The Film Programme

In an extended interview, Francine Stock meets with Hugh Grant to talk about his new role as the voice of an incompetent buccaneer in the Aardman Animations 3-D stop-motion film, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists. He also discusses his role in The Leveson Inquiry, and why he thinks the films of Jean Luc-Godard are pretentious nonsense. Also on the programme, a profile of Jafar Panahi, one of Iran's most famous directors, whose latest work, This Is Not A Film, is an attempt to make a film under house arrest. We also investigate the routes around the censors taken by earlier filmmakers in other countries.

Francine Stock meets with Jennifer Lawrence to discuss her lead role in The Hunger Games. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne discuss their new film, The Kid with a Bike. Director Andrew Haigh on his indie breakthrough hit, Weekend, about an intimate relationship between two men in Nottingham. Actor Brian Cox does his best impression of Orson Welles and explains why he'll be performing the entire script of 'the greatest film never made', Welles's adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Producer: Craig Smith.

Francine Stock meets with Mark Wahlberg to discuss his new film, Contraband, his love of European thrillers, and why his criminal record has helped his acting career.Polish director Agnieszka Holland discusses her new film, In Darkness, a real-life tale of a group of Jews who hid from the Nazis in the sewers of Lvov, in Poland.And a celebration of the late director Ken Russell, as Kim Newman reviews a new cut of The Devils, and from behind the piano Neil Brand deconstructs Russell's use of music in his films from Gustav Mahler to The Who.Producer: Craig Smith.

Actor John Cusack on playing Edgar Allan Poe, and his concerns for free speech in America. Juliet Stevenson discusses the difficulties of working with Peter Greenaway on his film from 1988, Drowning by Numbers. Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod are better known as the co-founders of the theatre company, Cheek by Jowl. This week sees the release of their debut film, Bel Ami, starring Robert Pattison as the amoral cad from the famous novel by Guy de Maupassant. Riz Ahmed is a British actor noted for his roles in The Road to Guantanamo and Four Lions. He's now starring in Trishna, an adaptation of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, directed by Michael Winterbottom. He discusses working with the director and why the film is set in India. Producer: Craig Smith.

Francine Stock meets with Minnie Driver and director Marc Evans to discuss their high school musical Hunky Dory, a love letter to 1970's Wales. Austrian Markus Schleinzer discusses his debut Michael, where a paedophile imprisons a young boy in his cellar. Pasquale Iannone explains why The Conformist from 1970 is director Bernardo Bertolucci's masterpiece and a blue print for the American New Wave. And as the Oscar stardust settles, box office analyst Charles Gant reveals what we've actually been watching on the big screen. Producer: Craig Smith.

Francine Stock talks to Woody Harrelson, who plays a violent racist cop in his new film Rampart. It's been hailed by many as one of the performances of the year. So why no Oscar nod? He explains all. Also out this week is Black Gold, a vast sweeping epic which tells the story of the discovery of oil in the Arab states at the turn of the 20th century. Staring Mark Strong and Antonio Banderas, the film is conspicuous in featuring no Arab actors in the lead roles. One of the producers behind the film Ali Jaafar, discusses the challenges of making a movie set in the Arab world. Director Stephen Frears explains why Otto Preminger's Laura, starring Gene Tierney, is one of his favourites from the film noir genre. And ahead of the Academy Awards this weekend Francine speaks to producer Sue Goffe and director Grant Orchard about their Oscar-nominated short, A Morning Stroll. Producer: Craig Smith.

In this week's programme Matthew Sweet grapples with two men who've played the Devil, Max von Sydow and Ciaran Hinds. Von Sydow doesn't sport any horns for his latest Oscar nominated appearance in Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close but Ciaran Hinds gamely plays a comic demon in Ghost Rider II - quite a contrast with his role in the Woman in Black which is also in cinemas at the moment. There's a cameo from the cult British director, Norman J Warren, whose feature debut, Her Private Hell is being released on DVD for the first time and the composer, Neil Brand, joins Matthew to explain how atonal music and Hammer horror discovered that they were made for each other - a marriage made in hell, as it were.Producer: Zahid Warley.

Francine Stock talks to David Cronenberg about his new film A Dangerous Method, a study of the birth of psychoanalysis and the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. This is not the first time the Austrian neurologist has been portrayed on film. Sandra Hebron, film academic and trainee psychotherapist, delves in to Freud's celluloid past. Director James Watkins discusses working with Daniel Radcliffe in his new film, The Woman in Black. And co-creator of the Flight of the Conchords, James Bobin, on reinventing The Muppets.

Francine Stock and Alexander Payne discuss his Oscar-nominated film The Descendants, starring George Clooney as a Hawaiian land owner with family troubles. Journalist Jane Graham reports from Glasgow, the UK city proving to be a hit with Hollywood filmmakers. Director Sean Durkin on his debut Martha Marcy May Marlene, a cult film in more ways than one. And as BAFTA honour John Hurt, the actor reflects on over 50 years in cinema. Producer: Craig Smith.

Francine Stock talks to three Oscar-nominated directors - Martin Scorsese, Michel Hazanavicius and Woody Allen. Uggie, the Jack Russell from The Artist, has been snubbed by the Academy despite an online campaign to have him receive a best actor nod. But should animals receive Academy Awards? Susan Orlean, author of a new biography of Rin Tin Tin, believes so. She explains why. Director Volker Schlöndorff discusses his Oscar winning film from 1979, The Tim Drum, an adaptation of Gunter Grass's celebrated novel of the same name. And former cast member of Radio 4's The Archers Felicity Jones discusses her new film, Like Crazy. Producer: Craig Smith.

In this week's Film Programme Francine Stock talks to Ralph Fiennes about his directorial debut, Coriolanus, and the juggling needed to act and direct in the same picture. She also examines the lure of the short film with Terry Gilliam and Ewan Bailey. Ewan is taking his beautiful and harrowing film, DeafBlind to the Slamdance festival this week --it was selected from thousands of entries for the prestigious showcase -- and Terry's stylish and sinister account of a foreign holiday -- The Wholly Family -- premieres on line next week...a first for him and an adventure which he's embraced with open arms. To bring the programme to a resounding close the critic Maria Delgado explains why the Spanish prison drama, Cell 211, which is released this week on DVD, deserves to cement the reputations of its leading actor, Luis Tosar and its director, Daniel Monzon.Producer: Zahid Warley.

Francine Stock weighs up the week's two big releases -- Steven Spielberg's War Horse and Steve McQueen's Shame. Spielberg is already being tipped for an Oscar and McQueen has been gathering plaudits from all over the world for his film which features Carey Mulligan and Michael Fassbender in a study of sex addiction. Producer: Zahid Warley.

The Film Programme strays into the territory of Greek tragedy this week embracing the family, family politics and politics itself. Francine Stock talks to Olivia Colman about playing opposite Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, Phyllida Lloyd's film about Margaret Thatcher; she discusses teenage pregnancy,lost daughters and redemption with Rodrigo Garcia the director of Mother and Child which stars Annette Bening and Naomi Watts; and she joins the critic Jonathan Romney to assess the celebrated Chilean film, Post Mortem which is released this month on DVD. Then, in a final flourish she invites the historian Jeffrey Richards, to reflect on the strange impact which an Atlantic crossing can have on a film''s title.Producer: Zahid Warley.

Francine Stock is joined by historian Ian Christie and film composer Neil Brand to explore the enduring appeal of the silent era. Tipped for Oscar success and opening this week in the UK, The Artist is a film with almost no dialogue and which chronicles the transition from silent to talkies. We hear from its director Michel Hazanavicius.As a child actor Diana Serra Carey appeared in hundreds of shorts and features between 1920 and 1924 as 'Baby Peggy'. Now 93 she looks back as one of the last surviving stars of the era. Producer: Craig Smith.

December is a time for looking forward as well as a time for looking back and this week Francine Stock is doing a bit of both. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a glimpse of our immediate celluloid future opening as it does on Boxing Day so Francine has been talking to one of the film's stars, Daniel Craig. Stieg Larsson's story was, he says, a nice change from Bond and it gave him the chance to work with one of his heroes, the director, David Fincher. Shift focus slightly and we find ourselves gazing deep into 2012. Charles Gant of Heat magazine and the independent cinema owner, Kevin Markwick discuss the films we'll be queuing up to see next year as well as the ones that have tickled our fancy over the past twelve months. Then there are the cinematic moments which have made an indelible mark on the imagination of our listeners in 2011 -- everything from Melancholia to Troll Hunter! The programme finishes with a tribute to one of the great originals of British cinema, Ken Russell, who died last month at t

Francine Stock talks to two of the brightest stars in British cinema, the actor, Eddie Marsan and the director, Carol Morley. Carol's documentary, Dreams of a Life, is being hailed as one of the most accomplished and disturbing films of the year. Its a story of casual neglect -- no harm intended more a case of someone just slipping off the radar -- but it ends in death. A young woman's body is discovered in a North London flat ...there are three years worth of bills on the floor and the television is still playing....all the ingredients for a film noir...or a modern morality tale. Dreams of a Life inhabits the same recognisably contemporary world as Paddy Considine's award winning, Tyrannosaur -- just one of the films featuring Eddie Marsan this year. He's also in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Junkhearts and next year he'll appear in Spielberg's Warhorse and, as a dwarf, in Snow White and The Huntsman. As Francine discovered he believes in mixing and matching and revels in the variety.F

Truth - as they say - is stranger than fiction. Mike Cahill's science fiction morality tale, Another Earth, came out this week just days after it emerged that scientists had found Kepler 22b - a planet which, it seems, may share many of the attributes of our own bluey green globe. Francine Stock has been talking to Mike about coincidence, the genesis of his film and, of course, the multiverse. She's also taken a trip to the parallel world of American politics with Nick Broomfield to discuss his new documentary, Sarah Palin - You Betcha! and delved into the murky realm of Ben Wheatley's hit horror film, Kill List. And to dispel any notion of idleness she put herself through the initiation ceremony for Secret Cinema.... a new and playful way of screening films which draws you in through carefully calculated mystery and makes you an actor as much as a spectator.Producer: Zahid Warley.

Martin Scorsese talks to Francine Stock about the future of cinema, his passion for its history and the way he has used 3D to bring them both to life in his new film Hugo.

Conflict is this week's theme. It begins with the clash between Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier during the filming of The Prince and The Showgirl - a story which lies at the heart of Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn starring Kenneth Branagh and Michelle Williams; it continues with the friction caused when belief bumps into psychoanalytic dogma in Nanni Moretti's We Have a Pope; it encompasses the struggle between invading Nazis and Welsh farmers in Resistance - a counterfactual film made by Owen Sheers and Amit Gupta; and it concludes with Michael Shannon's fight with his personal demons in Take Shelter, Jeff Nichols' follow up to Shotgun Stories. Francine Stock lends an ear to all the factions and questions their assertions in this week's Film Programme.Producer: Zahid Warley.

Two of British cinema's true originals feature in this week's programme - Terence Davies and Andrew Kotting. Terence Davies has directed a version of Rattigan's heartbreaking drama, The Deep Blue Sea, with Rachel Weisz in the lead role and Andrew Kotting is releasing This Our Still Life, which documents his relationship with his daughter Eden, the paintings they make together and the life they lead in an idyllic but spartan farmhouse in the Pyrenees. Francine Stock will also be entering the terrifying world of Snowtown - the latest in a run of gripping films from Australia. This one is a portrait of the country's most notorious serial killer, John Bunting, played with chilly conviction by Daniel Henshall. Neil Brand is also in the studio and rounds things off con brio with his examination of how the human voice is used in film soundtracks. Producer: Zahid Warley Presenter: FRANCINE STOCK.