The most appealing characteristic pertaining to British cinema is it runs the gamut of dealing with various subject matter and aspects of life, and handles them in an uniquely distinctive way. This national psyche tends to come across as somewhat eccentric to non-Brits. "Having a bad day? I'll put the kettle on." Touch of the Dunkirk spirit, know what I mean?
Came up with this idea before I even created this blog and the biggest palaver was having to determine whether or not some of these films would even be classed
as British; as mentioned in a recent and older post. This detail is unnecessarily restrictive when you consider just how many different cultures are thrown into the melting pot resulting in something so idiosyncratically British like fish and chips.
The best part about compiling any kind of "best of... list" on your own is having the luxury of being utterly selfish and not having to justify them to some contributor completely ignorant and oblivious to why you love these films. The worst thing about compiling any kind of "best of... list" on your own is the chance you'll run the risk of not seeing the wood from the trees and forgeting some notable titles. Having had to endure various film critics and talking head pundits gushing over movies which either failed to resonate with me, or were placed on a much higher pedestal than they deserved to be, this is significant payback time - albeit if it happens to be written on an obscure blog in the internet ether.
101 G.O.A.T British Films
Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936)
The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938)
A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946)
Brighton Rock (John Boulting, 1948)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, 1951)
The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)
Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourner, 1957)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)
Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958)
Ice Cold in Alex (J. Lee Thompson, 1958)
Beat Girl (Edmond T. Gréville, 1959)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Terence Fisher, 1959)
Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)
Village of the Damned (Wolf Rilla, 1960)
Cash on Demand (Quentin Lawrence, 1961)
The Curse of the Werewolf (Terence Fisher, 1961)
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (Val Guest, 1961)
The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961)
The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963)
Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963)
The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963)
First Men in the Moon (Nathan Juran, 1964)
Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964)
Zulu (Cy Endfield, 1964)
Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965)
The Collector (Willaim Wyler, 1965)
The Hill (Sidney Lumet, 1965)
The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie, 1965)
The Nanny (Seth Holt, 1965)
Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)
Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966)
Carry on Screaming (Gerald Thomas, 1966)
Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (Gordon Flemyng, 1966)
The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling, 1966)
Quatermass and the Pit (Roy Ward Baker, 1967)
Twisted Nerve (Roy Boulting, 1968)
Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1968)
Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968)
Carry on Camping (Gerald Thomas, 1969)
The Italian Job (Peter Collinson, 1969)
And Soon the Darkness (Robert Fuest, 1970)
Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970)
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (Freddie Francis, 1970)
10 Rillington Place (Richard Fleischer, 1971)
A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971)
Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)
Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971)
The Flesh and Blood Show (Pete Walker, 1972)
Straight on Till Morning (Peter Collinson, 1972)
Tower of Evil (Jim O'Connolly, 1972)
Carry on Girls (Gerald Thomas, 1973)
Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)
Steptoe and Son Ride Again (Peter Sykes, 1973)
Theatre of Blood (Douglas Hickox, 1973)
The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)
Frightmare (Pete Walker, 1974)
The Internecine Project (Ken Hughes, 1974)
The Vault of Horror (Roy Ward Baker, 1973)
From Beyond the Grave (Kevin Connor, 1974)
House of Whipcord (Pete Walker, 1974)
Vampyres (José Ramón Larraz, 1974)
The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975)
The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978)
The Medusa Touch (Jack Gold, 1978)
Porridge (Dick Clement, 1979)
Scum (Alan Clarke, 1979)
The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)
The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980)
An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981)
Time Bandits (Terry Gilliam, 1981)
The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan, 1984)
Nineteen Eighty-Four (Michael Radford, 1984)
Threads (Mick Jackson, 1984)
Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
Mona Lisa (Neil Jordan, 1986)
When the Wind Blows (Jimmy T. Murakami, 1986)
Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987)
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Peter Greenaway, 1989)
The Firm (Alan Clarke, 1989)
The Witches (Nicholas Roeg, 1990)
Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994)
Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000)
28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002)
The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005)
V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2005)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuorán, 2006)
Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)
Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009)
Triangle (Christopher Smith, 2009)
Four Lions (Chris Morris, 2010)
Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)
Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
The Woman in Black (James Watkins, 2012)
Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, 2012)
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (Declan Lowney, 2013)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
'71 (Yann Demange, 2014)
Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright, 2021)
Dada Debaser Notes:
- Loathe Simon Pegg with a passion, but Hot Fuzz is the biggest standout in his filmography, as he isn't acting like a spoilt whiny man-child throughout it.
- The use of the slide whistle as a comical sound effect is of greater entertainment value to me than any so-called bourgeois comedy loved by poncey film critics.
- Unlike the 1990s, there were plenty of contenders from the 2010s that were considered, but not enough to take a coveted spot.
- Take note, Mike Leigh: the Severin cellar >>>>>> the Criterion closet.
Had naively hoped to share this list with the gawd Kim Newman, but contacting him over at his website is via an agent. Forget that! Twitter is out of the question since it's a hellhole. Oh well, mustn't grumble! Good to finally have this done, regardless.
32 comments:
You gotta get a friend to link it to Newman on Twitter.
Great, great list. Take that, Godard! (Too soon?)
Movies not mentioned here which would make my top 100 Brit flicks list:
The Hound Of The Baskervilles
Odd Man Out
Monty Python & The Holy Grail
Life Of Brian
Licence To Kill
Shaun Of The Dead
The Business
Locke
Do animated movies count? If so, add Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit to my list.
Godard picked today of all days when I planned to post this list.
I included Terence Fisher's The Hound of the Baskervilles in my list.
Animated movies definitely count. Got When the Wind Blows in there.
Oh yeah, so Baskervilles is.
Don't think I've ever seen When The Wind Blows. Sounds... interesting.
Might have The Damned United in my list too. 2nd best British movie about football after the Porridge flick.
It's worth checking out When the Wind Blows as it serves as a great time capsule of eighties paranoia over a nuclear war occurring. Raymond Briggs of The Snowman fame was the creator of it. It's very bleak and I wouldn't be surprised if it scarred a few kids who mistakenly watched it at the time.
Do a list, blud! Think I might have seen more films about football hooliganism than actually about football.
Yeah, definitely never need to see another hooliganism movie in my life.
The Phantom Of The Open belongs in the canon of great British sport movies. Has there every been a British movie about darts? If not, someone should make one.
Might have a go at making a list.
Also, without Talking Pictures TV, I wouldn't have seen half the pre-80s ones in your list. Sod the Queen and the King, God Save Talking Pictures!
Definitely do a list, Marty! Betting it will easily be more interesting than all the other Brit flick lists out there.
Will have to check out The Phantom of the Open. Don't know about movies about darts, but I know there was a film about bowls with that Dennis Pennis bloke back in the day.
Talking Pictures TV has been a godsend since the lockdowns. Discovered some real gems on there, and some obscurities that I never ever expected to see on television.
Nice list, don't suppose you could provide an honourable mentions list for the films from the 2010s that didn't quite make the cut for you?
From the 2010s:
Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)
Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014)
The Hallow (Corin Hardy, 2015)*
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)
A Dark Song (Liam Gavin, 2016)
The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci, 2017)
In Fabric (Peter Strickland, 2018)
1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019)
The Boy Who Would be King (Joe Cornish, 2019)
* wasn't entirely certain this was a British film.
Should have included David Mackenkizie’s Starred Up from the honourable mentions.
Couldn't make it to 100 but here's my favourite Brit flix. Doubt I'd have been able to do this without using your list as a guiding hand so 👏
The Lady Vanishes
A Matter Of Life and Death
Odd Man Out
Brighton Rock
The Third Man
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Ladykillers
Dracula
The Hound Of The Baskervilles
Peeping Tom
The Curse Of The Werewolf
Goldfinger
Dr. No
The Gorgon
Zulu
Smokescreen
Repulsion
The Ipcress File
Dr Who and The Daleks
Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD
Carry On Screaming
Quatermass and The Pit
The Devil Rides Out
Where Eagles Dare
Witchfinder General
Carry On Camping
Carry On Up The Khyber
The Italian Job
Kes
And Soon The Darkness
Deep End
Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly
Get Carter
The Devils
A Clockwork Orange
Don't Look Now
The Offence
Tales From The Crypt
Frenzy
Steptoe and Son Rise Again
The Vault Of Horror
Theatre Of Blood
Don't Look Now
The Wicker Man
Carry On Behind
Monty Python and The Holy Grail
Slade In Flame
One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing
The Spy Who Loved Me
Life Of Brian
Porridge
Scum
The Long Good Friday
The Elephant Man
An American Werewolf In London
Dangerous Davies
Time Bandits
Gregory's Girl
Made In Britain
Brazil
Rita, Sue & Bob Too
Mona Lisa
Sid & Nancy
Hellraiser
Withnail & I
Licence To Kill
The Firm
I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle
Shallow Grave
Human Traffic
Sexy Beast
Chicken Run
28 Days Later
24 Hour Party People
Dead Man's Shoes
Shaun Of The Dead
Wallace & Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit
The Business
This Is England
Hot Fuzz
Control
Bronson
Triangle
Attack The Block
Locke
Under The Skin
The Lobster
Last Night In Soho
The Phantom Of The Open
Brian & Charles
Looking at your list ahd putting this together made me realise there's tons of classic Brit flix I've never seen and never seen in full.
Great stuff, Marty. One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing is one of Ustinov's best films, imo.
Love seeing The Gorgon, The Devil Rides Out, Withnail & I, Chicken Run and The Lobster. Those were films I definitely regretted not being able to fit on my own list.
Gonna have to check out both The Phantom of the Open and Brian & Charles whenever I get the chance.
Kermode is responsible for me checking out Slade In Flame. He's absolutely right about it being the best British Rock movie.
I remember Kermode talking about that Slade film, but I just assumed it would be something along the lines of A Hard Days Night, or something.
A British Rock movie that Kermode put me onto is Gonks Go Beat, which looks completely surreal and makes me want to check it out.
Also, props on having Made in Britain on that list. Another great Alan Clarke film.
Brits and Aussies do skinhead movies way better than the Yanks.
The Slade flick is on YouTube and damn near everyone in the comments is like "I'm here because of Mark Kermode" 😄 Surprisingly gritty little movie.
Cheers! I'll check it out since the only things I know about Slade are that Christmas song, Cum on Feel the Noize and Reeves & Mortimer's pisstakes of them.
Along with Gonks Go Beat, Kermode referred to Pete Walker's The Comeback in his review of Foo Fighter's Studio666 earlier this year. It's on YouTube and might be of interest to you as it's a Brit slasher with Compo from Last of the Summer Wine and Pamela Stephenson in it.
Now THAT'S a Good Combination™. Cheers.
👍
Crazy how bad the nineties was for Brit cinema, if you weren’t feeling Trainspotting anything by Richard Curtis or that Merchant Ivory shite. Glad the noughties came.
Trainspotting is one of those Brit flix I've never seen.
Danny Boyle's Trainspotting was inescapable during my uni years and it never resonated with me whatsoever. To make matters worse, that Underwold song was on heavy rotation in the SU bar.
Watched that Slade film last night. Alan Lake, who played Jack in it, was married to Diana Dors at the time. Other than a few seventies sexploitation films, he was also in the sleazy, British yuletide slasher Don't Open Til Christmas, which is hilariously bad, but still tends to be festive viewing at my crib.
I've seen bits of Trainspotting but never the full thing,
I see Caroline Munro is in Don't Open Till Christmas. Will add it to the To Watch list.
Just thought of 2 glaring omissions from my list: both Paddington movies, natch.
Caroline Munro is only in it for a few minutes performing her musical number. Briefly mentioned it in the bonus section in my Caroline Munro's Greatest Parts post.
Biggest regret for me was not having Jason and the Argonauts in there. Really struggled determining whether certain films were British productions or not, outside of dedicated wiki pages.
Today, I found out that Jeremy Clarkson’s mum was the creator of the Paddington Bear soft toys.
Nice bit of pub quiz trivia there.
Tends to be current affairs and pop hits from the last five years focused questions at my local. Explains why my team comes dead last all the time.
Reminded of a glaring omission from my list last night. Saw this on Talking Pictures a few years back: The Plank starring Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper.
https://youtu.be/kKJcR24njrs
This is great. Only ever seen the shortened TV version. Going on the watchlist.
Unrelated, but there's a site listing some of the individual directors' list for that Sight and Sound poll.
Carpenter's list 🍻
Anderson's list 🤮
It's a pity Wright felt the need to pretend he enjoys 2001. I'm sure he'd much rather watch Dark Star or Alien.
I can kind of look past Wright's inclusion of 2001, because he's the only one reppin' An American Werewolf in London.
�� @ Martin Scorsese saying, "fuck it!" and including 15 films instead.
Like seeing the love for Mad Max: Fury Road in these lists, arguably the best film of the 2010s, imo. Not sure that it's better than Mad Max 2, though.
Mel Gibson is probably too #problematic to get any critic love. Plus Fury Road has a female lead for bonus inclusiveness points. Not saying that's a bad thing in this instance, mind.
I can only spot one Godard flick on all those lists so it's nice to see that film folk are finally admitting that he was an overrated pretentious prat.
Kind of ironic really, since Rajamouli’s RRR is an obvious throwback to Hollywood’s epic films from yesteryear, and he included two films helmed by Gibson in his list.
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