49 Up

"Give me the child until he is 7 and I will give you the man." Using the Jesuit maxim as the starting point, this socio-documentary series began as "Seven Up!" (1963), a portrait of 14 7-year-old British children from diverse backgrounds. The initial entry is simply a snapshot of the ambitions and nascent social perspectives of kids in the midst of forming. When researcher Michael Apted became a director, he kept the project alive seven years later with "7 Plus Seven" (1970), and then continued to revisit them every seven years -- with "21 Up" (1977), "28 Up" (1985), "35 Up" (1991), "42 Up" (1998) and "49 Up" (2005). Each installment became longer and denser with accumulated footage and contrasting comments, and the project developed into the greatest piece of cinematic social anthropology ever made, an unprecedented and astounding look into the socialization of a generation and a clear-eyed look at the defining class system in Britain. The six-disc set, collected in a double-wide case, features all seven documentaries, with commentary by Apted on "42 Up" and an interview with Apted conducted by Roger Ebert.