The "Up" series - updated

(2012 post):  I'm surprised I haven't blogged this subject before, because it's a truly remarkable series of movies, but today I happened across a comment that 56 Up will soon be released.  For those unfamiliar with the movies, here is the Wikipedia entry:

The Up Series is a series of documentary films produced by Granada Television that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The documentary has had seven episodes spanning 49 years (one episode every seven years) and the documentary has been broadcast on both ITV and BBC... The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child's social class predetermines their future...

The premise of the film was taken from the Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man", which is based on a quotation by Ignatius Loyola...

The series has received extraordinary praise over the years, the epitome of which may be Roger Ebert's comments that it is "an inspired, even noble, use of the film medium", that the films "penetrate to the central mystery of life", and that the series is among his top ten films of all time. Attempts have been made to repeat the series with subjects in the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and South Africa. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, 28 Up was placed 26th. The series has also been satirised; The Simpsons' 2007 episode "Springfield Up" is narrated by an Apted-like filmmaker who depicts the past and current lives of a group of Springfield residents he has revisited every eight years.

I have found the films individually to be of varying quality; when I first viewed Seven Up, I rated it 2+ (scale 0-4), but by the time I got to 49 Up, I rated it 3.5.  One difficulty with viewing the series in a short period of time is that they were designed to be viewed 7 years apart, so each one spends significant time reviewing the past history of each character, which makes viewing a bit tedious if you've just seen the other movies.

56 Up is expected to have its broadcast premier (presumably on BBC or ITV) in mid-May.  If you are a newbie and are interested, I would suggest getting Seven Up and perhaps one of the others (maybe 49 Up) from the library to view as background material.

If you've watched the series, feel free to offer your own thoughts in the Comments.

Update: Reposted from last month to add a link to a Telegraph photo gallery showing the participants in the movie series, as for example shown here:

1. Neil Hughes
District councillor
In 1964 he was an enchanting Liverpool boy who wanted to be an astronaut. Tragically, in 28 Up Neil was found homeless and in a bad mental state. Yet he surprised viewers when he reappeared as a Liberal Democrat councillor in Hackney in 42 Up. In a heart-rending twist, Bruce Balden, another Up participant, had helped Neil on his road to recovery. 

The others are at the link.

Reposted from 2012 to add the trailer for 63 Up:

YouTube link