The Elephant Man (1980)

David Lynch’s moving retelling of a true story features an Academy Award©-nominated performance by John Hurt as John Merrick, the victim of a disease that has left him so horrendously deformed he’s spent most of his life as a carnival-show ‘freak’ with his exact condition never diagnosed. In time, Merrick comes under the care of Dr Treves (Anthony Hopkins), who installs the ‘Elephant Man’ in a hospital, where he studies him, helps him to overcome a seemingly insurmountable speech impediment, and – for a time – gives him back some human dignity. Through the striking cinematography of Freddie Francis, the film superbly invokes the bleak mood of an industrial Victorian England.