

In Tamara Jenkin?s brilliant but little-seen ?The Savages,? the Oscar-nominated Laura Linney and the prolific Philip Seymour Hoffman play siblings who are forced to face the realities of familial responsibility when their difficult father is afflicted with vascular dementia. They know something is gravely wrong when they are told that their distant dad is caught writing on the wall of his nursing shelter using his fecal matter!

If you enjoyed Alejandro Amenabar?s brilliantly creepy ?The Others,? you?ll no doubt love Juan Antonio Bayona?s must-see dramatic chiller, ?The Orphanage,? which follows a mother?s (Belen Rueda) search for her missing HIV-positive adopted son (Roger Pricep). The movie will initially make you cringe with fear, then it?ll make you cry.

Doppelganger

Things get even weirder in Harmony Korine?s ?Mister Lonely,? which follows how a Michael Jackson lookalike (Diego Luna) meets a Marilyn Monroe doppelganger (Samantha Morton) in Paris, who invites him to her place in Scotland?where she lives with Charlie Chaplin and her daughter, Shirley Temple!

Other interesting films here: Bernardo Bertolucci?s ?The Conformist,? Celine Sciamma?s ?Water Lilies,? Wong Kar-Wai?s ?My Blueberry Nights,? Mike Newell?s ?Love in the Time of Cholera,? Lenny Abrahamson?s ?Garage,? Ana Kokkino?s ?The Book of Revelation,? Roy Andersson?s ?You, the Living,? Hou Hsiao Hsien?s ?The Flight of the Red Balloon,? Parvaz Sharma?s ?A Jihad for Love,? Dai Sijie?s ?The Chinese Botanist?s Daughter? and Francois Ozon?s ?Angel.?