The Tales of Hoffmann

Powell and Pressburger direct this adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's spectacular opera, featuring sensationally sumptuous production design.

Based on Jacques Offenbach's opera, The Tales of Hoffmann takes viewers through three fantastical stories, regaled to us by narrator E.T.A. Hoffman who revisits the tales of his three loves; Olympia, an animated doll, Giuletta the Venetian courtesan, and Antonia, a singer's daughter hidden away from the world.

Following their celebrated ballet sequences in The Red Shoes (1948), Powell and Pressburger envisaged Tales of Hoffmann as a further realisation of the marriage of music and film. And utilising an entirely synchronised soundtrack would give them the freedom to construct elaborate dance movements amid stunning sets and production design. Described by George Romero as "The film that made me want to make movies!" And hailed by such iconic figures as Martin Scorsese, Tales of Hoffman sees Powell and Pressburger at their most poetic.