Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) is Michael Radford's dystopian drama from George Orwell's novel, free to watch online on iFILM. Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting old newspapers so yesterday's lies become today's record.

Oceania answers to Big Brother. Telescreens watch every room, private feeling counts as a crime, and love itself is treason. Winston (John Hurt) falls for Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), and their affair becomes his one taste of freedom — and his sentence. The Party already knows. Richard Burton plays O'Brien, the calm inquisitor of the inner Party, in what turned out to be his final screen role.

Radford shot the film in London during the very spring and summer weeks of 1984 that Orwell named in the book, and the bleached grey-brown palette makes the screen feel wrung dry of life. British science fiction that reads sharper now than it did then. Stream Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) online on iFILM.