British cinema has given us everything from kitchen‑sink
realism and Ealing comedies to sweeping epics, radical horror and modern indie
gems. This “Top 160 Best British Movies of All Time” countdown journeys from
the early sound era of the late 1920s through post‑war classics, the gritty
1960s and 1970s, the heritage boom of the 1980s and 1990s, and right up to 21st‑century
award winners. For Cinema Awards Archive, it’s a perfect long‑form
celebration of how filmmakers from the U.K. reshaped world cinema—whether
through David Lean’s epics, Ealing’s comedies, Hitchcock’s thrillers or bold
contemporary voices like Steve McQueen, Andrea Arnold and Emerald Fennell
READ NEXT: After this epic British countdown, explore my guide to 2024’s most inspiring true‑story movies and the list of 60 must‑see French films that shaped world cinema.
1. Blackmail (1929)
Blackmail is a 1929 British thriller directed by Alfred
Hitchcock and starring Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard. Based on
the 1928 play of the same name by Charles Bennett, the film is about a London
woman who is blackmailed after killing a man who tries to rape her.
Blackmail is frequently cited as the first British sound
feature film. It was voted the best British film of 1929 in a UK poll the year
it was released. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers
and critics for Time Out magazine ranked Blackmail as the 59th best British
film ever.
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2. A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)
A Cottage on Dartmoor is a 1929 British part-talkie sound
film, directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Norah Baring, Uno Henning and
Hans Adalbert Schlettow. The cameraman was Stanley Rodwell. In addition to a
sequence with audible dialogue or a talking sequence, the film also featured a
synchronized musical score with sound effects and English intertitles. The
soundtrack was recorded using the Klangfilm Tobis sound recording process. A
cut down edited silent version was made for theatres that had not yet converted
to sound but this version is no longer extant.
It was the last of Asquith's films before fulling converting
to all-talking pictures. The film was produced during the transition period
from silents to talkies in British cinema, a point which is referenced in the
film itself.
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3. Piccadilly (1929)
Piccadilly is a 1929 British silent and sound drama film
directed by E.A. Dupont, written by Arnold Bennett and starring Gilda Gray,
Anna May Wong, and Jameson Thomas. The film was shot on location in London,
produced by British International Pictures.
This film initially was released as a silent in February
1929 but was largely ignored due to the general public's apathy to silent
films. Due to the popularity of sound films, the studio re-released the film
later the same year in June for cinemas wired for sound. The sound version was
prepared by Sono Art-World Wide Pictures. This version included a music score
and sound effects by Harry Gordon, along with a five-minute sound prologue
titled "Prologue to Piccadilly" that was added to the beginning of
the film. The prologue featured just two actors: Jameson Thomas who plays
Valentine Wilmot in the film and John Longden as the man from China.
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4. The 39 Steps (1935)
The 39 Steps is a 1935 British spy thriller film directed by
Alfred Hitchcock, starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. It is loosely
based on the 1915 novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.
It concerns a Canadian civilian in London, Richard Hannay,
who becomes caught up in preventing an organisation of spies called "The
39 Steps" from stealing British military secrets. Mistakenly accused of
the murder of a counter-espionage agent, Hannay goes on the run to Scotland and
becomes tangled up with an attractive woman, Pamela, while hoping to stop the
spy ring and clear his name.
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5. Sabotage (1936)
Sabotage, released in the United States as The Woman Alone,
is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring
Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, and John Loder.
It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel The Secret
Agent, about a woman who discovers that her husband, the owner of a London
movie theatre, is a terrorist agent.
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6. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film
directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave.
Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel
Spins by Ethel Lina White,the film is about an English tourist travelling by
train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion
seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever
having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young
musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old
lady's disappearance.
The British Film Institute ranked The Lady Vanishes the 35th
best British film of the 20th century. In 2017, a poll of 150 actors,
directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked
the 31st best British film ever. It is one of Hitchcock's most renowned British
films,and the first of three screen versions of White's novel as of January
2021.
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7. Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a 1939 romantic drama film starring
Robert Donat, Greer Garson and directed by Sam Wood. Based on the 1934 novella
of the same name by James Hilton, the film is about Mr. Chipping, a beloved
aged school teacher and former headmaster of a boarding school, who recalls his
career and his personal life over the decades.
Produced for the British division of MGM at Denham Studios,
the film was dedicated to Irving Thalberg, who died on 14 September 1936. At
the 12th Academy Awards, it was nominated for seven awards, including Best
Picture, and for his performance as Mr. Chipping, Donat won the award for Best
Actor.
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8. Rebecca (1940)
Rebecca is a 1940 American romantic psychological thriller
film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was Hitchcock's first American project,
and his first film under contract with producer David O. Selznick. The
screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison, and adaptation by Philip
MacDonald and Michael Hogan, were based on the 1938 novel of the same name by
Daphne du Maurier.
Rebecca was theatrically released on April 12, 1940, to critical and commercial success. It received eleven nominations at the 13th Academy Awards, more than any other film that year. It won two awards; Best Picture, and Best Cinematography, becoming the only film directed by Hitchcock to win the former award. In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
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9. Went the Day Well? (1942)
Went the Day Well? is a 1942 British war film adapted from a
story by Graham Greene and directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. It was produced by
Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios and served as unofficial propaganda for the
war effort. The film shows a Southern English village taken over by German
paratroopers, reflecting the greatest potential nightmare for the British
public of the time, although the threat of German invasion had largely receded
by that point.
The film is notable for its unusually frank, for the time,
depiction of ruthless violence.
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10. Fires Were Started (1943)
Fires Were Started is a 1943 British film written and
directed by Humphrey Jennings. Filmed in documentary style, it shows the lives
of firefighters through the Blitz during the Second World War. The film uses
actual firemen (including Cyril Demarne) rather than professional actors.
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11. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a 1943 British
romantic-war film written, produced and directed by the British film-making
team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Roger Livesey, Deborah
Kerr and Anton Walbrook.
The title derives from the satirical Colonel Blimp comic
strip by David Low, but the story is original. One film critic has described it
as "England's greatest film ever" and it is renowned for its
sophistication and directorial brilliance as well as for its script, the
performances of its large cast and for its pioneering Technicolor
cinematography. Among its distinguished company of actors, particular praise
has been reserved for Livesey, Walbrook and Kerr.
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12. A Canterbury Tale (1944)
A Canterbury Tale is a 1944 British film by Michael Powell
and Emeric Pressburger starring Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price and Sgt.
John Sweet; Esmond Knight provided narration and played two small roles. For
the post-war American release, Raymond Massey narrated and Kim Hunter was added
to the film. The film was made in black and white, and was the first of two
collaborations between Powell and Pressburger and cinematographer Erwin
Hillier.
A Canterbury Tale takes its title from the 14th-century The
Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer and loosely uses Chaucer's theme of
"eccentric characters on a religious pilgrimage" to highlight the
wartime experiences of the citizens of Kent and encourage wartime
Anglo-American friendship and understanding.
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13. I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
I Know Where I'm Going! is a 1945 romance film by the
British-based filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Wendy
Hiller and Roger Livesey, and features Pamela Brown and Finlay Currie.
Joan Webster is a 25-year-old middle-class Englishwoman with
an ambitious, independent spirit. She knows where she's going, or at least she
thinks she does. She travels from her home in Manchester to the Hebrides to
marry Sir Robert Bellinger, a wealthy, much older industrialist, on the
(fictitious) Isle of Kiloran.
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14. Brief Encounter (1945)
Brief Encounter is a 1945 British romantic drama film
directed by David Lean from a screenplay by Noël Coward, based on his 1936
one-act play Still Life.
Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, and
Joyce Carey, it follows a passionate extramarital relationship in England
shortly before World War II. The protagonist is Laura, a married woman with
children, whose conventional life becomes increasingly complicated after a
chance meeting at a railway station with a married stranger with whom she
subsequently falls in love.
The film premiered in London on 13 November 1945. It went to
general release on 25 November, to widespread critical acclaim. It received
three nominations at the 19th Academy Awards, Best Director, Best Actress (for
Johnson), and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 1999, the British Film Institute
ranked it as the second-greatest British film of all time. In 2017, a Time Out
poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics ranked it the
12th-best British film ever.
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15. Dead of Night (1945)
Dead of Night is a 1945 black and white British anthology
supernatural horror film, made by Ealing Studios. The individual segments were
directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert
Hamer. It stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers, Sally Ann Howes and Michael
Redgrave. The film is best remembered for the concluding story featuring
Redgrave and an insane ventriloquist's malevolent dummy.
Dead of Night is a rare British horror film of the 1940s;
horror films were banned from production in Britain during World War II. It had
an influence on subsequent British films in the genre. Both of John Baines'
stories were reused for later films and the ventriloquist dummy episode was
adapted into the pilot episode of the long-running CBS radio series Escape.
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16. Great Expectations (1946)
Great Expectations is a 1946 British drama film directed by
David Lean, based on the 1861 novel by Charles Dickens and starring John Mills
and Valerie Hobson. The script is based
on a slimmed-down version of Dickens' novel. It was written by David Lean,
Anthony Havelock-Allan, Cecil McGivern, Ronald Neame and Kay Walsh, after Lean
had seen an abridged 1939 stage version of the novel, written by Alec Guinness.
In the stage version, Guinness had played Herbert Pocket while Martita Hunt
played Miss Havisham, roles that they reprised for the film.
It earned $2 million in rentals in North America
John Bryan and Wilfred Shingleton won the Academy Award for
Best Art Direction, Black-and-White, while Guy Green won for Best
Cinematography, Black-and-White. The film was also nominated for Best Director,
as well as Best Screenplay Adaptation, and Best Picture. The film is now
regarded as one of Lean's best; in 1999, on the British Film Institute's Top
100 British films list, Great Expectations was named the 5th greatest British
film of all time.
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17. A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
A Matter of Life and Death is a 1946 British fantasy-romance
film set in England during World War II. Written, produced and directed by
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the film stars David Niven, Roger
Livesey, Raymond Massey, Kim Hunter and Marius Goring. The film was originally
released in the United States under the title Stairway to Heaven, which derived
from the film's most prominent special effect: a broad escalator linking Earth
to the afterlife.
In 1999, A Matter of Life and Death placed 20th on the
British Film Institute's list of Best 100 British films. It ranked 90th in The
Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012 poll, regarded by some as the
most authoritative in the world, and 78th in 2022.
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18. Black Narcissus (1947)
Black Narcissus is a 1947 British psychological drama film
written, produced, and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and
starring Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar, and Flora Robson, and featuring
Esmond Knight, Jean Simmons, and Kathleen Byron. The title refers to the Caron
perfume Narcisse Noir.
The film is based on the 1939 novel by Rumer Godden. It
revolves around the growing tensions within a small convent of Anglican sisters
who are trying to establish a school and hospital in the old palace of an
Indian Raja at the top of an isolated mountain above a fertile valley in the
Himalayas.
Black Narcissus achieved considerable acclaim for its
technical mastery with the cinematographer, Jack Cardiff, winning an Academy
Award for Best Cinematography and a Golden Globe Award for Best Cinematography,
and Alfred Junge winning an Academy Award for Best Art Direction.
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19. It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)
It Always Rains on Sunday is a 1947 British film adaptation
of Arthur La Bern's novel of the same name, directed by Robert Hamer. The film
has been compared with the poetic realism movement in the French cinema of a
few years earlier by the British writers Robert Murphy and Graham Fuller.
The film was one of the most popular movies at the British
box office in 1948.According to Kinematograph Weekly the 'biggest winner' at
the box office in 1948
The film earned distributor's gross receipts of £229,834 in
the UK of which £188,247 went to the producer
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20. The Fallen Idol (1948)
The Fallen Idol (also known as The Lost Illusion) is a 1948
British mystery thriller film directed by Carol Reed, and starring Ralph
Richardson, Bobby Henrey, Michèle Morgan, and Denis O'Dea. Its plot follows the
young son of a diplomat in London, who comes to suspect that his family's
butler, whom he idolises, has committed a murder. It is based on the 1936 short
story "The Basement Room", by Graham Greene.
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best
Director (Carol Reed) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Graham Greene), and won the
BAFTA Award for Best British Film.
As of 30 June 1949 the film earned £203,000 in the UK of
which £150,553 went to the producer
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21. The Red Shoes (1948)
The Red Shoes is a 1948 British drama film written,
directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It follows
Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), an aspiring ballerina who joins the
world-renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov (Anton
Walbrook), who tests her dedication to the ballet by making her choose between
her career and her romance with composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring).
It marked the feature film debut of Shearer, an established
ballerina, and also features Robert Helpmann, Léonide Massine, and Ludmilla
Tchérina, other renowned dancers from the ballet world. The plot is based on
the 1845 eponymous fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, and features a ballet
within it by the same title, also adapted from the Andersen work.
According to one account, producer's receipts were £179,900
in the UK and £1,111,400 overseas.It made a reported profit of £785,700.
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22. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British crime black
comedy film directed by Robert Hamer. It features Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood,
Valerie Hobson and Alec Guinness; Guinness plays eight characters. The plot is
loosely based on the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907)
by Roy Horniman. It concerns Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, the son of a woman
disowned by her aristocratic family for marrying out of her social class. After
her death, a vengeful Louis decides to take the family's dukedom by murdering
the eight people ahead of him in the line of succession to the title.
It was released on 13 June 1949 in the United Kingdom, and
was well received by the critics. It has continued to receive favourable
reviews over the years and, in 1999, it was number six in the British Film
Institute's ranking of the Top 100 British films. In 2005, it was included in
Time's list of the top 100 films since 1923.
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23. Whisky Galore! (1949)
Whisky Galore! is a 1949 British comedy film produced by
Ealing Studios, starring Basil Radford, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood and Gordon
Jackson. It was the directorial debut of Alexander Mackendrick; the screenplay
was by Compton Mackenzie, an adaptation of his 1947 novel Whisky Galore, and
Angus MacPhail. The story—based on a true event, the running aground of the SS
Politician—concerns a shipwreck off a fictional Scottish island, the
inhabitants of which have run out of whisky because of wartime rationing. The
islanders find out the ship is carrying 50,000 cases of whisky, some of which
they salvage, against the opposition of the local Customs and Excise men.
It was filmed on the island of Barra; the weather was so
poor that the production over-ran its 10-week schedule by five weeks, and the
film went £20,000 over budget. Michael Balcon, the head of the studio, was
unimpressed by the initial cut of the film, and one of Ealing's directors,
Charles Crichton, added footage and re-edited the film before its release. Like
other Ealing comedies, Whisky Galore! explores the actions of a small insular
group facing and overcoming a more powerful opponent. An unspoken sense of
community runs through the film, and the story reflects a time when the British
Empire was weakening.
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The Third Man is a 1949 film noir directed by Carol Reed,
written by Graham Greene, and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles
and Trevor Howard, set in post-war Vienna. The film centres on American Holly
Martins (Cotten) who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry
Lime (Welles), only to learn that Lime has died. Martins decides to stay in
Vienna and investigate the suspicious death.
Greene wrote the novella as preparation for the screenplay.
Karas's title composition "The Third Man Theme" topped the
international music charts in 1950, bringing international fame to the
previously unknown performer. The Third Man is considered one of the greatest
films of all time, celebrated for its acting, musical score, and atmospheric
cinematography.
In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Third Man the
greatest British film of all time. In 2011, a poll for Time Out ranked it the
second-best British film ever. Won academy award for Best Cinematography, British Academic
Film Award for Best film and Cannes Film Festival under category Palme d'OR.
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25. Night and the City (1950)
Night and the City is a 1950 British film noir directed by
Jules Dassin and starring Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney and Googie Withers. It
is based on the novel of the same name by Gerald Kersh. Shot on location in
London and at Shepperton Studios, the plot revolves around an ambitious hustler
who meets continual failures.
The film contains a very tough and prolonged fight scene
between Stanislaus Zbyszko, a celebrated professional wrestler in real life,
and Mike Mazurki, who before becoming an actor was himself a professional
wrestler.
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26. The Man in the White Suit (1951)
The Man in the White Suit is a 1951 British satirical
science fiction comedy film made by Ealing Studios. It stars Alec Guinness,
Joan Greenwood and Cecil Parker and was directed by Alexander Mackendrick. The
film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing for Roger MacDougall,
John Dighton and Alexander Mackendrick.
It followed a common Ealing Studios theme of the
"common man" against the Establishment. In this instance the hero
falls foul of both trade unions and the wealthy mill owners who attempt to
suppress his invention. Mandy Miller (aged only 6) made her first film
appearance in this film.
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27. The Ladykillers (1955)
The Ladykillers is a
British black comedy crime film directed by Alexander Mackendrick for
Ealing Studios. It stars Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter
Sellers, Danny Green, Jack Warner, and Katie Johnson as the old lady, Mrs.
Wilberforce.
William Rose wrote the screenplay, for which he was
nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won the BAFTA
Award for Best British Screenplay. He claimed to have dreamt the entire film
and merely had to remember the details when he awoke.
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28. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic war film
directed by David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle.
Boulle's novel and the film's screenplay are almost entirely fictional, but use
the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942–1943, as their historical
setting.The cast includes William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and
Sessue Hayakawa.
It was initially scripted by screenwriter Carl Foreman, who
was later replaced by Michael Wilson. Both writers had to work in secret, as
they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to the UK in order to
continue working. As a result, Boulle, who did not speak English, was credited
and received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; many years later,
Foreman and Wilson posthumously received the Academy Award.
The Bridge on the River Kwai is now widely recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. The film won seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) at the 30th Academy Awards. In 1997, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. It has been included on the American Film Institute's list of best American films ever made. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Bridge on the River Kwai the 11th greatest British film of the 20th century.
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29. Dracula (1958)
Dracula is a 1958 British gothic horror film directed by
Terence Fisher and written by Jimmy Sangster based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel
of the same name. The first in the series of Hammer Horror films starring
Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, the film also features Peter Cushing as
Doctor Van Helsing, along with Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh,
and John Van Eyssen. In the United States, the film was retitled Horror of
Dracula to avoid confusion with the U.S. original by Universal Pictures, 1931's
Dracula.
The film earned around $3.5 million in theatrical rentals
worldwide . It had a record ten-day run in Milwaukee in its premiere
engagement. It was one of the twelve most popular films at the British box
office in 1958. It earned domestic rentals in North America of $1 million.
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30. Look Back In Anger (1959)
Look Back in Anger is a 1959 British kitchen sink drama film
starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom and Mary Ure and directed by Tony
Richardson. The film is based on John Osborne's play about a love triangle
involving an intelligent but disaffected working-class young man (Jimmy
Porter), his upper-middle-class, impassive wife (Alison) and her haughty best
friend (Helena Charles). Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the
peace. The character of Ma Tanner, only referred to in the play, is brought to
life in the film by Edith Evans as a dramatic device to emphasise the class
difference between Jimmy and Alison. The film and play are classic examples of
the British cultural movement known as kitchen sink realism.
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31. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 British kitchen
sink drama film directed by Karel Reisz and produced by Tony Richardson. It is
an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe, with
Sillitoe himself writing the screenplay. The plot concerns a young teddy boy
machinist, Arthur, who spends his weekends drinking and partying, all the while
having an affair with a married woman.
The film is one of a series of "kitchen sink
drama" films made in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as part of the
British New Wave of filmmaking, from directors such as Reisz, Jack Clayton,
Lindsay Anderson, John Schlesinger, and Tony Richardson, and adapted from the
works of writers such as Sillitoe, John Braine, and John Osborne. A common
trope in these films is the working-class "angry young man" character
(in this case, the character of Arthur), who rebels against the oppressive social
and economic systems established by previous generations.
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32. Peeping Tom (1960)
Peeping Tom is a 1960 British psychological horror-thriller
film directed by Michael Powell, written
by Leo Marks, and starring Carl Boehm, Anna Massey, and Moira Shearer. The film
revolves around a serial killer who murders women while using a portable film
camera to record their dying expressions of terror, putting his footage
together into a snuff film used for his own self pleasure. Its title derives
from the expression "peeping Tom", which describes a voyeur.
The film's controversial subject matter and its extremely
harsh reception by critics had a severely negative impact on Powell's career as
a director in the United Kingdom.
However, it attracted a cult following, and in later years, it has been
re-evaluated and is now widely considered a masterpiece, and a progenitor of the contemporary slasher
film. The British Film Institute named
it the 78th greatest British film of all time,
and in 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and
critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 27th best British film ever.
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33. The Innocents (1961)
The Innocents is a 1961 British gothic psychological horror
film directed and produced by Jack Clayton, and starring Deborah Kerr, Michael
Redgrave, and Megs Jenkins. Based on the 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw by
the American novelist Henry James, the screenplay was adapted by William
Archibald and Truman Capote, who used Archibald's own 1950 stage play—also
titled The Innocents—as a primary source text. Its plot follows a governess who
watches over two children and comes to fear that their large estate is haunted
by ghosts and that the children are being possessed.
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34. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 epic biographical adventure
drama film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence and his 1926 book Seven Pillars
of Wisdom (also known as Revolt in the Desert). It was directed by David Lean
and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company Horizon Pictures and
distributed by Columbia Pictures. The film stars Peter O'Toole as Lawrence with
Alec Guinness playing Prince Faisal.
The film also stars Jack Hawkins, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains and Arthur Kennedy. The screenplay was written by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson.
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35. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" is a short
story by Alan Sillitoe, published in 1959 as part of a short story collection
of the same title. The work focuses on Smith, a poor Nottingham teenager from a
dismal home in a working class area, who has bleak prospects in life and few
interests beyond petty crime. The boy experiences social alienation and turns
to long-distance running as a method of both emotional and physical escape from
his situation. The story was adapted for a 1962 film of the same title.
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36. Dr No (1962)
Dr. No is a 1962 spy film directed by Terence Young. It is
the first film in the James Bond series. Starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress,
Joseph Wiseman and Jack Lord, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna
Harwood, and Berkely Mather from the 1958 novel of the same name by Ian
Fleming. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, a
partnership that continued until 1975. It was followed by From Russia with Love
in 1963. In the film, James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance
of a fellow British agent. The trail leads him to the underground base of Dr.
Julius No, who is plotting to disrupt an early American space launch from Cape
Canaveral with a radio beam weapon
Many aspects of a typical James Bond film were established
in Dr. No. The film begins with an introduction to the character through the
view of a gun barrel and a highly stylised main title sequence, both of which
were created by Maurice Binder. It also introduced the iconic theme music.
Production designer Ken Adam established an elaborate visual style that is one
of the hallmarks of the film series.
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37. This Sporting Life (1963)
This Sporting Life is a 1963 British kitchen sink drama film
directed by Lindsay Anderson. Based on the 1960 novel of the same name by David
Storey, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award, it recounts the story of a
rugby league footballer in Wakefield, a mining city in Yorkshire, whose
romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, a former
professional rugby league footballer, also wrote the screenplay.
It was Harris's first starring role, and won him the Best
Actor Award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. He was also nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the BAFTA Award for Best
Actor in a Leading Role. For her work in the film, Roberts won her second BAFTA
Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and was nominated for the Academy
Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The film opened at the Odeon
Leicester Square in London's West End on 7 February 1963.
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38. The Servant (1963)
The Servant is a 1963 British drama film directed by Joseph
Losey. It was written by Harold Pinter, who adapted Robin Maugham's 1948
novella. The Servant stars Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig and James
Fox.
The first of Pinter's four film collaborations with Losey,
The Servant is a tightly constructed film about the psychological relationships
among the four central characters and examines issues relating to social class.
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39. Billy Liar (1963)
Billy Liar is a 1963 British CinemaScope comedy-drama film
based on the 1959 novel by Keith Waterhouse. Directed by John Schlesinger, it
stars Tom Courtenay (who had understudied Albert Finney in the West End theatre
adaptation of the novel) as Billy and Julie Christie as Liz, one of his three
girlfriends.
Mona Washbourne plays Mrs. Fisher and Wilfred Pickles plays
Mr. Fisher. Rodney Bewes, Finlay Currie and Leonard Rossiter also feature. The
Cinemascope photography is by Denys Coop and Richard Rodney Bennett supplied
the score.
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40. Culloden (1964)
Culloden (known as The Battle of Culloden in the U.S.) is a
1964 docudrama written and directed by Peter Watkins for BBC TV. It depicts the
1746 Battle of Culloden, the final engagement of the Jacobite rising of 1745
which saw the Jacobite Army be decisively defeated by government troops and in
the words of the narrator "tore apart forever the clan system of the
Scottish Highlands."
Described in its opening credits as "an account of one
of the most mishandled and brutal battles ever fought in Britain,"
Culloden was hailed as a breakthrough for its presentation of a historical
event in the style of modern TV war reporting, as well as its use of
non-professional actors. The film was based on John Prebble's study of the
battle.
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41. Zulu (1964)
Zulu is a 1964 British epic adventure action war film
depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between a detachment of the British Army
and the Zulu in 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, in which 150 British soldiers,
30 of whom were sick and wounded, at a remote outpost, held off a force of
4,000 Zulu warriors.
The film was directed by American screenwriter Cy Endfield
and produced by Stanley Baker and Endfield, with Joseph E. Levine as executive
producer. The screenplay was by Endfield and historical writer John Prebble,
based on Prebble's 1958 Lilliput article "Slaughter in the Sun".
The film was first shown on the 85th anniversary of the
actual battle, 22 January 1964, at the Plaza Theatre in the West End of London.
Zulu received widespread critical acclaim, with praise going to the sets,
soundtrack, cinematography, action sequences and the performances of the cast,
particularly Baker, Booth, Green and Caine. The film brought Caine
international fame. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers,
producers, and critics for Time Out magazine ranked it the 93rd best British
film ever.
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42. Repulsion (1965)
Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological horror thriller
film directed by Roman Polanski, and starring Catherine Deneuve. Based on a
story written by Polanski and Gérard Brach, the plot follows Carol, a
withdrawn, disturbed young woman who, when left alone in the apartment she
shares with her sister, is subject to a number of nightmarish experiences. The
film focuses on the point of view of Carol and her vivid hallucinations and
nightmares as she comes into contact with men and their desires for her. Ian Hendry,
John Fraser, Patrick Wymark, and Yvonne Furneaux appear in supporting roles.
Shot in London, it is Polanski's first English-language film
and second feature-length production, following Knife in the Water (1962).
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43. Blow-Up (1966)
Blow-Up (sometimes styled as Blowup or Blow Up) is a 1966
mystery thriller film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and produced by Carlo
Ponti. It is Antonioni's first entirely English-language film and stars David
Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles. Also featured was 1960s model
Veruschka. The plot was inspired by Julio Cortázar's 1959 short story "Las
babas del diablo".
The story is set within the mod subculture of 1960s Swinging
London, and follows a fashion photographer (Hemmings) who believes he has
unwittingly captured a murder on film. The screenplay was by Antonioni and
Tonino Guerra, with English dialogue by British playwright Edward Bond. The
cinematographer was Carlo di Palma. The film's non-diegetic music was scored by
jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, and the rock group The Yardbirds performs.
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44. If.... (1968)
If.... (stylised in lowercase) is a 1968 British satirical
drama film produced and directed by Lindsay Anderson, and starring Malcolm
McDowell as Mick Travis, and also starring Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan,
David Wood, and Robert Swann. A satire of English public school life, the film
follows a group of pupils who stage a savage insurrection at a boys' boarding
school. The film was the subject of controversy at the time of its release,
receiving an X certificate for its depictions of violence.
If.... won the Palme d'Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.
In 1999, the British Film Institute named it the 12th greatest British film of
the 20th century; in 2004, the magazine Total Film named it the 16th greatest
British film of all time. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers,
producers and critics for Time Out magazine ranked it the 9th best British
film.
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45. Witchfinder General (1968)
Witchfinder General (titled onscreen as Matthew Hopkins:
Witchfinder General) is a 1968 British period folk horror film directed by
Michael Reeves and starring Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, Hilary Dwyer, Robert
Russell and Rupert Davies. The screenplay, by Reeves and Tom Baker, was based
on Ronald Bassett's 1966 novel Witchfinder General. The film is a heavily
fictionalised account of the murderous witch-hunting exploits of Matthew
Hopkins (Price) a lawyer who falsely
claimed to have been appointed as a "Witch Finder Generall" by
Parliament during the English Civil War to root out sorcery and witchcraft.
Made on a low budget of under £100,000, the film was
produced by Tigon British Film Productions. In the United States, where it was
distributed by American International Pictures (AIP), Witchfinder General was
retitled The Conqueror Worm (titled onscreen as Matthew Hopkins: Conqueror
Worm) by AIP to link it with their earlier series of Edgar Allan Poe
adaptations directed by Roger Corman and starring Price; because its narrative
bears no relation to any of Poe's stories, American prints book-end the film with
his poem "The Conqueror Worm" being read through Price's narration.
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46. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film
produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick
and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, and was inspired by Clarke's 1951
short story "The Sentinel" and other short stories by Clarke. Clarke
also published a novelisation of the film, in part written concurrently with
the screenplay, after the film's release. The film stars Keir Dullea, Gary
Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain and follows a voyage by astronauts,
scientists, and the sentient supercomputer HAL to Jupiter to investigate an
alien monolith.
The film is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction
of space flight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous imagery. Kubrick
avoided conventional cinematic and narrative techniques; dialogue is used
sparingly, and there are long sequences accompanied only by music
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47. Oliver (1968)
Oliver is a 1968
British period musical drama film based on Lionel Bart's 1960 stage musical of
the same name, itself an adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1838 novel Oliver
Twist.
Directed by Carol Reed from a screenplay by Vernon Harris,
the picture includes such musical numbers as "Food, Glorious Food",
"Consider Yourself", "As Long as He Needs Me", "I'd Do
Anything", "You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two", and "Where
Is Love?".
At the 41st Academy Awards for 1968, Oliver! was nominated
for eleven Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture, Best Director
for Reed, and an Honorary Award for choreographer Onna White. At the 26th
Golden Globe Awards, the film won two Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture –
Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for Ron Moody.
The British Film Institute ranked Oliver! the 77th-greatest
British film of the 20th century. In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors,
writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine ranked it the 69th-best
British film ever.
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48. Kes (1969)
Kes is a 1969 British
film directed by Ken Loach (credited as Kenneth Loach) and produced by Tony
Garnett, based on the 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave, written by the Hoyland
Nether–born author Barry Hines. Kes follows the story of Billy, who comes from
a dysfunctional working-class family and is a no-hoper at school, but discovers
his own private means of fulfilment when he adopts a fledgling kestrel and
proceeds to train it in the art of falconry.
The film has been much praised, especially for the
performance of the teenage David Bradley, who had never acted before, in the
lead role, and for Loach's compassionate treatment of his working-class
subject; it remains a biting indictment of the British education system of the
time as well as of the limited career options then available to lower-class,
unskilled workers in regional Britain. It was ranked seventh in the British
Film Institute's Top Ten (British) Films. This was Loach's second feature film
for cinema release.
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49. Oh! What A Lovely War (1969)
Oh! What a Lovely War is a 1969 British epic comedy
historical musical war film directed by Richard Attenborough (in his
directorial debut), with an ensemble cast, including Maggie Smith, Dirk
Bogarde, John Gielgud, John Mills, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Jack
Hawkins, Corin Redgrave, Michael Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson,
Ian Holm, Paul Shelley, Malcolm McFee, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Nanette Newman,
Edward Fox, Susannah York, John Clements, Phyllis Calvert and Maurice Roëves.
The film is based on the stage musical Oh, What a Lovely
War!, originated by Charles Chilton as the radio play The Long Long Trail in
December 1961, and transferred to stage
by Gerry Raffles in partnership with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop
in 1963.
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50. Deep End (1970)
Deep End is a 1970 romantic drama film directed by Jerzy
Skolimowski and starring Jane Asher and John Moulder Brown. Set in London, the film focuses on the
relationship between two young colleagues at a suburban bath house and swimming
pool.
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If you enjoy how British cinema has evolved, you might also like my ranking of the 100 greatest TV shows of all time and a festival‑focused look at the best movies from Cannes, TIFF and other 2024 festivals.
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51. Performance (1970)
Performance is a 1970 British crime drama film directed by
Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, written by Cammell and filmed by Roeg. The
film stars James Fox as a violent and ambitious London gangster who, after
killing an old friend, goes into hiding at the home of a reclusive rock star
(Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones).
The film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970,
as Warner Bros. was reluctant to distribute the film, owing to its sexual
content and graphic violence. It initially received a mixed critical response,
but its reputation has grown since then, and it is now regarded as one of the
most influential and innovative films of the 1970s, as well as one of the
greatest films in the history of British cinema. In 1999, Performance was voted
the 48th greatest British film of the 20th century by the British Film
Institute. In 2008 Empire magazine ranked the film 182nd on its list of the 500
Greatest Movies of All Time.
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52. The Go-Between (1970)
The Go-Between is a 1971 British historical drama film
directed by Joseph Losey. Its screenplay by Harold Pinter is an adaptation of
the 1953 novel The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley. The film stars Julie Christie,
Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave and Dominic Guard.
It won the Palme d'Or at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
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53. The Railway Children (1970)
The Railway Children is a 1970 British family drama film
based on the 1906 novel of the same name by E. Nesbit. The film was directed by
Lionel Jeffries and stars Dinah Sheridan, Jenny Agutter (who had earlier
featured in the BBC's 1968 dramatisation of the novel), Sally Thomsett, Gary
Warren and Bernard Cribbins in leading roles. The film was released to cinemas
in the United Kingdom on 21 December 1970.
The film rights were bought by Jeffries. It was his
directorial debut and he wrote the screenplay. The Railway Children was a
critical success, both at time of release and in later years.
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54. Get Carter (1971)
Get Carter is a 1971 British gangster film, written and
directed by Mike Hodges in his directorial debut and starring Michael Caine,
Ian Hendry, John Osborne, Britt Ekland and Bryan Mosley. Based on Ted Lewis's
1970 novel Jack's Return Home, the film follows the eponymous Jack Carter
(Caine), a London gangster who returns to his hometown in North East England to
learn about his brother's supposedly accidental death. Suspecting foul play,
and with vengeance on his mind, he investigates and interrogates, regaining a
feel for the city and its hardened-criminal element.
In 1999, Get Carter was ranked 16th on the BFI Top 100
British films of the 20th century; five years later, a survey of British film
critics in Total Film magazine chose it as the greatest British film of all
time. A poorly received second remake under the same title was released in
2000, with Sylvester Stallone portraying Jack Carter and Caine in a supporting
role.
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55. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted,
produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962
novel of the same name. It employs disturbing, violent images to comment on
psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and
economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain.
In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls
of the world's greatest films, A Clockwork Orange was ranked 75th in the
directors' poll and 235th in the critics' poll. In 2020, the film was selected
for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of
Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant".
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56. Walkabout (1971)
Walkabout is a 1971 adventure survival film directed by
Nicolas Roeg and starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, and David Gulpilil. Edward
Bond wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on the 1959 novel by James
Vance Marshall. It centres on two white schoolchildren who are left to fend for
themselves in the Australian Outback and who come across a teenage Aboriginal
boy who helps them to survive.
Roeg's second feature film, Walkabout was released
internationally by 20th Century Fox, and was one of the first films in the
Australian New Wave cinema movement. Alongside Wake in Fright, it was one of
two Australian films entered in competition for the Grand Prix du Festival at
the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. It was subsequently released in the United
States in July 1971, and in Australia in December 1971.
In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in their
list of the "50 films you should see by the age of 14".
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57. The Offence (1973)
The Offence is a 1973 British crime neo noir drama film
directed by Sidney Lumet, based upon the 1968 stage play This Story of Yours by
John Hopkins. It stars Sean Connery as police detective Johnson, who kills
suspected child molester Kenneth Baxter (Ian Bannen) while interrogating him.
The film explores Johnson's varied, often aggressive
attempts at rationalizing what he did, revealing his true motives for killing
the suspect in a series of flashbacks. Trevor Howard and Vivien Merchant appear
in major supporting roles. Bannen was nominated for a BAFTA award for his
performance.
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58. The Wicker Man (1973)
The Wicker Man is a 1973 British folk horror film directed
by Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento,
Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee. The screenplay is by Anthony Shaffer, inspired
by David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual, and Paul Giovanni composed the film score.
The plot centres on the visit of a police officer, Sergeant
Neil Howie, to the isolated Scottish island of Summerisle in search of a
missing girl. Howie, a devout Christian, is appalled to find that the
inhabitants of the island have abandoned Christianity and now practise a form
of Celtic paganism
In 1989, Shaffer wrote a script treatment for The Loathsome
Lambton Worm, a direct sequel with fantasy elements. Hardy had no interest in
the project, and it went unproduced. In 2006, a poorly received American remake
starring Nicolas Cage was released, from which Hardy and others involved with
the original have dissociated themselves. In 2011, a spiritual sequel written
and directed by Hardy, The Wicker Tree, was released; it featured Lee in a
cameo appearance. In 2013, the original U.S. theatrical version of The Wicker
Man was digitally restored and released.
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59. Edvard Munch (1974)
Edvard Munch is a 1974 biographical film about the Norwegian
Expressionist painter Edvard Munch, written and directed by English filmmaker
Peter Watkins. It was originally created as a three-part miniseries co-produced
by the Norwegian and Swedish state television networks NRK and SVT, but
subsequently gained an American theatrical release in a three-hour version in
1976.
The film covers about thirty years of Munch's life, focusing
on the influences that shaped his art, particularly the prevalence of disease
and death in his family and his youthful affair with a married woman. The film
was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main
competition.
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60. Bill Douglas Trilogy: My Childhood (1972), My Ain
Folk (1973) and My Way Home (1978)
Bill Douglas's award-winning films My Childhood, My Ain Folk
and My Way Home are three of the most compelling and critically acclaimed films
about childhood ever made.
The narrative is largely autobiographical, following Jamie
as he grows up in a poverty-stricken mining village in post-war Scotland. In
these brutal surroundings, and subject to hardship and rejection, Jamie learns
to fend for himself.
In My Childhood (1972), eight-year old Jamie lives with his
granny and elder brother in a Scottish mining village in 1945. With his mother
in a mental home and his father absent, he is subject to the hardships of
poverty.
In My Ain Folk (1973), Jamie is sent to live with his
paternal grandmother and uncle; a life full of silence and rejection.
My Way Home (1978) sees Jamie's ultimate victory over his
circumstances; after a spell in foster care, and a homeless shelter, he is
conscripted into the RAF, where he embarks on a redemptive friendship with pal
Robert, which allows him to emerge from his ineffectual adolescence to pursue
his artistic ambition.
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61. Don't Look Now (1973)
Don't Look Now (Italian: A Venezia... un Dicembre rosso
shocking, lit. 'In
Venice... a shocking red December') is a 1973 English-language thriller film
directed by Nicolas Roeg, adapted from the 1971 short story by Daphne du
Maurier. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland portray Laura and John Baxter, a
married couple who travel to Venice following the recent accidental death of
their daughter, after John accepts a commission to restore a church. They
encounter two sisters, one of whom claims to be clairvoyant and informs them
that their daughter is trying to contact them and warn them of danger. John at
first dismisses their claims, but starts to experience mysterious sightings
himself.
Don't Look Now is an exploration of the psychology of grief
and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationship. The film is
renowned for its innovative editing style, recurring motifs and themes, and for
a controversial sex scene that was explicit by the standards of contemporary
mainstream cinema.
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62. The Blockhouse (1973)
The Blockhouse is a 1973 drama film directed by Clive Rees
and starring Peter Sellers and Charles Aznavour.
It is based on a 1955 novel by Jean-Paul Clébert. It was
filmed entirely in Guernsey in the Channel Islands and was entered into the
23rd Berlin International Film Festival.
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63. Theatre of Blood (1973)
Theatre of Blood (U.S. title: Theater of Blood) is a 1973
British horror comedy film directed by Douglas Hickox and starring Vincent
Price and Diana Rigg.
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64. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 British comedy
film satirizing the Arthurian legend, written and performed by the Monty Python
comedy group (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry
Jones, and Michael Palin) and directed by Gilliam and Jones in their feature
directorial debuts. It was conceived during the hiatus between the third and
fourth series of their BBC Television series Monty Python's Flying Circus.
While the group's first film, And Now for Something
Completely Different, was a compilation of sketches from the first two
television series, Holy Grail is an original story that parodies the legend of
King Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail. Thirty years later, Idle used the film
as the basis for the 2005 Tony Award-winning musical Spamalot.
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65. Barry Lyndon (1975)
Barry Lyndon is a 1975 historical drama film written,
directed, and produced by Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1844 novel The Luck of
Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. Narrated by Michael Hordern, and
starring Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Leonard Rossiter and
Hardy Krüger, the film recounts the early exploits and later unravelling of an
18th-century Anglo-Irish rogue and golddigger who marries a rich widow to climb
the social ladder and assume her late husband's aristocratic position.
Kubrick began production on Barry Lyndon after his 1971 film
A Clockwork Orange. He had originally intended to direct a biopic on Napoleon,
but lost his financing because of the commercial failure of the similar 1970
Dino De Laurentiis-produced Waterloo. Kubrick eventually directed Barry Lyndon,
set partially during the Seven Years' War, utilising his research from the
Napoleon project. Filming began in December 1973 and lasted roughly eight
months, taking place in England, Ireland, and Germany.
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66. The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976)
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 British science fantasy
drama film directed by Nicolas Roeg and adapted by Paul Mayersberg. Based on
Walter Tevis's 1963 novel of the same name, the film follows an
extraterrestrial (Thomas Jerome Newton) who crash lands on Earth seeking a way
to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought, but
finds himself at the mercy of human vices and corruption. It stars David Bowie,
Candy Clark, Buck Henry, and Rip Torn. It was produced by Michael Deeley and Barry
Spikings. The same novel was later adapted as a television film in 1987. A 2022
television series with the same name serves as a continuation of the film 45
years later, including featuring Newton as a character and showing archival
footage from the film.
The Man Who Fell to Earth retains a cult following for its
use of surreal imagery and Bowie's first starring film role as the alien Thomas
Jerome Newton. It is considered an important work of science fiction cinema and
one of the best films of Roeg's career.
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67. Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (also known as Life of Brian)
is a 1979 British comedy film starring and written by the comedy group Monty
Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and
Michael Palin). It was directed by Jones. The film tells the story of Brian
Cohen (played by Chapman), a young Jewish-Roman man who is born on the same day
as—and next door to—Jesus, and is subsequently mistaken for the Messiah.
The film was a box office success, the
fourth-highest-grossing film in the United Kingdom in 1979, and highest
grossing of any British film in the United States that year. It has remained
popular and has been named as the greatest comedy film of all time by several
magazines and television networks, and it later received a 96% rating on Rotten
Tomatoes with the consensus reading, "One of the more cutting-edge films
of the 1970s, this religious farce from the classic comedy troupe is as
poignant as it is funny and satirical." In a 2006 Channel 4 poll, Life of
Brian was ranked first on their list of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films.
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68. The Europeans (1979)
The Europeans is a 1979 British Merchant Ivory film,
directed by James Ivory, produced by Ismail Merchant, and with a screenplay by
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, based on Henry James's novel The Europeans (1878).
It stars Lee Remick, Robin Ellis, Tim Woodward and Lisa
Eichhorn. It was the first of Merchant Ivory's triptych of Henry James
adaptations. It was followed by The Bostonians in 1984 and The Golden Bowl in
2001.
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69. Scum (1979)
Scum is a 1979 British drama film directed by Alan Clarke
and starring Ray Winstone, Mick Ford, Julian Firth and John Blundell. The film
portrays the brutality of life inside a British borstal. The script was
originally filmed as a television play for the BBC's Play for Today series in
1977. However, due to the violence depicted, it was withdrawn from broadcast.
Two years later, director Alan Clarke and scriptwriter Roy Minton remade it as
a film, first shown on Channel 4 in 1983. By this time the borstal system had
been reformed. The original TV version was eventually allowed to be aired eight
years later in 1991.
The film tells the story of a young offender named Carlin as
he arrives at the institution and his rise through violence and self-protection
to the top of the inmates' pecking order, purely as a tool to survive
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70. Radio On (1980)
Radio On is a 1979 film directed by Christopher Petit. It is
a rare example of a British road movie, shot in black and white by Wim Wenders'
assistant cameraman Martin Schäfer and featuring music from a number of new
wave bands of the time, as well as established artists such as Kraftwerk, Devo
and David Bowie. It is a journey through late 1970s Britain by way of a road
trip from London to Bristol, with Robert, a DJ (played by David Beames)
attempting to investigate the suicide of his brother.
The radio station where Robert is a disc jockey was based on
the United Biscuits Network, which broadcast to factories owned by United
Biscuits.
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71. The Long Good Friday (1980)
The Long Good Friday is a 1980 British gangster film
directed by John Mackenzie from a screenplay by Barrie Keeffe, starring Bob
Hoskins and Helen Mirren. Set in London, the storyline weaves together events
and concerns of the late 1970s, including mid-level political and police
corruption, and IRA fund-raising. The supporting cast features Eddie
Constantine, Dave King, Bryan Marshall, Derek Thompson, Paul Freeman and Pierce
Brosnan in his film debut.
The film was completed in 1979, but because of delays, it
did not have a general release until early 1981. It received positive reviews
from critics, and Bob Hoskins was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor
in a Leading Role and won a Evening Standard Film Award for his performance as
gangster Harold Shand. It was voted at number 21 in the British Film
Institute's Top 100 British films list, and provided Hoskins with his
breakthrough film role. In 2016, British film magazine Empire ranked The Long Good
Friday number 19 in its list of The 100 best British films.
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72. Bad Timing (1980)
Bad Timing is a 1980 British psychological drama film
directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell, Harvey
Keitel and Denholm Elliott. The plot focuses on an American woman and a
psychology professor living in Vienna, and, largely told through nonlinear
flashbacks, examines the details of their turbulent relationship as uncovered
by a detective investigating her apparent suicide attempt.
The film was controversial upon its release, being branded
"a sick film made by sick people for sick people" by its own
distributor, the Rank Organisation, and was given an X rating in the United
States. It went unreleased on home video in the United States until 2005 when
The Criterion Collection released their DVD edition.
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73. Gregory's Girl (1981)
Gregory's Girl is a 1980 Scottish coming-of-age romantic
comedy film written and directed by Bill Forsyth and starring John Gordon
Sinclair, Dee Hepburn and Clare Grogan. The film is set in and around a state
secondary school in the Abronhill district of Cumbernauld.
Gregory's Girl was ranked No. 30 in the British Film
Institute's list of the top 100 British films of the 20th century, and No. 29
on Entertainment Weekly's 2015 list of the 50 best high school movies.
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74. Local Hero (1983)
Local Hero is a 1983 Scottish comedy-drama film written and
directed by Bill Forsyth and starring Peter Riegert, Peter Capaldi, Denis
Lawson, Fulton Mackay and Burt Lancaster. Produced by David Puttnam, the film
is about an American oil company representative who is sent to the fictional
village of Ferness on the west coast of Scotland to purchase the town and
surrounding property for his company. For his work on the film, Forsyth won the
1984 BAFTA Award for Best Direction.
A stage musical adaptation received its world premiere in
2019. In the same year a Criterion Collection DVD/Blu-ray was released in
September.
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75. The Killing Fields (1984)
The Killing Fields is a 1984 British biographical drama film
about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which is based on the experiences of
two journalists: Cambodian Dith Pran and American Sydney Schanberg. It was
directed by Roland Joffé and produced by David Puttnam for his company
Goldcrest Films. Sam Waterston stars as Schanberg, Haing S. Ngor as Pran, and
John Malkovich as Al Rockoff.
The film was a success at the box office and an instant hit
with critics. At the 57th Academy Awards it received seven Oscar nominations,
including Best Picture; it won three, most notably Best Supporting Actor for
Haing S. Ngor, who had no previous acting experience, as well as Best
Cinematography and Best Editing. At the 38th British Academy Film Awards, it
won eight BAFTAs, including Best Film and Best Actor in a Leading Role for
Ngor.
In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Killing Fields
the 100th greatest British film of the 20th century. In 2016, British film
magazine Empire ranked it number 86 in their list of the 100 best British
films.
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76. Brazil (1985)
Brazil is a 1985 sci-fi dystopian dark comedy film directed
by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. The
film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael
Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm.
The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low-ranking bureaucrat
trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a
mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in
which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical)
machines. Brazil's satire of technocracy, bureaucracy, hyper-surveillance,
corporate statism, and state capitalism is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1949
novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and it has been called Kafkaesque as well as absurdist.
Though a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its
initial North American release. It has since become a cult film. In 1999, the
British Film Institute voted Brazil the 54th greatest British film of all time.
In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics for
Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 24th best British film ever.
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77. Caravaggio (1986)
Caravaggio is a 1986 British historical drama film directed
by Derek Jarman. The film is a fictionalised retelling of the life of Baroque
painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It is Tilda Swinton's film debut.
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78. Withnail & I (1987)
Withnail and I is a 1987 British black comedy film written
and directed by Bruce Robinson. Loosely based on Robinson's life in London in
the late 1960s, the plot follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and
"I" (portrayed by Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann, respectively) who
share a flat in Camden Town in 1969. Needing a holiday, they obtain the key to
a country cottage in the Lake District belonging to Withnail's eccentric uncle
Monty and drive there. The weekend holiday proves less recuperative than they expected.
Withnail and I was Grant's first film and established his
profile. The film featured performances by Richard Griffiths as Withnail's
Uncle Monty and Ralph Brown as Danny the drug dealer. The film has tragic and
comic elements and is notable for its period music and many quotable lines. It
has been described as "one of Britain's biggest cult films".
The character "I" is named "Marwood" in
the published screenplay but goes unnamed in the film credits.
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79. Hope And Glory (1987)
Hope and Glory is a 1987 comedy-drama war film written,
produced, and directed by John Boorman based on his own experiences growing up
in London during the Second World War. It was distributed by Columbia Pictures.
The title is derived from the traditional British patriotic song "Land of
Hope and Glory". The film tells the story of the Rohan family and their
experiences, as seen through the eyes of the son, Billy (Sebastian
Rice-Edwards).
A critical and commercial success, the film won the Golden
Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and received five
Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best
Original Screenplay (all for Boorman). It also received 13 BAFTA Award
nominations, winning for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Susan Wooldridge).
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80. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
Distant Voices, Still Lives is a 1988 British period drama
film written and directed by Terence Davies. It evokes working-class family
life in Liverpool during the 1940s and early 1950s, paying particular attention
to the role of popular music, Hollywood cinema, light entertainment and the
public house within this tight-knit community.
The film won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics
Association. In 2007 the British Film Institute re-printed and distributed the
film across some of Britain's most high-profile independent cinemas, prompting
The Guardian newspaper to describe Distant Voices, Still Lives as
"Britain's forgotten cinematic masterpiece".
In a 2011 poll carried out by Time Out of the 100 greatest
British films of all time, Distant Voices, Still Lives was ranked third.
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81. Henry V (1989)
Henry V is a 1989 British historical drama film written and
directed by Kenneth Branagh in his feature directorial debut, based on William
Shakespeare's history play of the same name. It stars Branagh in the title role
of King Henry V of England, with Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Brian
Blessed, Emma Thompson, Alec McCowen, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane, and
Christian Bale in supporting roles.
Henry V received widespread critical acclaim and is
considered one of the best Shakespeare screen adaptations ever produced. Among
its numerous accolades, the film received three nominations at the 62nd Academy
Awards, two of which went to Branagh (Best Director and Best Actor). Henry V
won with its other nomination, Best Costume Design for Phyllis Dalton.
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82. The Long Day Closes (1992)
The Long Day Closes is a 1992 British drama film written and
directed by Terence Davies and starring Marjorie Yates, Leigh McCormack,
Anthony Watson, Nicholas Lamont and Ayes Owens. It was entered into the 1992
Cannes Film Festival.
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83. Naked (1993)
Naked is a 1993 British black comedy drama film written and
directed by Mike Leigh and starring David Thewlis as Johnny, a loquacious
intellectual and conspiracy theorist. The film won several awards, including
best director and best actor at Cannes. Naked marked a new career high for
Leigh as a director and made the then-unknown Thewlis an internationally
recognised star
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84. Orlando (1993)
Orlando is a 1992 British period drama fantasy film loosely
based on Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography, starring Tilda
Swinton as Orlando, Billy Zane as Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, and Quentin
Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I. It was written and directed by Sally Potter, who
also co-wrote the score with David Motion.
Potter chose to film much of the Constantinople portion of
the book in the isolated city of Khiva in Uzbekistan and made use of the forest
of carved columns in the city's 18th century Djuma Mosque. Critics praised the
film and particularly applauded its visual treatment of the settings of Woolf's
novel. The film premiered in competition at the 49th Venice International Film
Festival,and was re-released in select U.S. cinemas in August 2010.
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85. Blue (1993)
Blue is a 1993 British drama film directed by Derek Jarman.
It is his final feature film, released four months before his death from
AIDS-related complications. Such complications had already rendered him
partially blind at the time of the film's release, only being able to see in
shades of blue.
The film was his last testament as a film-maker, and
consists of a single shot of saturated blue colour - specifically International
Klein Blue. This fills the screen, as background to a soundtrack where Jarman's
and some of his long-time collaborators' narration describes his life and
vision.
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86. London (1994)
London is a 1994 British essay film written and directed by
Patrick Keiller, narrated by Paul Scofield.
The film received positive reviews upon release. Writing for
The Independent, Sheila Johnston compared Keiller's work to that of Peter
Greenaway, Humphrey Jennings and Chris Marker. Time Out included it in their
100 Best British Films of All Time.
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87. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic
comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It is the first of several films by
screenwriter Richard Curtis to star Hugh Grant, and follows the adventures of
Charles (Grant) and his circle of friends through a number of social occasions
as they each encounter romance. Andie MacDowell co-stars as Charles's love
interest Carrie, with Kristin Scott Thomas, James Fleet, Simon Callow, John
Hannah, Charlotte Coleman, David Bower, Corin Redgrave, and Rowan Atkinson in
supporting roles.
The film was made in six weeks, cost under £3 million, and
became an unexpected success and the highest-grossing British film in history
at the time, with worldwide box office total of $245.7 million, and receiving
Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
Additionally, Grant won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture
Musical or Comedy and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the
film won the BAFTA Awards Best Film, Best Direction, and Best Actress in a
Supporting Role for Scott Thomas. The film's success propelled Hugh Grant to
international stardom, particularly in the United States.
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88. Land and Freedom (1995)
Land and Freedom (or Tierra y Libertad) is a 1995 film
directed by Ken Loach and written by Jim Allen. The film narrates the story of
David Carr, an unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party of Great
Britain, who decides to fight in the Spanish Civil War for the republicans, a
coalition of Socialists, Communists and Anarchists against a nationalist coup
d'etat. The film won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and the Prize of
the Ecumenical Jury at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.The film was also
nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
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89. Trainspotting (1996)
Trainspotting is a 1996 British black comedy-drama film
directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee
Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, and Kelly Macdonald in her film debut.
Based on the 1993 novel of the same title by Irvine Welsh, the film was
released in the United Kingdom on 23 February 1996.
The film follows a group of heroin addicts in an
economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life. Beyond
drug addiction, other themes in the film include an exploration of the urban
poverty and squalor in Edinburgh.
Trainspotting was released to critical acclaim, and is
regarded by many critics as one of the best films of the 1990s. The film was
ranked tenth by the British Film Institute (BFI) in its list of Top 100 British
films of the 20th century. In 2004, the film was voted the best Scottish film
of all time in a general public poll.
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90. Secrets & Lies (1996)
Secrets & Lies is a 1996 drama film written and directed
by Mike Leigh. Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Leigh regulars, it
stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Hortense, a well-educated black middle-class
London optometrist, who was adopted as a baby and has chosen to trace her
family history – and discovers that her birth mother, Cynthia, played by Brenda
Blethyn, is a working-class white woman with a dysfunctional family. Claire
Rushbrook co-stars as Cynthia's other daughter Roxanne, while Timothy Spall and
Phyllis Logan portray Cynthia's brother and sister-in-law, who have secrets of
their own affecting their everyday family life.
Critically acclaimed, the film won the 1996 Cannes Film
Festival's Palme d'Or, as well as the Best Actress award for Blethyn. She also
won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her
portrayal. At the 50th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), the film received
seven nominations, winning both Best British Film and Best Original Screenplay.
It also received five Oscar nominations at the 69th Academy Awards ceremony.
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91. Gallivant (1996)
Gallivant is the first feature-length movie by Andrew Kötting. Released in 1996, it was a "highly idiosyncratic" documentary. It recorded a journey the director took clockwise around the coast of Britain accompanied by his 85-year-old grandmother, Gladys, and his seven-year-old daughter Eden. Eden was born at Guy's Hospital, London, in 1988 with a rare genetic disorder, Joubert syndrome, causing cerebral vermis hypoplasia and several other neurological complications. The growing closeness between these two and the sense of impending mortality give the film its emotional underpinning.
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92. Nil by Mouth (1997)
Nil by Mouth is a 1997 drama film portraying a family in
South East London. It was Gary Oldman's debut as a writer and director, and was
produced by Oldman, Douglas Urbanski and Luc Besson. It stars Ray Winstone as
Raymond, the abusive husband of Valerie, played by Kathy Burke. The score was
composed by Eric Clapton.
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93. Robinson In Space (1997)
Robinson in Space again finds Patrick Keller pushing the
limits of British cinema to fascinating degrees with a rewarding and
unparalleled pay-off. Robinson and his unseen companion, a narrator voiced by
Paul Scofield, have been commissioned to investigate the 'problem' of England.
The journey takes them all over the country, from Manchester to Liverpool and
Bristol to Birmingham, as they deconstruct English anachronism, culture,
dilapidation, and the industrial economy. Keiller's immaculately framed images
and sly deadpan narration take the viewer on an unpredictable exploration of
the cultural and economic landscape of England.
Robinson in Space is a sequel to Keller's own
psycho-geographic cinematic journey, London, which explored the impact of John
Major, the IRA, and many other important facets of the city during the early
1990's. Directed by Patrick Keiller.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Under the Skin is a 1997 British drama film written and
directed by Carine Adler and starring Samantha Morton and Claire Rushbrook. It
tells the story of two sisters coping with the sudden death of their mother.
While one sister, Rose, manages to get on with her life, younger sister Iris
goes down a self-destructive path in which she loses herself in
one-night-stands and anonymous sexual encounters.
Adler based her ideas for the script on forensic
psychiatrist Estela V. Welldon's book Mother, Madonna, Whore, which argues that
whereas men tend to externalize their grieving processes through anger, women
internalize them via paths which can incorporate such extreme reactions as
self-harm and promiscuity.
Morton was widely praised for her performance and the film
won top critics’ prizes at various film festivals, including the award for Best
British Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
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95. Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a 1998 black comedy
crime film written and directed by Guy Ritchie, produced by Matthew Vaughn and
starring an ensemble cast featuring Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran,
Steven Mackintosh and Sting, with Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham in their
feature film debuts.
The story describes a heist involving a self-confident young
card sharp who loses £500,000 to a powerful crime lord in a rigged game of
three-card brag. To pay off his debts, he and his friends decide to rob a
small-time gang who happen to be operating out of the flat next door.
The film brought Ritchie international acclaim and
introduced former Wales international footballer Jones and former diver Statham
to worldwide audiences. It was also a commercial success, grossing over $28
million at the box office against a $1.35 million budget.
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96. Ratcatcher (1999)
Ratcatcher is a 1999 drama film written and directed by
Lynne Ramsay. Set in Glasgow, Scotland, it is her debut feature film and was
screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.
The film won its director numerous awards including the Carl Foreman Award for Newcomer in British Film at the BAFTA Awards, the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival and the Silver Hugo for Best Director at the Chicago International Film Festival. Ratcatcher grossed $888,817 worldwide.It was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection.
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97. Topsy-Turvy (1999)
Topsy-Turvy is a 1999 British musical period drama film
written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Jim Broadbent as W. S. Gilbert and
Allan Corduner as Sir Arthur Sullivan, along with Timothy Spall, Lesley
Manville and Ron Cook. The story concerns the 15-month period in 1884 and 1885
leading up to the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The film
focuses on the creative conflict between playwright and composer, and their
decision to continue their partnership, which led to their creation of several
more Savoy operas.
The film received very favourable reviews, film festival
awards and two Academy Awards for design. While it is considered an artistic
success as an in-depth illustration of British life in the theatre during the
Victorian era, the film did not recover its production costs. Leigh cast actors
who did their own singing in the film, and the singing performances were
faulted by some critics, while others lauded Leigh's strategy.
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98. Wonderland (1999)
Wonderland is a 1999 British drama film directed by Michael
Winterbottom. The film stars Ian Hart, Shirley Henderson, Kika Markham, Gina
McKee, Molly Parker, Jack Shepherd, John Simm, Stuart Townsend, Enzo Cilenti,
and Sarah-Jane Potts.
Wonderland had its world premiere at the 1999 Cannes Film
Festival on 13 May 1999 and was released in the United Kingdom on 14 January
2000, by Universal Pictures.
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99. A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)
A Room for Romeo Brass is a 1999 British teen comedy-drama
film directed by Shane Meadows, who also co-wrote the film with Paul Fraser.
The film was mainly shot in Calverton, Nottinghamshire between 5 September and
17 October 1998. The location of the seaside scene was Chapel St. Leonards in
Lincolnshire.
The film stars Andrew Shim as Romeo Brass, Ben Marshall as
Gavin Woolley and Paddy Considine as Morell. It marked the screen debut of
Vicky McClure and Considine, the latter of whom went on to star in Meadows'
2004 film, Dead Man's Shoes. It was nominated in three categories at the 1999
British Independent Film Awards.
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100. Sexy Beast (2000)
Sexy Beast is a 2000 black comedy crime film directed by
Jonathan Glazer (in his feature film directorial debut) and written by Louis
Mellis and David Scinto. It stars Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane.
It follows Gary "Gal" Dove (Winstone), a retired criminal visited by
a sociopathic gangster (Kingsley), who demands that he take part in a bank
robbery.
Sexy Beast was critically acclaimed and Kingsley's
performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2004,
Total Film named Sexy Beast the 15th best British film. It was the final film
to feature the actor Cavan Kendall, who died of cancer shortly after filming
ended.
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101. Billy Elliot (2000)
Billy Elliot is a 2000 British coming-of-age comedy-drama
film directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Lee Hall. Set in County Durham
in North East England during the 1984–1985 miners' strike, the film is about a
working-class boy who discovers a passion for ballet. His father objects, based
on negative stereotypes of male ballet dancers. The film stars Jamie Bell as
11-year-old Billy, Gary Lewis as his father, Jamie Draven as Billy's older
brother, and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher.
Adapted from a play called Dancer by Lee Hall, development
on the film began in 1999. Around 2,000 boys were considered for the role of
Billy before Bell was chosen for the role. Filming began in the North East of
England in August 1999. Greg Brenman and Jon Finn served as producers, while
Stephen Warbeck composed the film's score. Billy Elliot is a co-production
among BBC Films, Tiger Aspect Pictures and Working Title Films.
The film premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, and
began a wider theatrical release in the United Kingdom on 29 September 2000 by
Universal Pictures through United International Pictures. Billy Elliot received
positive critical response and commercial success, earning $109.3 million
worldwide on a $5 million budget. At the 54th British Academy Film Awards, the
film won three of thirteen award nominations.
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102. Bread and
Roses(2000)
Bread and Roses is a 2000 film directed by Ken Loach,
starring Pilar Padilla, Adrien Brody and Elpidia Carrillo. The plot deals with
the struggle of poorly paid janitorial workers in Los Angeles and their fight
for better working conditions and the right to unionize. It is based on the
"Justice for Janitors" campaign of the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU), and the lead union organizer, Sam Shapiro, is based
on SEIU organizer Jono Shaffer.
The film is critical of inequalities in the United States.
Health insurance in particular is highlighted and it is also stated in the film
that the pay of cleaners and other low paying jobs has declined in recent
years.
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103. Chicken Run (2000)
Chicken Run is a 2000 animated adventure comedy film produced by Pathé and Aardman Animations in
partnership with DreamWorks Animation.
Aardman's first feature-length film, it was directed by Peter Lord and
Nick Park (in their feature-length directorial debuts) from a screenplay by
Karey Kirkpatrick and based on an original story by Lord and Park. The film
stars the voices of Julia Sawalha, Mel Gibson, Tony Haygarth, Miranda Richardson,
Phil Daniels, Lynn Ferguson, Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton, and Benjamin
Whitrow. Set in the countryside of Yorkshire, the plot centres on a group of
British anthropomorphic chickens who see an American rooster named Rocky Rhodes
as their only hope to escape the farm when their owners want to turn them into
chicken pies.
Chicken Run was a critical and commercial success, grossing
over $220 million and becoming the highest-grossing stop-motion animated film
in history. At the time, this film was DreamWorks Animation's most successful
release, but this was overtaken by Shrek the following year.
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104. The House of Mirth (2000)
The House of Mirth is a 2000 drama film written and directed by Terence Davies. An adaptation of Edith Wharton's 1905 novel The House of Mirth, the film stars Gillian Anderson. It is an international co-production between the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
105. Gosford Park (2001)
Gosford Park is a 2001 satirical black comedy mystery film
directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes. It was influenced by
Jean Renoir's French classic La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game).
The film stars an ensemble cast, which includes Eileen
Atkins, Bob Balaban, Alan Bates, Charles Dance, Stephen Fry, Michael Gambon,
Richard E. Grant, Derek Jacobi, Kelly Macdonald, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Northam,
Clive Owen, Ryan Phillippe, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Emily
Watson. The story follows a party of wealthy Britons plus an American producer,
and their servants, who gather for a shooting weekend at Gosford Park, an
English country house. A murder occurs after a dinner party, and the film goes
on to present the subsequent investigation from the servants' and guests'
perspectives.
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106. Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
Bridget Jones's Diary is a 2001 romantic comedy film
directed by Sharon Maguire and written by Richard Curtis, Andrew Davies, and
Helen Fielding. A co-production of the United Kingdom, United States and
France, it is based on Fielding's 1996 novel of the same name, which is a
reinterpretation of Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. The
adaptation stars Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones, a 32-year-old British single
woman, who writes a diary which focuses on the things she wishes to happen in
her life. However, her life changes when two men vie for her affection,
portrayed by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones appear
in supporting roles. Production began in August 2000 and ended in November
2000, and took place largely on location in London and the home counties.
Bridget Jones's Diary premiered on 4 April 2001 in the
United Kingdom and was released to theatres on 13 April 2001 simultaneously in
the United Kingdom and in the United States. It grossed over $280 million
worldwide and received positive reviews, with critics highlighting Zellweger's
titular performance, which garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for
Best Actress. Over the years, it has been hailed as part of the English pop
culture, with Bridget Jones being cited as a British cultural icon.
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107. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
24 Hour Party People is a 2002 British biographical comedy
drama film about Manchester's popular music community from 1976 to 1992, and
specifically about Factory Records. It was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and
directed by Michael Winterbottom. The film was entered into the 2002 Cannes
Film Festival to positive reviews.
It begins with the punk rock era of the late 1970s and moves
through the 1980s into the rave and DJ culture and the "Madchester"
scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The main character is Tony Wilson
(played by Steve Coogan), a news reporter for Granada Television and the head
of Factory Records. The narrative largely follows his career, while also
covering the careers of the major Factory artists, especially Joy Division and
New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column and Happy Mondays.
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108. 28 Days Later… (2002)
28 Days Later is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film
directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as
a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of
a highly contagious, aggression-inducing virus has caused the breakdown of
society. Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Megan Burns, and Brendan Gleeson
appear in supporting roles.
Garland took inspiration from George A. Romero's Night of
the Living Dead film series and John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the
Triffids. Filming took place in various locations in the United Kingdom in
2001. The crew filmed for brief periods during early mornings and temporarily
closed streets to capture recognisable and typically busy areas when they were
deserted. John Murphy composed an original soundtrack for the film, with other
instrumental songs by Brian Eno, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and other artists
also being featured.
28 Days Later was released on 1 November 2002 to critical
acclaim and financial success. Grossing more than $82.7 million worldwide on
its modest budget of $8 million, it became one of the most profitable horror
films of 2002.
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109. In This World (2002)
In This World is a 2002 British docudrama directed by
Michael Winterbottom. The film follows two young Afghan refugees, Jamal Udin
Torabi and Enayatullah, as they leave a refugee camp in Pakistan for a better
life in London. Since their journey is illegal, it is fraught with danger, and
they must use back-channels, bribes, and smugglers to achieve their goal.
The film won the Golden Bear prize at the 2003 Berlin
International Film Festival and BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English
Language at the 57th British Academy Film Awards the film was nominated for
Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film but lost to Touching the Void
(directed by The Last King of Scotland director Kevin Macdonald).
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110. Morvern Callar (2002)
Morvern Callar is a 2002 British psychological drama film
directed by Lynne Ramsay and starring Samantha Morton as the titular character.
The screenplay, cowritten by Ramsay and Liana Dognini, was based on the 1995
novel of the same name by Alan Warner. The film received positive reviews from
critics.
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111. In The Cut (2003)
In the Cut is a 2003 American psychological thriller film
written and directed by Jane Campion and starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo,
Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kevin Bacon. Campion's screenplay is an adaptation of
the 1995 novel of the same name by Susanna Moore. The film focuses on an
English teacher who becomes personally entangled with a detective investigating
a series of gruesome murders in her Manhattan neighborhood.
The film received a limited release on October 22, 2003, in
the United States, and was subsequently given a wide release on Halloween that
year in the United States and United Kingdom. The film received mixed reviews
from critics upon release. Negative reviews were critical of the story and
narrative structure, while positive
reviews praised the acting and Campion's visuals.
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112. Dead Man's Shoes (2004)
Dead Man's Shoes is a 2004 British psychological thriller
film directed by Shane Meadows and starring Paddy Considine, both of whom
co-wrote the film with Paul Fraser. The film also stars Toby Kebbell (in his
first film appearance), Gary Stretch and Stuart Wolfenden. It was released in
the United Kingdom on 1 October 2004 and in the United States on 12 May 2006.
Filming took place in the summer of 2003 over the course of three weeks.
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113. Vera Drake (2004)
Vera Drake is a 2004 British period drama film written and
directed by Mike Leigh and starring Imelda Staunton, Phil Davis, Daniel Mays
and Eddie Marsan. It tells the story of a working-class woman in London in 1950
who performs illegal abortions. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film
Festival and it was nominated for three Academy Awards and won three BAFTAs.
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114. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Shaun of the Dead is a 2004 British romantic zombie comedy
film directed by Edgar Wright, who
co-wrote it with Simon Pegg. The film stars Pegg as Shaun, a downtrodden London
salesman who gets caught alongside his loved ones in a zombie apocalypse. It
also stars Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy, and
Penelope Wilton. It is the first instalment in Wright and Pegg's Three Flavours
Cornetto trilogy, followed by Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013), both
of which also star Pegg and Frost.
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115. Batman Begins 2005
Batman Begins is a 2005 superhero film directed by
Christopher Nolan and written by Nolan and David S. Goyer. Based on the DC
Comics character Batman, it stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman, with
Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom
Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, and Morgan Freeman in supporting roles.
The film reboots the Batman film series, telling the origin story of Bruce
Wayne from the death of his parents to his journey to become Batman and his fight
to stop Ra's al Ghul and the Scarecrow from plunging Gotham City into chaos.
After Batman & Robin was panned by critics and
underperformed at the box office, Warner Bros. Pictures cancelled future Batman
films, including Joel Schumacher's planned Batman Unchained. Between 1998 and
2003, several filmmakers collaborated with Warner Bros. in attempting to reboot
the franchise. After the studio rejected a Batman origin story reboot Joss
Whedon pitched in December 2002, Warner Bros. hired Nolan in January 2003 to
direct a new film
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
116. The Descent (2005)
The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and
directed by Neil Marshall. The film follows six women who enter a cave system
and struggle to survive against the humanoid creatures inside.
Filming took place in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes
were filmed at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire, and in Scotland. Because the
filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual
cave, interior scenes were filmed on sets built at Pinewood Studios near London
designed by Simon Bowles.
The Descent opened in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 8
July 2005. It premiered in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and released on 4
August 2006 in the United States. The film received positive reviews, was a
box-office success, grossing $57.1 million against a £3.5 million budget, and
is often regarded as one of the best horror films of the 2000s
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117. This Is England (2006)
This Is England is a 2006 British drama film written and
directed by Shane Meadows. The story centres on young skinheads in England in
1983. The film illustrates how their subculture, which has its roots in 1960s
West Indies culture, especially ska, soul, and reggae music, became influenced by the far-right,
especially white nationalists and white supremacists, which led to divisions
within the skinhead scene. The film's title is a direct reference to a scene
where the character Combo explains his nationalist views using the phrase
"this is England" during his speech.
This Is England received critical acclaim and went on to
gross £5 million at the box office. Its success led to the creation of three
sequel TV series; This Is England '86 (2010), This Is England '88 (2011), and
This Is England '90 (2015).
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118. London to Brighton (2006)
London to Brighton is a 2006 British neo-noir crime film
written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams.
The film won a British Independent Film Award for Best
Achievement in Production. Williams won the Golden Hitchcock award at the
Dinard Festival of British Cinema, the New Director's Award at the Edinburgh
International Film Festival, Best Feature Film at the Foyle Film Festival, and
a Jury Prize at the Raindance Film Festival
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119. Children of Men (2006)
Children of Men is a 2006 dystopian action thriller film
directed and co-written by Alfonso Cuarón. The screenplay, based on P. D.
James' 1992 novel The Children of Men, was credited to five writers, with Clive
Owen making uncredited contributions. The film is set in 2027, when two decades
of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Asylum seekers
seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom, where they are subjected to detention and
refoulement by the government. Owen plays civil servant Theo Faron, who tries
to help refugee Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) escape the chaos. Children of Men also
stars Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Pam Ferris, Charlie Hunnam, and Michael
Caine.
It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Adapted
Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing. It was also nominated
for three BAFTA Awards, winning Best Cinematography and Best Production Design,
and for three Saturn Awards, winning Best Science Fiction Film. In 2016, it was
voted 13th among 100 films considered the best of the 21st century by 117 film
critics from around the world.
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120. Atonement (2007)
Atonement is a 2007 romantic war drama film directed by Joe
Wright and starring James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai,
and Vanessa Redgrave. It is based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Ian
McEwan. The film chronicles a crime and its consequences over the course of six
decades, beginning in the 1930s. It was produced for StudioCanal and filmed in
England. Distributed in most of the world by Universal Studios, it was released
theatrically in the United Kingdom on 7 September 2007 and in North America on
7 December 2007.
Atonement opened both the 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival and the 64th Venice International Film Festival, making Wright, at age 35, the youngest director ever to open the Venice event. The film was a commercial success and earned a worldwide gross of approximately $129 million against a budget of $30 million
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
121. Unrelated (2007)
Unrelated is a 2007 British drama film written and directed
by Joanna Hogg, starring Kathryn Worth, Tom Hiddleston (in his feature film
debut), Mary Roscoe, David Rintoul and Henry Lloyd-Hughes. It was released in
the US on 20 February 2008.
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122. Sunshine (2007)
Sunshine is a 2007 science fiction psychological thriller
film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. Taking place in the
year 2057, the story follows a group of astronauts on a dangerous mission to
reignite the dying Sun. The ensemble cast features Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans,
Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict
Wong, Chipo Chung, and Mark Strong. The director cast a group of international
actors for the film, and had the actors live together and learn about topics
related to their roles, as a form of method acting.
Sunshine was released in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2007
and in the United States on 20 July 2007. The film took £3.2 million in the UK
over twelve weeks, and in the USA it was placed no. 13 in the box office on the
first weekend of its wide release. With a budget of US $40 million, it ultimately grossed US $32 million
worldwide.
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123. Hunger (2008)
Hunger is a 2008 historical drama film about the 1981 Irish
hunger strike. It was directed by Steve McQueen and starred Michael Fassbender,
Liam Cunningham, and Liam McMahon.
It premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, winning the prestigious Caméra d'Or award for
first-time filmmakers. It went on to win
the Sydney Film Prize at the Sydney Film Festival, the Grand Prix of the
Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics, best picture from the Evening Standard
British Film Awards, and received two BAFTA nominations, winning one. The film
was also nominated for eight awards at the 2009 IFTAs, winning six at the
event.
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124. Man On Wire (2008)
Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James
Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the
Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Petit's 2002 book,
To Reach the Clouds, released in paperback with the title Man on Wire. The
title of the film is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and
later release) of Petit, whose performance lasted for almost an hour. The film
is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for
the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside re-enactments (with Paul
McGill as the young Petit) and present-day interviews with the participants,
including Barry Greenhouse, an insurance executive who served as the inside
man.
Man on Wire competed in the World Cinema Documentary
Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film
Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary and the
World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary.
In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film
and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. As of 2022, it is one of
only six documentary films to ever sweep "The Big Four" critics
awards (LA, NBR, NY, NSFC) and the only one of those to also win the Academy
Award for Best Documentary Feature.
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125. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British drama film that is a
loose adaptation of the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup.
It narrates the story of 18-year-old Jamal Malik from the Juhu slums of Mumbai.
Starring Dev Patel in his film debut as Jamal, and filmed in India, it was
directed by Danny Boyle, written by
Simon Beaufoy, and produced by Christian Colson, with Loveleen Tandan credited
as co-director. As a contestant on Kaun Banega Crorepati, an Indian-Hindi
version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Jamal surprises everyone by
answering every question correctly, winning ₹2 crore (US$240,000). Accused of
cheating, he recounts his life story to the police, illustrating how he was
able to answer each question.
After its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and later screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and the London Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire had a nationwide release in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009, and in India on 23 January 2009, where it saw the majority of its original success and notoriety. In the United States, it was released on 25 December 2008
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
126. Fish Tank (2009)
Fish Tank is a 2009 British drama film written and directed
by Andrea Arnold. The film is about Mia, a volatile and socially isolated
15-year-old, and her relationship with her mother's new boyfriend. Fish Tank
was well-received and won the Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. It also won the 2010 BAFTA for Best British
Film. It was included in the BBC's The 21st Century's 100 greatest films
(compiled in 2016), ranking at no. 65 on the list.
The film was funded by BBC Films and the UK Film Council. It
was theatrically released on 11 September 2009 by Curzon Artificial Eye.
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127. Looking for Eric (2009)
Looking for Eric is a 2009 sports comedy-drama film directed
by Ken Loach and written by Paul Laverty. It is an international co-production
between the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain. It stars Steve
Evets, Eric Cantona, John Henshaw, and Stephanie Bishop. It follows a
middle-aged postman who, working for the Manchester sorting office, is going
through a dreadful crisis.
The film had its world premiere at the 62nd Cannes Film
Festival on 18 May 2009, where it was awarded the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
It was theatrically released in France on 27 May 2009, by Diaphana
Distribution, and in the United Kingdom on 12 June 2009, by Icon Film
Distribution. It received positive reviews from critics and grossed over $11.6
million worldwide. For their performances, Henshaw won Best Supporting Actor at
the 12th British Independent Film Awards and Evets was nominated for Best Actor
at the 22nd European Film Awards.
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128. Bright Star (2009)
Bright Star is a 2009 biographical romantic drama film,
written and directed by Jane Campion. It is based on the last three years of
the life of poet John Keats (played by Ben Whishaw) and his romantic
relationship with Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Campion's screenplay was
inspired by a 1997 biography of Keats by Andrew Motion, who served as a script
consultant.
Bright Star was in the main competition at the 2009 Cannes
Film Festival, and was first shown to the public on 15 May 2009. The film's
title is a reference to a sonnet by Keats titled "Bright star, would I
were steadfast as thou art", which he wrote while he was with Brawne
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
129. Four Lions (2010)
Four Lions (originally titled We Are Four Lions) is a 2010
British political satire black comedy film directed by Chris Morris (in his
directorial debut) and written by Morris, Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. The
film, a jihad satire following a group of homegrown terrorist jihadis from
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, stars Riz Ahmed, Kayvan Novak, Nigel
Lindsay, Arsher Ali and Adeel Akhtar.
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130. Monsters (2010)
Monsters is a 2010 British science-fiction horror film
written and directed by Gareth Edwards (in his feature directorial debut).
Edwards also served as the cinematographer, production designer, and a visual
effects artist. The film takes place years after a NASA probe crashed in
Mexico, which leads to the sudden appearance of giant tentacled monsters. It
follows Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy), an American photojournalist tasked with
escorting his employer's daughter Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) back to the
United States by crossing through Mexico's "Infected Zone", where the
creatures reside.
The film received generally positive reviews and was a box
office success, grossing US$4.2 million against a budget of less than $500,000.
Monsters: Dark Continent, a sequel, was released in the UK on 1 May 2015
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
131. Another Year (2010)
Another Year is a 2010 British comedy-drama film written and
directed by Mike Leigh. It stars Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville, and Ruth
Sheen. It follows a year in the life of an older couple who have been happily
married for a long time, making them an anomaly among their friends and family
members.
The film had its world premiere at the 63rd Cannes Film
Festival on 15 May 2010, and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on
5 November 2010, by Momentum Pictures. It grossed $20 million worldwide and
received positive reviews from critics, who praised Leigh's screenplay and the
performances of the cast (particularly Manville). It was nominated for Best
British Film and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (for Manville) at the 64th
British Academy Film Awards, while Leigh earned a Best Original Screenplay
nomination at the 83rd Academy Awards. The film was also nominated for Best
Actress (for Manville) and Best Composer at the 23rd European Film Awards.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
132. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 2011 British Cold War spy
thriller film directed by Tomas Alfredson. The screenplay was written by
Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, based on John le Carré's 1974 novel of
the same name. The film stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, with Colin Firth,
Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarán
Hinds, David Dencik and Kathy Burke supporting. It is set in London in the
early 1970s and follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the
British secret service.
The film was produced through the British company Working
Title Films and financed by France's StudioCanal. It premiered in competition
at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. A critical and commercial
success, it was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three
consecutive weeks. It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The film also
received three Oscar nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score,
and for Oldman, Best Actor.
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133. Tyrannosaur (2011)
Tyrannosaur is a 2011 British drama film written and
directed by Paddy Considine and starring Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, Eddie
Marsan, Paul Popplewell and Sally Carman
The film grossed £396,930, below its £750,000 production
budget.
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134. Shame (2011)
Shame is a 2011 British erotic psychological drama film, set
in New York, directed by Steve McQueen, co-written by McQueen and Abi Morgan,
and starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan as grown siblings. It was
co-produced by Film4 and See-Saw Films. The film's explicit scenes reflecting
the protagonist's sexual addiction resulted in a rating of NC-17 in the United
States. Shame was released in the United Kingdom on 13 January 2012. It received generally positive reviews, with
praise for Fassbender's and Mulligan's performances, realistic depiction of
sexual addiction, and direction.
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135. Skyfall (2012)
Skyfall is a 2012 spy film and the twenty-third in the James
Bond series produced by Eon Productions. The film is the third to star Daniel
Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond and features Javier Bardem as Raoul
Silva, the villain, with Judi Dench returning as M. Directed by Sam Mendes and
written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan, the film has Bond
investigating a series of targeted data leaks and co-ordinated attacks on MI6
led by Silva.
The film was nominated for five awards at the 85th Academy
Awards, winning two.Skyfall grossed $1 billion worldwide, the fourteenth film
to do so, and became the then-seventh-highest-grossing film of all time, the
highest-grossing James Bond film, the second-highest-grossing film of 2012, and
the then-highest-grossing film released by Sony or MGM. The next film in the
series, Spectre, was released in 2015.
Skyfall earned $1.109 billion worldwide, and at the time of its release was the
highest-grossing film worldwide for Sony Pictures and the
second-highest-grossing film of 2012. On its opening weekend, it earned $80.6
million from 25 markets. In the UK the film grossed £20.1 million on its
opening weekend, making it the second-highest Friday-to-Sunday debut ever
behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. It also achieved the
second-highest IMAX debut ever behind The Dark Knight Rises. The film set a
record for the highest seven-day gross with £37.2 million, surpassing previous
record holder Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (£35.7 million). By 9 November 2012 the
film had earned over £57 million to surpass The Dark Knight Rises as the
highest-grossing film of 2012, and the highest-grossing James Bond film of all
time in the UK.
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136. Starred Up (2013)
Starred Up is a 2013 British prison crime drama film
directed by David Mackenzie and written by Jonathan Asser. Starring Jack
O'Connell, Ben Mendelsohn and Rupert Friend, the film is based on Jonathan
Asser's experiences working as a voluntary therapist at HM Prison Wandsworth,
with some of the country's most violent criminals. The title refers to the early transfer of a
criminal from a Young Offender Institution to an adult prison.
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137. Under the Skin (2013)
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed by
Jonathan Glazer and written by Glazer and Walter Campbell, loosely based on the
2000 novel by Michel Faber. It stars Scarlett Johansson as an otherworldly
woman who preys on men in Scotland. The film premiered at Telluride Film
Festival on 29 August 2013. It was released in the United Kingdom on 14 March
2014, and in other territories later in the year.
Glazer developed Under the Skin for over a decade. He and
Campbell pared it back from an elaborate, special effects-heavy concept to a
sparse story focusing on an alien perspective on the human world. Most of the
cast had no acting experience, and many scenes were filmed with hidden cameras.
it was ranked 61st on the BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century list. It
was a box-office failure, grossing around US$7 million on a budget of $13.3
million.
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138. Paddington (2014)
Paddington is a 2014 live-action animated comedy film
written and directed by Paul King. It was developed from a story by King and
Hamish McColl, which was based on the stories of the character Paddington Bear
created by Michael Bond. Produced by David Heyman, Paddington stars Ben Whishaw
as the voice of the title character, with Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie
Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, and Nicole Kidman in live-action roles.
The film tells the story of Paddington, an anthropomorphic bear who migrates
from the jungles of "Darkest Peru" to the streets of London, where he
is adopted by the Brown family. Kidman plays a taxidermist who attempts to add
him to her collection.
Paddington was released in the United Kingdom on 28 November
2014 to critical acclaim for Whishaw's vocal performance, humour, screenplay,
visual effects and appeal to children and adults. It grossed $268 million
worldwide on a €38.5 (~$55) million budget. It received two nominations at the
BAFTAs: Best British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay. A sequel, Paddington 2,
was released in 2017, with King and much of the cast returning.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
139. Mr. Turner (2014)
Mr. Turner is a 2014 biographical drama film based on the
last 25 years of the life of artist J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). Written and
directed by Mike Leigh, the film stars Timothy Spall in the title role, with
Dorothy Atkinson, Paul Jesson, Marion Bailey, Lesley Manville, and Martin
Savage. It premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film
Festival, where Spall won the award for
Best Actor and Dick Pope received a special jury prize for the film's
cinematography.
The film was critically acclaimed and received four
nominations each at the 87th Academy Awards and 68th British Academy Film
Awards.
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140. Ex Machina (2014)
Ex Machina is a 2014 science fiction psychological thriller
film written and directed by Alex Garland in his directorial debut. A
co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars
Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac. It follows a programmer who
is invited by his CEO to administer the Turing test to an intelligent humanoid
robot.
It grossed over $36.8 million worldwide against a $15
million budget. It received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its
visual effects, screenplay, and performances. At the 88th Academy Awards, the
film won Best Visual Effects and Garland was nominated for Best Original
Screenplay. It earned five nominations at the 69th British Academy Film Awards,
including Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Vikander and Best Original
Screenplay for Garland, and Vikander was also nominated for Best Supporting
Actress at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards. Since its release, it has been cited
as among the best films of the 2010s.
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141. "'71" (2014)
'71 is a 2014 British thriller film written by Gregory Burke and directed by Yann
Demange (in his feature directorial debut). Set in Northern Ireland, it stars
Jack O'Connell, Sean Harris, David Wilmot, Richard Dormer, Paul Anderson and
Charlie Murphy, and tells the fictional story of a British soldier who becomes
separated from his unit during a riot in Belfast at the height of the Troubles
in 1971. Filming began on location in Blackburn, Lancashire, in April 2013 and
continued in Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool.
The film was funded by the British Film Institute, Film4,
Creative Scotland and Screen Yorkshire, and had its premiere in the competition
section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, held in February
2014, where it was particularly praised
for O'Connell's performance and Demange's direction.
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142. 45 Years (2015)
45 Years is a 2015 British romantic drama film directed and
written by Andrew Haigh. The film is based on the short story "In Another
Country" by David Constantine. The
film premiered in the main competition section of the 65th Berlin International
Film Festival. Charlotte Rampling won
the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Tom Courtenay won the Silver Bear for Best
Actor. At the 88th Academy Awards,
Rampling received a nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
It was selected to be screened in the Special Presentations
section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and also screened at
the 2015 Telluride Festival. It was
released in the United Kingdom on 28 August 2015. The film was released in the
United States by Sundance Selects on 23 December 2015
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143. Amy (2015)
Amy is a 2015 British documentary film directed by Asif
Kapadia and produced by James Gay-Rees. The film covers British
singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse's life and her struggle with substance abuse,
both before and after her career blossomed, and which eventually caused her
death. In February 2015, a teaser trailer based on the life of Winehouse
debuted at a pre-Grammys event. David Joseph, CEO of Universal Music UK,
announced that the documentary titled Amy would be released later that year. He
further stated: "About two years ago we decided to make a movie about
her—her career and her life. It's a very complicated and tender movie. It
tackles lots of things about family and media, fame, addiction, but most
importantly, it captures the very heart of what she was about, which is an
amazing person and a true musical genius."
Amy premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, being shown
in the Midnight Screenings section. The film received critical acclaim,
garnering 33 nominations and winning a total of 30 awards, including Best
Documentary at the 28th European Film Awards, Best Documentary at the 69th
British Academy Film Awards, Best Music Film at the 58th Grammy Awards and the
Best Documentary Feature at the 88th Academy Awards.
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144. "I, Daniel Blake" (2016)
I, Daniel Blake is a 2016 British drama film written by Paul
Laverty and directed by Ken Loach. The film stars Dave Johns as Daniel Blake, a
middle-aged man who is denied Employment and Support Allowance despite being
declared unfit to work by his doctor. Hayley Squires co-stars as Katie, a
struggling single mother whom Daniel befriends.
I, Daniel Blake won the Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film
Festival, the Prix du public at the 2016 Locarno International Film
Festival, and the 2017 BAFTA Award for
Outstanding British Film.
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145. Under the Shadow (2016)
Under the Shadow (Persian: زیر
سایه, romanized: Zeer-e
sāye) is a 2016 Persian-language psychological horror film written and directed
by Iranian-born Babak Anvari as his directorial debut. A mother and daughter
are haunted by a mysterious evil in 1980s Tehran, during the War of the Cities.
The film stars Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi, Ray Haratian, and
Arash Marandi.
Produced by British film company Wigwam Films, the film is
an international co-production between Qatar, Jordan, and the United Kingdom.
The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and has been acquired by
US streaming service Netflix. The film
received critical acclaim. It was selected as the British entry for the Best
Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards but it was not nominated.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
146. Lady Macbeth (2016)
Lady Macbeth is a 2016 British period drama film directed by
William Oldroyd. Written for the screen by Alice Birch, it is based on the 1865
novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov. It stars
Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Paul Hilton, Naomi Ackie and Christopher Fairbank.
The plot follows a young woman who is stifled by her loveless marriage to a
bitter man twice her age.
Lady Macbeth had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September 2016, and was released in the United Kingdom on 28 April 2017 by Altitude Film Distribution. It received positive reviews and has grossed $5.4 million worldwide.
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147. God's Own Country (2017)
God's Own Country is a 2017 British romantic drama film
written and directed by Francis Lee in his feature directorial debut. The film
stars Josh O'Connor and Alec Secăreanu. The plot follows a young sheep farmer
in Yorkshire whose life is transformed by a Romanian migrant worker.
Upon release, the film received widespread acclaim from
critics, who praised the performances (particularly O'Connor's) and story, as
well as commending it as a promising start for Lee. It was the only UK-based
production to feature in the world drama category at the 2017 Sundance Film
Festival, where it won the world cinema directing award.
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148. Dunkirk (2017)
Dunkirk is a 2017 epic historical war thriller film written,
directed and co-produced by Christopher Nolan that depicts the Dunkirk
evacuation of World War II from the perspectives of the land, sea and air. It
features an ensemble cast comprising Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack
Lowden, Harry Styles in his film debut, Aneurin Barnard, James D'Arcy, Barry
Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy.
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, Dunkirk premiered at
Odeon Leicester Square in London, a few days before its release in the United
Kingdom and United States on 21 July 2017. It grossed $527 million worldwide,
making it the highest-grossing World War II film until it was surpassed by
Nolan's own Oppenheimer (2023).
It received various accolades, including eight nominations
at the 90th Academy Awards: Best Picture and Best Director (Nolan's first
directing Oscar nomination); it went on to win for Best Sound Editing, Best
Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing.
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149. Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. (2018)
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. is a 2018 biographical documentary film
about English rapper and artist M.I.A. Directed by Steve Loveridge, the film
follows 22 years in the rapper's life, her rise to fame and her perspective on
the controversies sparked over her music, public appearances and political
activism.
The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and
has appeared at several other international festivals since. It was released in
select cinemas in the United Kingdom on 21 September 2018 and in the United
States on 28 September 2018. The documentary was well-received, winning the
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Steve Loveridge at the Sundance
Film Festival.
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150. The Favorite (2018)
The Favourite is a 2018 period black comedy film directed by
Yorgos Lanthimos from a screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, starring
Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz. Set in early 18th-century Great
Britain, the plot trails the relationship between cousins Sarah Churchill,
Duchess of Marlborough and Abigail Hill as they vie to be court favourite of
Queen Anne.
Principal photography for the British–Irish–American
production took place at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at Hampton Court
Palace, lasting from March to May 2017. The film premiered on 30 August 2018 at
the 75th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize
and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Colman. It was released theatrically in
the United States on 23 November 2018 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and in the
United Kingdom and Ireland on 1 January 2019. The film was a box office
success, grossing $95 million worldwide on a $15 million budget.
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151. The Souvenir (2019)
The Souvenir is a 2019 drama film written and directed by
Joanna Hogg. A semi-autobiographical account of Hogg's experiences at film
school, it stars Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke and Tilda Swinton.
The Souvenir had its world premiere at the Sundance Film
Festival on 17 January 2019, and was released in the US on 17 May 2019 by A24,
and in the UK on 30 August 2019, by Curzon Artificial Eye. It received critical
acclaim.
A sequel, The Souvenir Part II, was released in 2021.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
152. Beats (2019)
Beats is a 2019 American coming-of-age-drama film directed
by Chris Robinson, from a screenplay by Miles Orion Feldsott. The film stars
Anthony Anderson, Khalil Everage, Uzo Aduba, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Paul Walter
Hauser, Dave East, Ashley Jackson, Evan J. Simpson, and Dreezy, and follows a
reclusive, teenage music prodigy forms an unlikely friendship with a struggling
producer. United by their mutual love of hip-hop, they try to free each other
from the demons of their past and break into the city's music scene. It was
released onto Netflix on June 19, 2019, and received generally positive reviews
from critics.
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153. His House (2020)
His House is a 2020 horror thriller film written and
directed by Remi Weekes from a story by Felicity Evans and Toby Venables. It
stars Wunmi Mosaku, Sope Dirisu and Matt Smith. The film tells the story of a
refugee couple from South Sudan, struggling to adjust to their new life in an
English town that has an evil lurking beneath the surface.
It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on
27 January 2020. It was released on 30 October 2020, by Netflix and received
widespread acclaim from critics.
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154. Mangrove (2020)
Mangrove is a 2020 historical drama film directed by British
director Steve McQueen and co-written by McQueen and Alastair Siddons, about
the Mangrove restaurant in west London and the 1971 trial of the Mangrove Nine.
It stars Letitia Wright, Shaun Parkes, Malachi Kirby, Rochenda Sandall, Alex
Jennings and Jack Lowden.
The film was released as part of the anthology series Small
Axe on BBC One on 15 November 2020 and Amazon Prime Video on 20 November 2020.
It premiered as the opening film at the 58th New York Film Festival on 24
September 2020.
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155. Belfast (2021)
Belfast is a 2021 British coming-of-age drama film written
and directed by Kenneth Branagh. The film stars Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench,
Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan and Jude Hill. The film, which Branagh
has described as his "most personal", follows a young boy's childhood
in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the beginning of The Troubles in 1969.
The film received seven nominations at the 94th Academy
Awards, including Best Picture, winning for Best Original Screenplay. It was
named one of the best films of 2021 by the National Board of Review and tied
with The Power of the Dog for a leading seven nominations at the 79th Golden
Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, and won for Best
Screenplay. It also tied with West Side Story for a leading eleven nominations
at the 27th Critics' Choice Awards, including Best Picture, and also received
six nominations at the 75th British Academy Film Awards, winning Outstanding
British Film.
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156. Supernova (2021)
Supernova is a 2020 British romantic drama film written and
directed by Harry Macqueen. The film stars Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci.
Supernova had its world premiere at the 68th San Sebastián
International Film Festival on 22 September 2020 and was released in the United
States on 29 January 2021, by Bleecker Street, and in the United Kingdom on 25
June 2021, by StudioCanal.
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157. Ear for Eye (2021)
Ear for Eye (stylized as ear for eye) is a British drama
film, written and directed by debbie tucker green, based upon her play of the
same name. It stars Lashana Lynch, Tosin Cole, Carmen Munroe, Danny Sapani,
Nadine Marshall, Arinzé Kene and Jade Anouka.
The film had its world premiere at the BFI London Film
Festival on 16 October 2021, and aired on the BBC on the same day.
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158. Aftersun (2022)
Aftersun is a 2022 coming-of-age drama film written and
directed by Charlotte Wells in her feature directorial debut. Starring Paul
Mescal, Frankie Corio, and Celia Rowlson-Hall, the film follows an 11-year-old
Scottish girl on holiday with her father at a Turkish resort on the eve of his
31st birthday.
Aftersun had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival
on 21 May 2022, where Wells was nominated for the Caméra d'Or. It was
theatrically released in the United States on 21 October 2022, and in the
United Kingdom on 18 November 2022. The film received widespread acclaim from
critics, who praised Wells' direction and screenplay, and the performances of
Corio and Mescal. It received four nominations at the 76th BAFTA awards, where
Wells won for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. Mescal was nominated for the Academy Award
for Best Actor at the 95th Academy Awards. Aftersun was named one of the best
films of 2022 by the National Board of Review
and was awarded top place by Sight and Sound on its poll for the best
films of 2022.
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159. The Souvenir Part II (2022)
The Souvenir Part II is a 2021 drama film, written and
directed by Joanna Hogg. It is a sequel to The Souvenir (2019). It stars Honor
Swinton Byrne, Jaygann Ayeh, Richard Ayoade, James Spencer Ashworth, Harris
Dickinson, Charlie Heaton, Joe Alwyn, and Tilda Swinton.
The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival
on July 8, 2021. It was released in the United States on October 29, 2021, by
A24, and was released in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2022, by
Picturehouse Entertainment. The film received critical acclaim.
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160. Rye Lane (2023)
Rye Lane is a 2023 British romantic comedy film directed by
Raine Allen-Miller in her feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by
Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia. Set in the South London areas of Peckham and
Brixton, the film is titled after the real-life Rye Lane Market. It stars David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah as
two strangers who have a chance encounter, after having both been through
recent breakups, and spend the day getting to know each other.
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More from Cinema Awards Archive:
– Top 160 Best British Movies of All Time – you’re here, but
bookmark this list for future rewatches.
– 2024’s Most Inspiring True Story Movies – real lives that
deserve a double bill with these classics.
– 140 Must‑See Korean Movies That Will Blow Your Mind –
another national cinema deep dive.
– The 20 Most Shocking Horror Movies of All Time – for when
you want British grit to meet pure extremity.
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