Great British Films

Rowem

gently, down the stream
Joined
Feb 27, 2007
Messages
13,123
Location
London
I feel like watching a film. To be precise, I feel like watching a British film. British films always seem to have a great touch to them, in particular comedies or comedic dramas. I'm getting bored of watching American films with American humour. Some are brilliant, yes, but many others are not or are very similiar to hundreds of others. When the British do a good film then it's brilliant. Things like Shaun of the Dead, Parole Officer, It's all gone Pete Tong, any films with Hugh Grant, Lock Stock, Green Street etc...,

So what other great British films are there? What are your favourites? Can you recommend some that I perhaps might not have heard of?
 
At the moment I'm watching Football Factory. It's started alright, I spose.
 
Young Adam is easily the best British film I've seen in the last 5 years. Dirty Pretty Things ain't bad, Dear Frankie is good. Otherwise it's Full Monty Calendar Girls Hill Gate shite or lo-budget grimy kitchen-toilet crapper.
 
Personally, I'd go for a good Bond film. But I guess that doesn't really full under the category of comedy.
 
I hate action films. Bond is just about the only action film I can stand, and even then I'd rather not.
 
Aye yeah no worries. Thanks for the suggestions guys, didnt mean it to sound like I was having a go mate.
 
Withnail and I.

British cinema at it's best, enjoy.
 
The original Get Carter.

Chariots of Fire

If....

Any of Mike Leigh's films.

Some of the old 60s b&w classics. A Taste of Honey, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
 
Sexy Beast is an excellent film.

Chariots of fire, The Madness of King George, Ghandi, The Wicker man, Nil by Mouth and Elizabeth are all great. Not to mention the Python films.

Anything with Danny Dyer in it is, well, dire.
 
The Wicker Man i need to see that.

keep forgetting to go and get it.
 
duffer said:
Make sure you get the one with Edward Woodward and not the one with Nicholas Cage!
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Haha i will, whats frustrating is the ending is so parodied and talked about, That I know the twist before I've seen the film, which ruins the experience. I had the same problem with One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest.
 
The best British films were (IMO) made way back in the 1940s to the 60s.

If you want comedy then you can't (and won't) do better than Ealing. With great masterpieces include majestic:

Man in the White suit
Lavender Hill Mob
Passport to Pimlico
Whisky Galore!
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Titfield Thunderbolt
The Ladykillers (recently (and disasterly) remade with Tom Hanks).

If you're looking for drama and tension then films like:

the cruel sea
Matter of life and death
Great Expectations
The Third man
Brighton Rock
39 Steps (Robert Donat version)



For me, that was the Golden Age of British film making.
 
032Devil said:
The best British films were (IMO) made way back in the 1940s to the 60s.

If you want comedy then you can't (and won't) do better than Ealing. With great masterpieces include majestic:

Man in the White suit
Lavender Hill Mob
Passport to Pimlico
Whisky Galore!
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Titfield Thunderbolt
The Ladykillers (recently (and disasterly) remade with Tom Hanks).

If you're looking for drama and tension then films like:

the cruel sea
Matter of life and death
Great Expectations
The Third man
Brighton Rock
39 Steps (Robert Donat version)



For me, that was the Golden Age of British film making.
Click to expand...

Spot on....and all classics in their own way. We just don't make films of this quality anymore....The Parole Officer? Do me a favour!!! Once had to suffer this on a college coach journey from Paris to Poiters, which found appreciation with the 16 year old students, but left me feeling that gazing at French tarmac was infinantly a better use of my time.

You can also add Brief Encounter, In Which We Serve, Mrs Miniver and School for Scoundrels to that list of British classics...
 
Dunno if anyone's mentioned it, I can't be arsed to read the whole thread, but.........

Trainspotting

or

Human Traffic
 
RedNome said:
Withnail and I.

British cinema at it's best, enjoy.
Click to expand...
An excellent British film, I'd also suggest the same director's "How to get ahead in advertising" which features Richard E Grant going even further over the top than he managed in Withnail.

Also surprised nobody has mentioned "The Italian Job", the original Michael Caine version actually set in Italy and not the poor American remake. Not a high brow film by any means but a British classic if only for Michael Caine's deadpan "I only told you to blow the bleeding doors off" and the OTT robbery scene.
 
The Third Man
39 Steps
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Life of Brian
Blow Up
The Day of the Jackal
Clockwork Orange
 
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