Rex Harrison as the cheerfully cynical novelist of Lean's early Technicolor comedy (from a Noël Coward script) is hounded by the ghost of his first wife, an apparition awkwardly visible only to him. "One of the funniest British films ever made," wrote a contemporary critic. (1945, 35 mm, 95 minutes)

One of four directing collaborations with Noël Coward, In Which We Serve was inspired by Lord Louis Mountbatten's accounts of life on the destroyer HMS Kelly (Coward and Mountbatten were friends). Besides its accurate portrayal of Navy life, the film's main fascination was mirroring the sharp class distinctions that exist on both ship and shore. (1942, 35 mm, 114 minutes)

Noël Coward constructed a script from his own play for Lean's first solo directing endeavor. Set in a suburban household in Clapham during the interwar years, This Happy Breed is a poignant homage to all the endearing family rituals deeply threatened during wartime. (1944, 35 mm, 110 minutes)

Professing to take a backseat to Dickens, Lean took his cues from the novelist's bold renderings for the film's casting and sets. The Gothic atmosphere, vivid performances from John Mills, Valerie Hobson, and Alec Guinness among others, and exemplary editing and cinematography ensure Great Expectations' survival as "the greatest of all Dickens' films" (Roger Ebert). (1946, 35 mm, 118 minutes)

Lean's second foray into Charles Dickens' universe brings another robust Victorian vision to life. Besides meticulous sets of Oliver's glum surroundings and Alec Guinness' expressionistic performance as Fagan, Oliver Twist fulfills David Lean's aim to sustain literary adaptation that "mainly conveys character and episode . . . plot is subsidiary." (1948, 35 mm, 116 minutes)

Lean's script follows the facts of a famous 1857 Glasgow murder case while exploiting the enigmatic screen persona of Ann Todd (Lean's wife). Madeleine falls for a penniless French aristocrat, who in due course is the victim of a strange arsenic poisoning. (1949, 35 mm, 114 minutes)

Restrained emotions make delicate melodrama in David Lean's depiction of an amorous railway encounter between a suburban housewife and a married doctor. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto no. 2 conveys a tone that, ceded one critic, "expresses the futility and universal relevance of their situation." (1946, 35 mm, 86 minutes)

Transposing Brief Encounter's provincial setting and premise of adultery to London's jet-set society, The Passionate Friends' triangular tale (from an H.G. Wells novel) finds a woman torn between past and present when her old lover disrupts a holiday in Switzerland with her husband. "As ever, the craft of the piece carries the emotional subtlety" (Trevor Johnston). (1949, 35 mm, 95 minutes)