Michael Cacoyannis

Zorba the Greek -- An aimless Englishman finds he has a small inheritance on a Greek island. His joyless existence is disturbed when he meets Zorba, a middle-aged Greek with a real lust for life. As he discovers the earthy pleasures of Greece, the Englishman finds his view on life changing.

Lyubov Ranevskaya's family is riddled with debt and is forced to sell their land to Lopakhin, a crude businessman who intends to build a housing development in what was once the family's cherry orchard.

After their ten-year siege, the victorious Greek army seeks to curse those Trojans whom fate has yet spared. Separated from their children, denied their mourning and destined for slavery, the women of fallen Troy huddle within the parched wreckage of their once glorious city. Beautiful Cassandra (Genevieve Bujold) is betrothed against her will despite her vanishing sanity. Andromache (Vanessa Redgrave) discovers her son is to be executed to end her royal bloodline. Helen (Irene Papas) desperately wields the arrogant beauty that leveled a city as she pleads for her life. But it is Hecuba (Katherine Hepburn), widowed queen of Troy, whose enduring dignity and unfaltering strength makes cowards of Troy's captors.

On the Greek isle of Crete, Basil (Alan Bates), a shy inhibited writer from England is befriended by Zorba (Anthony Quinn) a boisterous peasant with an astonishing love for life. When Zorba agrees to work at Basil's abandoned mine, it is the beginning of a lesson for the young man as he gradually moves from an observer of the world to a participant. This acclaimed classic co-stars Irene Paps and Lila Kedrova in an Oscar winning performance.