Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
710 total minutes, color & b/w * Six Disc Collector's Edition Includes all Seven Films: Seven UP, 7 Plus Seven, 21 UP, 28 UP, 35 UP, 42 UP, 49 UP DVD Bonus Features: * Exclusive Interview: Roger Ebert talks with Michael Apted * Audio Commentary by Michael Apted (on 42 UP) * Photo Gallery for each film * Apted Biography
"Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man."
Starting in 1964 with Seven Up, The UP Series has explored this Jesuit maxim. The original concept was to interview 14 children from diverse backgrounds from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Every seven years, renowned director Michael Apted, a researcher for Seven Up, has been back to talk to them, examining the progression of their lives.
From cab driver Tony to schoolmates Jackie, Lynn and Susan and the heart-breaking Neil, as they turn 49 more life-changing decisions and surprising developments are revealed.
An astonishing, unforgettable look at the structure of life in the 20th century, The UP Series is, according to critic Roger Ebert,

Rating : - Great
It is a rare synchronicity that finds me in agreement with American pop film critic Roger Ebert. Usually, he shows no real understanding of the role good writing plays in filmmaking, and routinely praises the use of clichés, such as the tripe of Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood fare. However, when he declared The Up Series of documentary films, by Michael Apted, now out on DVD, `an inspired, almost noble use of the film medium, Apted penetrates to the central mystery of life', I not only concur, but almost forgive him for recommending Saving Private Ryan. I said almost, now.
It was in the late 1980s, on PBS, in America, I first became acquainted with Apted's wonderful Up documentary film series, in which, over the course of their lives, he has followed fourteen British citizens at seven year intervals. Apted, a mainstream director of such films as Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Gorillas In The Mist (1988), Thunderheart (1992), Nell (1994), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Enough (2002), has made The Up Series his filmic legacy. The films are dedicated to a Jesuit maxim, `Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man', variously attributed to Francis Xavier, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and others. The film I first saw was 28 Up, released in 1985, although filmed in 1984. I was intrigued by the usage of footage from earlier films in the series contrasted with the contemporarily filmed scenes. I did not think about the films again until a decade later, when I saw 42 Up in 1999, released theatrically in America. All the films air on television in the U.K. This was `reality television' long before the term was bastardized by the faux melodramas of today, and far more insightful than the web cam voyeurism of the early Internet.
The Up Series is one of the great works of humanity, where two of our greatest pursuits- art and science- meet, as well as being that rare synergy, where the body of films are far more than their added individual value. You come to like and respect all of these people- even the rich snobs, for the films force the viewers to question themselves and all about, and in each of the subjects, including Apted, bits of ourselves can be seen, whether it's the good stuff that the boldest of the subjects or moments contain, or the pettiness and flaws. Having recently been visited by my seven year old niece, and recalling an audio tape I made on Christmas Day, 1972, when I was seven, the films have taken on a special cogency to me. Your cogencies will be different, although just as special. So is The Up Series.