He was the Lord of Ten Thousand Years, the absolute monarch of China. He was born to rule a world of ancient tradition. Nothing prepared him for our world of change.

Bernardo Bertolucci's masterpiece won nine Oscars (including Best Picture and Best Director), and remains one of the greatest historical dramas ever put to film. This sweeping cinematic spectacle follows the tumultuous life of Pu Yi, the last Chinese emperor, from his elite origins in the Forbidden City - where a new English tutor (Peter O'Toole) opens the boy's mind to the outside world - to his forced abdication in 1912 and his return to the throne under Japanese rule. Inextricably intertwined with the history of modern-day China, the story ends with the once-privilege emperor living a working-class life under communist rule.