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Best Biography Movies

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1. Lawrence of Arabia (re-release)

2. The Passion of Joan of Arc

3. My Left Foot

4. 12 Years a Slave

5. The Social Network

6. Schindler's List

7. Mr. Turner

8. The Irishman

9. The Wild Child

10. We Were Here

12. Reversal of Fortune

14. Spotlight

15. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

16. Close-Up

17. The Act of Killing

18. Quiz Show

19. Goodfellas

20. The Look of Silence

23. Young Mr. Lincoln

24. Waltz with Bashir

The 15 Best Biopics of All Time

Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, and Robert De Niro star in some of the most enduring and enjoyable biopics.

That’s largely because the genre has gone through some pains to get here. For years, biopics were paint-by-numbers affairs, drawn up to make a quick buck and maybe score an Oscar nomination or two.

Now, most filmmakers have figured out that there are better, more cinematic ways to tell these stories. Some of the best biopics on our list still tell a person’s story from birth to death (or close to it) but do so with a grandness that reflects the way their life was lived. Others focus on a specific period, moment, or event in a person’s life and demonstrate its importance, which encourages reflection on how that particular story still resonates in the present.

This biopic renaissance didn’t happen overnight. Throughout film history, directors have taken risks that paid off in the form of timeless biopics that pushed the genre forward. These are 15 of our favorites.

Related: The Real People Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro Portray in Killers of the Flower Moon • The Tragic True Story of the Ferrari Movie • Why Michael Oher Doesn’t Like The Blind Side

Director Spike Lee takes the approach of sharing a large percentage of the life of one of America’s most well-known and impactful civil rights leaders : Malcolm X . It’s an approach that has failed more often than not, but over three hours, Lee and star Denzel Washington are able to give Malcolm’s life the richness and attention to detail it deserves in this 1992 film. The result is a fully three-dimensional portrait that follows the man from childhood to his 1965 assassination and many places in between.

Tick, Tick…Boom!

The layers in the feature film debut of director Lin-Manuel Miranda are truly one of a kind. The 2021 movie introduces us to Jonathan Larson (played by Andrew Garfield), who became best known for writing the broadway musical Rent . But in Tick, Tick…Boom! , he’s both struggling to break into the musical industry and, in a parallel but future-looking story, acting in the musical he wrote before Rent . That musical? Tick, Tick…Boom! about a writer struggling to break into the musical industry. It all makes sense—somehow—on the screen, and it’s both wildly entertaining and tinged with tragedy for people who know Larson’s fate. (He’d never get to see Rent premiere.)

Watch on Netflix

I’m Not There

Most biopics feature one primary actor depicting the portions of an individual’s life that are best known to the general public. Many others might feature a younger or older actor showing the subject at a different phase of their life. I’m Not There , meanwhile, tells the story of Bob Dylan using six very distinct actors to portray the iconic singer-songwriter in various eras of his life. Among the six in this 2007 release are Christian Bale , Richard Gere , the late Heath Ledger , and, improbably, an Oscar-nominated Cate Blanchett .

Watch on Prime Video

Here, the biopic turns into a horror movie (with one of the most uncomfortable but appropriate musical scores of the last decade), as we follow former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (played by a never better Natalie Portman ) in the immediate aftermath of her husband’s assassination in 1963. In this 2017 film, Chilean director Pablo Larraín takes you deep into what was a national tragedy, but he does so in a uniquely personal way. In one of the film’s most devastating scenes, we see Kennedy trying to wash her husband’s blood off her body . From there, it flips, and we see her put in painstaking work to shape the way history will remember the 35th U.S. president .

The Wind Rises

A rare animated biopic, this 2013 stunner from Japanese legend Hayao Miyazaki (of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke fame) is an interesting companion piece to this summer’s hottest biopic, Oppenheimer . It depicts the life and career of Jiro Horikoshi, an engineer whose aircraft designs were eventually adopted and used by Japan during World War II. While his work advanced his field tremendously, the film shows him wracked with guilt over the way it was used, while he also deals with personal tragedy. It’s a tremendous achievement that takes advantage of its presentation to become arguably the most fanciful biopic ever.

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Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most well-known figures in American history, but books and speeches can only do so much to show the person behind the ideas. Director Ava DuVernay ’s 2014 film centers around the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, explicitly showing it wasn't the act of one man but so many, including people killed in acts of racial violence. Still, where it stands out is in its portrayal of King, who carries the hopes, fears, and memories of all these individuals on his shoulders at all times, whether he’s sitting at home with his family, in an Alabama jail cell, or in the Oval Office. The result is a portrait of an icon who’s flawed, overwhelmed, and occasionally unsure of himself.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Similar to DuVernay’s work on Selma , director Marielle Heller peels back the veil on a person famous for their goodness in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood . Her focus is Fred Rogers , the famous children’s television star, but what’s especially interesting about Tom Hanks ’ portrayal of him in the film is that his on- and off-screen personas aren’t dramatically different. The film is centered on a journalist profiling Rogers who assumes someone presenting as this kind must have another side. But in this 2019 film, we learn that while Rogers might have had feelings of sadness, anger, and anxiousness, he actively chose kindness every day, which in turn made everything else feel insignificant.

One of the more fictionalized biopics on the list, this 1984 Oscar-winning epic, adapted from a Tony Award–winning play, takes the unique approach of showing the life, work, and peculiarities (that laugh!) of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart through the eyes of one of his lesser-known contemporaries, Antonio Salieri. As played by F. Murray Abraham, Salieri is consumed by jealousy, revulsion, and deep, deep admiration for his rival composer. As he gets closer to Mozart, he sees a similarly tortured soul, and for viewers, Mozart’s layers of caricature fade away.

Another biopic out of the tumult that was the United States in the 1960s, this 2001 masterpiece from director Michael Mann crosses between sports and politics with a hand as deft as its subject’s left. We see Muhammad Ali , played with remarkable complexity by Will Smith , from his first title fight to his famous knockout of George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle.” All the while, we’re shown the unforgettable details that made him one of the greatest icons of the 20th century—notably, the grace with which he moved around the ring and the acid on his tongue in a pre-fight interview—as well as the almost unbearable heaviness he carried on his shoulders that came with being Muhammad Ali.

Raging Bull

Staying in the boxing ring, this is arguably the quintessential biopic and one of the most admired films by one of cinema’s most admired directors, Martin Scorsese . In it, Robert De Niro plays Jake LaMotta , the world middleweight champion from June 1949 to February 1951. The 1980 film explores the ups and downs of his fighting career, his mob connections (including an infamously thrown fight in 1947), and the always tumultuous, often rage-filled, and violent relationships he had with his wife, Vikie, and his brother and manager, Joey. De Niro won his second Oscar for playing LaMotta—a performance for which he gained 60 pounds to play an older version of the fighter.

Watch on Max

In the 1960s, big, booming historical epics were all the rage. Lawrence of Arabia , Dr. Zhivago —if it had a musical overture and an intermission, people were there and all about it. (It was kind of weird.) But one biographical film that came a little later (in 1981) stands out as an especially successful epic with a number of historical figures criss-crossing at a monumentally important historical event: the start of the Russian Revolution. Among the figures profiled in the underrated Reds are Jack Reed ( Warren Beatty , who also directed the film), a journalist and activist who wrote one of the defining portraits of this period; Louise Bryant ( Diane Keaton ), his counterpart and on/off romantic partner; famous American playwright Eugene O’Neill ( Jack Nicholson ); and feminist and anarchist Emma Goldman (Maureen Stapleton). And throughout, all of the individuals featured and events chronicled are given color through real-life interviews with men and women who were actually there.

Marie Antoinette

This 2006 biopic is straight vibes. Set in pre-Revolutionary France, it features Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette not even pretending to have an accent. Converse sneakers are famously seen in the background of a shot. And the soundtrack, featuring The Strokes and The Cure among others, couldn’t sound less appropriate for the period. But by severing the connection with the time period as harshly as—well, nevermind—director Sofia Coppola crafts something that’s able to gently remind viewers this movie is a relatively simple story about a young girl who embraces the luxury around her because she’s in an otherwise impossible situation.

Julie & Julia

This 2009 Nora Ephron –directed biopic earns inclusion on this list first and foremost thanks to a truly iconic performance from the great Meryl Streep as the beloved chef, author, and television personality Julia Child . She injects tremendous heart into the role without losing some of the quirky gestures that made so many people fall in love with Child, among them blogger Julie Powell ( Amy Adams ), whose journey with Child’s cooking elevates the film further into the pantheon of best biopics. It’s a unique approach that demystifies its subject by both showing us her life and showing someone else wrestling with it.

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An Angel at My Table

Janet Frame might not be a household name in America like other biopic subjects on this list, but hers was a life so full that a young New Zealand director named Jane Campion turned it into a true cinematic effort in 1990 in just her second feature film. Frame eventually became a renowned literary figure, and the film is based on three separate autobiographies she wrote covering different periods in her life, from childhood to adulthood. She suffered a number of personal tragedies early in her life and was later diagnosed (inaccurately) with schizophrenia. In the film’s most dramatic and pivotal scene, she learns that her first collection of short stories will be published just days before she’s scheduled to undergo a lobotomy.

Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin dissect one of the most influential individuals of the past century (you’re quite possibly reading this article on one of his devices) in this 2015 biopic. When you picture Steve Jobs in your head, you probably imagine him in black on a stage introducing a product, and this film takes place on three such days across a roughly 15-year span. But while he looks the part, Michael Fassbender’s Jobs is instead shown as vain, short-tempered, and vindictive. It’s a harsh juxtaposition, but as a biopic, it’s a fascinating experiment that is also very well-acted and relentlessly paced.

John Gilpatrick is a freelance writer and film critic from the Lehigh Valley, PA. He loves movies about space and movies about oil drillers (especially when they go together). He also thinks the Star Wars prequels are mostly OK and that Ivan Reitman's Draft Day is a low-key masterpiece. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS). You can read more of his reviews and columns at JohnLikesMovies.com .

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From 'Elvis' to 'The Pianist': 20 Best Biopic Movies of the 21st Century (So Far)

Telling incredible true stories.

Read update

Oppenheimer , Christopher Nolan 's most anticipated biopic will soon hit theaters this summer (July 21), marking not only Nolan's return but also the newest installment in the biopic genre, which is currently popular in Hollywood. In the meantime, there are tons of great biopics of the 21st century that fans can watch.

What is a biopic? A biopic (short for "biographical picture") is a non-fictional film that depicts the tale of a real person's life. Biopic movies are usually about a historical figure or a well-known individual. However, they can be about anyone as long as the subject exists. A biopic film must focus on a single protagonist and portray the narrative of that person's life across many years (rather than simply one event or era in their life).

Biopics are the goldmines of Hollywood movies, regardless of whose life they show. Many of these films served as stepping stones in the careers of their filmmakers and actors, helping to launch them to stardom. Even though many excellent biopics are produced each year, a special few have gone above and beyond after the turn of the millennia.

Updated on March 30, 2023, by Jessie Nguyen:

20 'bohemian rhapsody' (2018).

Bohemian Rhapsody tells the story of the British rock band Queen and their lead singer, Freddie Mercury , played by Rami Malek . The film traces the band’s rise to fame, from their early days playing small gigs to their legendary performance at Live Aid in 1985. It also explores Mercury’s relationships with his bandmates, as well as his romantic ones and his struggle with his sexuality.

Bohemian Rhapsody nevertheless serves as a good reminder of the band's musical brilliance and Freddie's singular stage presence owing to the film's aesthetically stunning musical moments and Malek's dominating leading role. Despite its limitations, the movie is still an exquisite tribute to the band and its dedicated fans.

Watch on Hulu

19 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001)

Inspired by the 1998 biography of the same name by Sylvia Nasar , A Beautiful Mind chronicles the life of John Forbes Nash Jr. ( Russell Crowe ), who went through it all – from fame's pinnacles to its darkest abysses. He was a mathematical prodigy who was on the verge of receiving international renown when he made an astounding discovery early in his career. Yet he quickly finds himself embarking on a torturous and terrifying quest of self-discovery.

A Beautiful Mind has become one of the most engaging and well-liked movies of all time, despite issues with tone and structure as well as some significant absences from Nash's real life. Because Nash's life is the focus of the film rather than his mental health , and because of Russell Crowe's stirring portrayal, Nash is given a second chance to relive both his success and his failure.

Watch on Prime Video

18 'Elvis' (2022)

Elvis chronicles the life story of American music legend Elvis Presley , played by Austin Butler , from his youth to his 1950s rise to rock and roll stardom while retaining a complicated bond with Colonel Tom Parker ( Tom Hanks ), his manager.

Butler's spectacular portrayal of Elvis humanized the legend by bringing down the spotlight from his physical gestures to the enormous, gruff voice to reveal the troubled man hiding behind the timeless God of Rock. In addition, the wild singing, set design, reenactment of iconic incidents, and compelling performers give the impression that audiences are viewing a documentary instead.

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17 'Ray' (2004)

Ray tells the story of the legendary musician Ray Charles ( Jamie Foxx ) and his struggles with blindness, poverty, and addiction, as well as his relationships with the women in his life. It also delves into Charles' musical career, including his experimentation with different genres such as R&B, gospel, and country, and his collaborations with other musicians.

Ray is a moving and inspiring film that offers a window into the life of one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, and the struggles and triumphs that shaped his extraordinary career. Also, the acting is strong, the directing is deft, the storyline is insightful, and Foxx gives an outstanding performance.

Watch on Netflix

16 'The Wolf of Wall Street' (2013)

The story of 1990s stock trader Jordan Belfort , whose company, Stratton Oakmont, participated in unprecedented levels of corruption and fraud, is told in Martin Scorsese 's smash biopic The Wolf of Wall Street .

Scorsese's picture is the ultimate of excess, with Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort giving a truly outrageous performance. As they are in many of Scorsese’s films , the sins are visited upon the sinner, but the "Wolf" warns us at the end that no number of cautionary stories will prevent future generations from engaging in short-sighted, amoral, selfish ambitions.

Watch on Fubo

15 'A Hidden Life' (2019)

Based on the true story of Franz Jägerstätter , an Austrian farmer who refused to fight for the Nazis during World War II, The Hidden Life follows Franz ( August Diehl ) as he lives a quiet life with his family in the small village of St. Radegund. When war breaks out, Franz is called up to serve in the German army, but he refuses to swear allegiance to Hitler and fight for the Nazis.

Through a genuine account of faith, family, and the indomitable human spirit in the face of extreme persecution, director Terrence Malick presents the viewers with a rare image of a special kind of hero. Additionally, it serves as an engaging and oftentimes moving example of how regular people respond to the ills of the world.

14 'Lincoln' (2012)

Lincoln follows the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln ( Daniel Day-Lewis ), as he navigates the political landscape of the Civil War era, trying to garner support for the amendment from both Republicans and Democrats. It also focuses on the final months of his presidency and his efforts to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which would abolish slavery.

Lincoln is one of Steven Spielberg 's most methodical efforts as a director, and it is undeniably a respectable, absorbing film. Additionally, despite having a history lesson at its center, it is deftly concealed by one outstanding performance and a number of steadfast supporting characters.

13 'Capote' (2005)

Capote tells the story of Truman Capote ( Philip Seymour Hoffman ), a famous American writer, as he travels to Kansas to investigate and write about the brutal murders of the Clutter family in 1959, which later becomes the basis for his novel, In Cold Blood . The film explores Capote’s relationship with the murderers, Richard ‘Dick’ Hickock ( Mark Pellegrino ) and Perry Smith ( Clifton Collins Jr. ), as he spends them with them in jail.

Hoffman offers a captivating portrayal of and perspective on a troubled character who is nonetheless regarded by many as one of America's best authors. Moreover, Bennett Miller was able to convey the complexity of human brains and relationships, as well as the source of artistic inspiration, thanks to a fantastic screenplay.

Watch on Roku

12 'I, Tonya' (2017)

After her husband ordered an assault on her opponent, Nancy Kerrigan , Tonya Harding ( Margot Robbie ) went from one of the most skilled athletes in the country to a worldwide laughingstock. Her troubles as an outcast, her dysfunctional family, and her outspoken nature were all depicted in the film.

Craig Gillespie 's film does more than convey Harding's story, it completely reframes the narrative and rewrites her as the hero of her own story in a complicated but persuasive way. I, Tonya also provides Robbie with her first opportunity to demonstrate her entire range as an actor, and she is radiant.

11 'Dallas Buyers Club' (2013)

Dallas Buyers Club follows Ronald Woodroof ( Matthew McConaughey ), a philandering, drug addict, and homophobic electrician from Texas, living a carefree life until his doctor diagnoses him with HIV/AIDS, which will likely kill him in 30 days. Woodroof discovers an experimental medicine that can potentially prolong his life and establishes the titular "Dallas Buyers Club" to import the drug from Mexico to anyone who needs it.

The combination of sharp character study and moving pharmaceutical docudrama is lively and memorable at just under two hours. Moreover, McConaughey and Jared Leto ’s transformative performances are the reason to visit this biopic. Not only do they successfully give voice to the disaffected of the 1980s, but to everyone who is suddenly confronted with unfathomable challenges.

10 'Hidden Figures' (2016)

Loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly , Hidden Figures chronicles the story of a group of female Black mathematicians (played by Taraji P. Henson , Octavia Spencer , and Janelle Monáe ) who played crucial roles in NASA during the early stages of the US space program.

With its recognizable period-piece perspective on a neglected moment in space history, Hidden Figures maintains optimism for what science and technology may accomplish when the sharpest minds work together. Moreover, the film respectfully honors the unheralded female heroines of history by featuring three exceptional performances from the three leads.

Watch on Disney+

9 'Milk' (2008)

Milk is about the life of an openly gay activist and politician, Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn ), who became the first LGBTQ+ person elected to public office in California. The film chronicles the period from Milk's 40th birthday until his horrific killing in 1978, using archival footage from his life.

The film, directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Dustin Lance Black , immerses us in the political process as Penn's brilliant performance captures Milk's playful intellectual personality. Furthermore, by combining 1970s news footage with newly shot sequences, Van Sant constructed his film around some massive, screen-filling set pieces, making the audience feel as if they had stepped inside the story.

8 'The King's Speech' (2010)

When Albert "Bertie" George 's father, King George V , dies and his brother King Edward VIII chooses love over the kingdom, he is compelled to crown himself king. The King's Speech depicts the narrative of King George VI 's friendship with his speech therapist, who helped the king overcome his stutter to confidently address his subjects.

Instead of being a film about a monarch triumphantly leading his folks to victory, it is about a would-be king battling to find his voice and the strength to lead his people through one of the most challenging periods in their history. Colin Firth as Bertie also imbues his restrained character with complexity, dignity, and wit, making a lasting impression.

Watch on Plex

7 '12 Years a Slave' (2013)

Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor ) was a free Black man from New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. For a dozen terrifying years, he was subjected to various forms of torture and wickedness before being free once more.

Though 12 Years a Slave is full of intriguing characters, Ejiofor steals the show by maintaining the character's dignity throughout. Moreover, director Steve McQueen immerses the spectators in an unforgivably hideous era from which there is no way out. It's about as intense as a biopic can go and many viewers deem this movie to be too heartbreaking for a second screening .

6 'The Pianist' (2002)

Based on the autobiographical book of the same name by a Polish-Jewish pianist, composer, and Holocaust survivor, Władysław Szpilman , The Pianist follows Szpilman ( Adrien Brody ), who after being forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, loses contact with his family as a result of Operation Reinhard. He then hides in various places among the rubble of Warsaw from this point until the captives of the concentration camps are released.

The unflinching anti-war film is a masterpiece about the struggle between good and evil, the tenacity and mercy of art, and the horrific personal toll left by one of history's worst moments. Like many films about the Holocaust, The Pianist can be difficult to see, but it's important to remember what happened and Brody was mesmerizing in it.

5 'The Social Network' (2010)

Though it wasn’t perfectly accurate, The Social Network covers the narrative of Facebook's early years and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg ’s ( Jesse Eisenberg ) initial social decline, starting with the break-up of his romantic relationship with Erica Albright ( Rooney Mara ) and concluding with the tragic end of his friendship with co-founder Eduardo Saverin ( Andrew Garfield ).

The film is one of the best performing and acclaimed films of 2010 , thanks to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin 's typical quick-witted writing and Jesse Eisenberg's riveting portrayal of the renowned social network creator. Moreover, everyone in the film is on the verge of snapping, which adds to the film's authenticity and realism.

4 'Catch Me If You Can' (2002)

Catch Me If You Can follows Frank Abagnale Jr. (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a skilled con man who pretended to be a doctor, lawyer, and pilot while only being 21 years old. Meanwhile, Tom Hanks ' FBI agent Carl Hanratty gets obsessed with finding Frank and later succeeds in persuading Frank to become an FBI assistant for atonement.

The story was brought to life by Steven Spielberg's skill as a filmmaker, exquisite cinematography, elegant editing, brilliant script, and a beautiful score by John Williams . Not to mention DiCaprio and Hanks' incredible chemistry and performances resulting in a gentle, charmingly adventurous film that makes you feel wonderful.

3 'BlacKkKlansman' (2018)

Based on Ron Stallworth ’s 2014 memoir Black Klansman , BlacKkKlansman takes place in the 1970s in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and follows the city's first Black detective ( John David Washington ) as he attempts to infiltrate and out the local Ku Klux Klan chapter.

BlacKkKlansman is timely because it engages in a crucial national dialogue that is full of metaphors and juxtapositions. Moreover, the chemistry between Washington and Adam Driver is crucial to keep the film's rhythm enjoyable as the movie alternates between comedy and crime . Also, through their characters, viewers feel like they have just walked through the lane of history in over two hours.

2 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?' (2018)

Melissa McCarthy plays Lee Israel , a struggling writer who seeks to revive her career by selling counterfeit letters from celebrities who have died. Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Marielle Heller is one of the finest contemporary films on economic hardship and ethical compromise.

The biopic is an intellectually interesting drama due to the contradiction between blatant deception, undeniable necessity, and a group of victims who, presumably, can afford to be fooled. Moreover, McCarthy's impressive performance is both fierce and compassionate at the same time, constantly improving the material and stealing every scene she is in.

1 'Selma' (2014)

Selma was praised for its historical authenticity as it followed Martin Luther King Jr. as he fought for Black voting rights. The film follows King's frenetic three months leading up to the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Their efforts directly contributed to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The film focuses primarily on King's role in the events without diminishing the importance of the other leaders' contributions to molding this pivotal moment in American history. Moreover, the screenplay by Paul Webb and David Oyelowo ’s performance as King gives us a profound, gratifying depiction of King as a man capable of errors, self-doubt, and pain.

Watch on Showtime

NEXT: Great Biopics That Got Surprisingly Dark

Top 10 award-Winning biographical films you need to watch

Here are our favourite movies based on real-life personalities.

The best way to know about someone famous is if a movie was made about them. Over the years, we've seen multiple films depicting real-life personalities because sometimes, seeing their story through the lens can give us a deeper understanding of them.

• Check out the best TV shows to watch on Netflix this month

Filmmakers have tried (and also failed) to make several biopics that turned out to be some of the best movies ever made. However, since it is a movie, certain elements can be changed to make it more cinematic. These changes can be minor, but it sometimes alters the story to create a factual account that seems irrelevant.

As awards season has officially begun, we've curated some of the best award-winning biopics we've seen over the years, so read on!

Schindler's List

The movie tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German member of the Nazi party that tried to save his Jewish employees from the Holocaust. Steven Spielberg directs this award-winning movie and showcases the most realistic depiction of one of the darkest moments in human history. Winner of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

The Social Network

David Fincher directs this movie about Facebook. It might not be interesting at first, but as it's now considered to be one of his best movies, it takes a look at the early days of Facebook as well as one of its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and how he brought up one of the largest social media sites in history. Winner of three Academy Awards including Best Adapted Screenplay.

Molly's Game

This crime drama centres on Molly Bloom, who became the subject of an FBI investigation after she becomes entangled in the underground poker empire. The problem is she wasn't just part of it. She started it. She begins to fear for her life when she unwittingly takes in players from the Russian mafia. Screenwriter Aaron Zorkin wrote the script and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Directed by Danny Boyle, this film chronicles the Apple co-founder in different periods as he prepares for significant product launches. He also struggles to deal with personal issues between those occasions, including his daughter Lisa, his estranged wife Chrisann and his marketing executive Joanna. Nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

The Favourite

When Queen Anne of England falls sick, it is up to her close aide Sarah to take care of her while she recovers. As Sarah oversees the Queen's tasks, she soon meets her cousin Abigail who starts serving the queen. The two of them soon starts fighting for the queen's attention, often leading to disastrous and scandalous results. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress (Oliva Colman).

Lawrence of Arabia

This historical epic depicts the story of British Army Colonel T. E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, during his experiences in Hejaz and Greater Syria during World War I. Considered one of the greatest movies ever made, the movie shows Lawrence's struggles with war and violence and his allegiance between his native Britain and his newfound friends living in the Arabian desert. Winner of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

King Richard

Venus and Serena Williams are the biggest names in tennis today, but their story to fame comes with its struggles and obstacles. Critically acclaimed when released last November, the movie looks at the two sisters growing up under their father's coaching, Richard Williams, played by Will Smith, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

The Irishman

Martin Scorsese directs another epic crime drama starring some Hollywood heavyweights, including Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci. It tells the story of Frank Sheeran, who becomes involved with a mobster and other prominent mafias. Nominated for ten Academy Awards.

Raging Bull

Based on the memoir by Jake LaMotta, this film depicts the boxer's self-destructive downturn. It showcases his mental state as he deals with rage, jealousy, and animalistic tendencies during competition, ultimately destroying his family relationship. Winner of two Academy Awards, including Best Actor.

12 Years a Slave

Steve McQueen directs this movie based on the story of Solomon Northup, a free African American man kidnapped in 1841 and was sold into slavery. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Northup, who had to work for plantations for almost 12 years before he was released. Winner of three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress.

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15 Best Biopics on Netflix Right Now

Biopics have now become a hot genre because there’s something about real-life stories of certain individuals that lure filmmakers. It may be an entire lifetime of a person or just a few crucial years that act as an amazing storyline for a film. It’s no surprise why biopics are able to do so well. Extraordinary stories of successful people or people who had a deeper cause to serve society, all of these inspire us to live a better life. But these stories become more impactful when they are based on the lives of real individuals. Some make us believe in ourselves and our goals while some restore our faith in humanity. The good news is that a great number of these movies are already available on Netflix. So all you have to do is scroll down and choose one of the few biopic movies that we have listed. Here’s the list of really good biopic movies on Netflix that are available to stream right now.

15. Roxanne Roxanne (2017)

Directed and written by Michael Larnell, ‘Roxanne Roxanne’ is an autobiographical musical drama film that stars Chanté Adams, Mahershala Ali, Nia Long, and Elvis Nolasco. Roxanne Shante, a young rapper from New York, has already made her reputation as one of the most feared battle emcees in the 80s. Whoever had seen her perform knew that she was all set to become a hip-hop legend. ‘Roxanne Roxanne’ recounts Shante’s inspiring story as she worked tirelessly to provide for her family and achieved musical success in the process.

14. Come Sunday (2018)

This film is based on an episode of the public radio series called ‘This American Life’. The biopic is about an internationally renowned pastor who went by the name Carton Pearson. When Carton defied the morals of the church and started preaching that there is no hell, he found himself being ostracized by his own church and the Christian community who labeled him as an unorthodox non-conformist. The film has a lot of mixed opinions when it comes to the reviews because it goes against the religious values of a lot of people. But don’t let the reviews fool you, this film is great and has some amazing cinematography with acting.

13. Milk (2008)

Starring Sean Penn and James Franco, ‘Milk’ tells the life story of Harvey Milk starting from his 40th birthday all the way up to his death. The film traces his journey as he struggles to fight for gay rights in the country as an activist and later becomes California’s first gay elected official. The biopic also highlights his relationships with two men along the way and how the death of one really moves him. ‘Milk’ is an extremely moving film and will make you truly feel the struggles of Harvey Milk and all the gay activists of that era.

12. First They Killed My Father (2017)

Directed by Angeline Jolie , this one is the true story of a 5-year-old girl named Loung Ung and her struggles with her family when the Khmer Rouge had taken over Cambodia in the year 1975. Their terrorizing rule led to the death of over 2 million Cambodians. The film shows how Ung and her siblings were sent to Labor Camps and were trained to become soldiers at such a young and delicate age. This film holds a great amount of historical accuracy and clearly, a lot of effort has been into portraying Loung Ung’s story. It does not focus too much on showing the violence and gore prevailing at that time and instead shows the underlying terror and chaos during the time which makes this one a great watch.

11. Christine (2016)

Christine Chubbuck was a TV reporter back in the 70s. This film tells her story by narrating her struggles as a working woman, pressures from her home and also her own depression . This film has been quite under the radar but deserves more appreciation. It tends to get inside your head with its depressing characters and storyline with uncomfortable slow burn throughout. Note that this movie can be triggering for those who are already going through something but overall, it’s a very good movie with some brilliant acting.

10. Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed (2021)

Featuring Bob Ross, Steve Ross, Vicky Ross, and John Thamm, ‘Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed’ is a biographical documentary film directed by Joshua Rofé. As the name suggests, the movie revolves around the rise of the titular protagonist, a brilliant painter and television host, who spread love, joy, and happiness to the millions of viewers glued to his programs on their television screens from around the world. With great success came significant financial burdens. While offering a touching overview of Bob’s inspiring life, the film immediately turns its attention towards the battle for his business empire that saddened and infuriated a lot of his fans.

9. Baggio: The Divine Ponytail (2021)

Written by Ludovica Rampoldi and Stefano Sardo, ‘Baggio: The Divine Ponytail’ is a biographical sports film that stars Andrea Arcangeli, Valentina Bellè, and Thomas Trabacch. The Letizia Lamartire directorial recounts the inspiring life story of Roberto Baggio, a former footballer who dedicated 22 years of his life to the sport. From successes to his failures and regretful mistakes, the movie captures everything. It also introduces viewers to the man behind closed doors and his relationship with his loved ones. Roberto’s affinity to Nichiren Buddhism and his adherence to its philosophy is also deeply discussed.

8. Sergio (2020)

Greg Barker’s ‘Sergio’ is a biographical drama movie produced by Wagner Moura, Brent Travers, and Daniel Dreifuss. The film focuses on Sérgio Vieira de Mello, a United Nations diplomat who, after working tirelessly on several international political programs for more than three decades, decides to do something about the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Despite warnings not to visit Baghdad in the middle of conflict, Sérgio tries to negotiate the withdrawal of American troops so that the country can achieve freedom. However, his attempts do not go as planned as he gets trapped in the basement of a hotel after a terrorist attack.

7. Mank (2020)

Directed by David Fincher, ‘Mank’ is a black-and-white biographical drama film that revolves around the development of the popular 40s film ‘Citizen Kane’ and its screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. It is set in the 1930s and offers an exciting insight into the Hollywood of the time. However, the films’ focus remains on the development of the iconic movie and challenges faced by Herman along the way.

6. The Dirt (2019)

Written by Rich Wilkes and Amanda Adelson, ‘The Dirt’ is a biographical comedy-drama film that is based on Neil Strauss’s book ‘The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band.’ After spending several crucial years of his early life with his abusive mother, Frank Carlton Feranna Jr. ventures into the outside world in search of his father and eventually stumbles upon the purpose of his life. When he met Tommy Lee in 1980, the musician shared his plan to form a new band, and the two joined hands to include other members in the team. After the inclusion of Mick Mars and Vince Neil, the Mötley Crüe was formed and, in just a few years’ time, became one of the most popular rock bands on the planet.

5. Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Featuring stand-out performances by Eddie Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, and Craig Robinson, ‘Dolemite Is My Name’ is a biographical comedy film written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. It revolves around a struggling artist named Rudy Ray Moore, who is desperately trying to get his music on the air in the 1970s. Unfortunately, he has had little success, and his future is still clouded in uncertainty. However, on one ordinary night, an unexpected encounter with a homeless man changes Rudy’s life as he discovers his true calling and ends up entertaining the world, albeit in his own humble and small way.

4. A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)

Inspired by Josh Karp’s 2006 non-fiction book of the same name, ‘A Futile and Stupid Gesture’ is a biographical comedy-drama film written by John Aboud and Michael Colton. The David Wain directorial follows Douglas Kenney, who, along with his classmate Henry Beard lays the foundations of a monthly magazine named the National Lampoon. The duo leaves the life-transforming opportunity of attending law school for their ambitious goal and, with Douglas’ big vision, manages to change the American comedy scene in innovative ways.

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3. Schumacher (2021)

Directed by Hanns-Bruno Kammertöns, Vanessa Nöcker, and Michael Wech, ‘Schumacher’ is a German sports documentary film that focuses on the inspiring career of the titular protagonist and features Corinna Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Mika Häkkinen, Jean Todt among many others. The movie offers an intimate understanding of German Formula One racing driver Michael’s personal and professional life using unseen videos, archive footage, and interviews. From his early go-kart career to the struggle with the death of Ayrton Senna, ‘Schumacher’ paints a moving portrait of the legendary racer with an accurate depiction of his failures, successes, and fears.

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2. Barry (2016)

Directed by Vikram Gandhi, ‘Barry’ is a drama movie that centers upon Barack Obama’s college days and gives viewers a unique perspective on his life. In the early 1980s, the 44th President of the United States reached New York as a 21-year-old exchange student to Columbia University, where he made friends with his roommate, Will. Barack participated in debates about philosophy and American society and took an active interest in political affairs. ‘Barry’ gives viewers an intimate understanding of what Obama was like during his early 20s and offers a closer look at the interests that eventually made him the leader he is today.

Read More: Best Black Movies on Netflix

1. The Most Hated Woman in America (2017)

Tommy O’Haver’s ‘The Most Hated Woman in America’ is a biographical drama film that stars Melissa Leo, Peter Fonda, Sally Kirkland, and Rory Cochrane. The film centers upon Madalyn Murray O’Hair, an activist, atheist, and proponent for the separation of church from the state who fiercely advocated for his beliefs despite the challenges in her path. Unfortunately, she gets kidnapped in the mid-90s along with her son Garth and granddaughter Robin by people who detest her ideas which eventually ends tragically.

Read More: Best Suicide Movies on Netflix

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The Best Biographical Movies Of 2020

The best biopics of 2020 give us insight into historical figures that we might not have gotten otherwise. There are a few 2020 biographical movies that take artistic liberties but all of them give us a better sense as to who the person was allowing us to learn more about them. You'll also find some big celebrities on this list of 2020 biopics. Capone  stars Tom Hardy as infamous bootlegger Al Capone in his later years. Jesse Eisenberg is also on this list as Marcel Marceau who led a group of Jewish Boy Scouts who worked with the French Resistance during WWII. But which one of these is the best biographical film of 2020? You get to help decide with your votes.

Vote up the new biopics from this year that you loved and vote down any you don't care to see again. Then be sure to check back as upcoming biopics are added once they are released to see which one makes it to the top of the list.

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2020 was bananas, but some great movies were released in theaters and on streaming servies. Here are the funniest, scariest, most exciting, and all-around best films of the year.

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The 15 Best Biography Movies About Actors and Actresses

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Biography movies (also known as biopics) come in all kinds of flavors, but most of them tend to be focused on musicians, politicians, soldiers, and geniuses. What about actors?

Even though Hollywood loves making movies about itself, the majority of them are fictional. If you dig around a bit, however, you'll find several great biography films about real actors and actresses.

Here are my picks for the best biographical movies that give a peek into the Hollywood industry, where famous actors toil behind the scenes with work, love, heartbreak, family, and addiction.

15. Mommie Dearest (1981)

Directed by Frank Perry

Starring Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid, Steve Forrest

Biography, Drama (2h 9m)

6.6 on IMDb — 48% on RT

A quick Google search might show you that Mommie Dearest is considered one of the worst films ever made, but hear us out! For this movie to be labeled so extremely is proof of its lasting impact.

In fact, Mommie Dearest is so bad that it's good—if you watch it as a comedy rather than a drama—even if lead actress Faye Dunaway still regrets taking the part, haunted by the soul of Joan Crawford who's "just hanging around... as if she couldn't rest."

While Mommie Dearest doesn't show Crawford's whole life, it does show the part where she becomes an abusive, controlling mother. And while her daughter Christiana has said that Joan deserved to go to jail, even she found Frank Perry's depiction over the top...

14. Blonde (2022)

Directed by Andrew Dominik

Starring Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale

Drama, History (2h 47m)

5.5 on IMDb — 42% on RT

Everybody was excited for the release of Blonde . The crisp black-and white shots, the vintage square ratio, and the illustrious Ana de Armas promised a stylish biopic of the legendary Marilyn Monroe.

Although director Andrew Dominik didn't quite meet expectations, Blonde is still a refreshingly unconventional biography that's held together by visual prowess and keen acting from Armas.

Critics were mainly divided on Blonde 's fictionalization of true events. Although it certainly kept things interesting, some found the filled-in gaps of Monroe's memoirs to be exploitative.

13. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)

Directed by Stephen Hopkins

Starring Geoffrey Rush, Charlize Theron, Emily Watson

Biography, Comedy, Drama (2h 2m)

6.9 on IMDb — 69% on RT

Peter Sellers was an English actor known for his caricature style of comedy, often embodying more than one role at a time (which he did in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove ).

Sellers is most famous for portraying the clumsy French detective in The Pink Panther movies. His specific techniques made him a master of comedic timing, parody, and improvisation, although we won't condone his use of brownface in The Party .

Years later, Geoffrey Rush embodied Peter Sellers in Stephen Hopkins's TV movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers . It might not capture the entirety of Peter Sellers's creative genius, but it does give us a curious look behind closed doors.

12. Mahanati (2018)

Directed by Nag Ashwin

Starring Keerthy Suresh, Dulquer Salmaan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu

Biography, Drama (2h 57m)

8.4 on IMDb — 100% on RT

There's more to Indian cinema than just Bollywood. Mahanati is much closer to the narrative arcs we see in Western biopics: a rise to fame, a complicated love life, then alcoholism, illness, bankruptcy, and fall.

However, Nag Ashwin doesn't present us with just another rise-and-fall story. Instead of reducing actress Savitri to her struggles, she's celebrated and enlivened through popping colors and an acclaimed central performance from Keerthy Suresh.

Mahanati was a dazzling success, not just in India but across the globe (even if the runtime is a tad lengthy). The film isn't perfect, but the good parts were great enough to earn it multiple awards.

11. Life (2015)

Directed by Anton Corbijn

Starring Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan, Joel Edgerton

Biography, Drama (1h 51m)

6.0 on IMDb — 64% on RT

Director Anton Corbijn offers a small snippet into the life of James Dean, who was basically the male equivalent of Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s.

The first James Dean biography movie on our list, Life centers on Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson), a photographer for LIFE Magazine. We get to see how his iconic photoshoot of James Dean came about, with Dean himself played by Dane DeHaan.

Like those actual photos—which are cleverly woven into the film— Life is an artistic sliver of Dean's life, with poetic narrations and a bang-on performance by DeHaan as the sensitive, soft-spoken, chain-smoking rebel without a cause.

10. My Week With Marilyn (2011)

Directed by Simon Curtis

Starring Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh

Biography, Drama (1h 39m)

6.9 on IMDb — 83% on RT

My Week With Marilyn depicts one segment of Marilyn Monroe's glamorous life: the time when she was visiting London with her famous playwright husband Arthur Miller.

She was there to film The Prince and the Showgirl but kept forgetting her lines and leaving the set. She couldn't connect to her character or her husband, so she confided in fresh-faced Oxford graduate Colin—one of many men who got to spend a week with Marilyn Monroe.

Michelle Williams and Eddie Redmayne star as the unexpected couple, taking in the British sights alongside Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Emma Watson, and Dominic Cooper.

9. Elvis (2022)

Directed by Baz Luhrmann

Starring Tom Hanks, Austin Butler, Olivia DeJonge

Biography, Drama, Music (2h 39m)

7.3 on IMDb — 77% on RT

Elvis Presley was obviously more of a musician than an actor, but he starred in more films than pretty much anyone else on this list. After all, he was first and foremost a performer (which is why he was taken in by circus huckster Colonel Tom Parker).

After breaking racial barriers and rocketing to stardom, Elvis naturally transitioned to Hollywood and churned out an impressive 31 movies that started out as fun but gradually ended up soulless.

Austin Butler embodies the King of Rock in Baz Luhrmann's biopic that's even more glittery than Presley's outfits. We see the light fade from his eyes as he fake-surfs through various movie productions, pill-popping his career away to a hotel prison sentence.

8. Frances (1982)

Directed by Graeme Clifford

Starring Jessica Lange, Sam Shepard, Kim Stanley

Biography, Drama, Romance (2h 20m)

7.2 on IMDb — 67% on RT

Frances Farmer was one of those celebrities who was more famous for her private life than her professional one. The American actress appeared in a string of movies during the 1930s, but her hospitalization was the main thing to reach headlines.

Jessica Lange gives a driven performance as Frances, who was a controversial figure since childhood. As a kid, she wrote anti-God essays. As an adult, she refused to play the Hollywood game.

Frances cheats, drinks, refuses to wear makeup on screen, and is eventually committed to Kimball Sanitarium after her abusive mother becomes her legal guardian.

7. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)

Directed by Rob Cohen

Starring Jason Scott Lee, Lauren Holly, Robert Wagner

Action, Biography, Drama (2h)

7.0 on IMDb — 73% on RT

Bruce Lee is the champion of martial arts movies. The actor/filmmaker moved from British Hong Kong to Seattle at 19 years old to open his own martial arts school before entering the film industry.

Bruce Lee was nicknamed Dragon (or "Little Dragon" when he was young) since he was born in the hour and year of the Chinese zodiac Dragon. His dual identity is explored in Rob Cohen's biography, and thankfully Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story goes beyond skin-deep.

Jason Scott Lee stars as the chiseled karate icon, delving into his Hollywood career and his relationship with Linda Lee Cadwell, all of it flourished with elements of mysticism.

6. Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017)

Directed by Paul McGuigan

Starring Annette Bening, Jamie Bell, Vanessa Redgrave

Biography, Drama, Romance (1h 45m)

6.7 on IMDb — 81% on RT

"We never expected Gloria Grahame in our kitchen, necking a bacon butty, asking for tommy sauce." Absolutely true! We wouldn't expect the Oscar-winning starlet of Hollywood's Golden Age to be staying in a humdrum area of rainy Liverpool.

Whether or not she really did scarf down bacon butties at the local boozer, we can't be sure. However, we do know that Grahame (played by Annette Bening) spent a lot of her final years in Liverpool.

Initially there for work, she strikes up an unexpected relationship with an amateur actor 30 years younger (Jamie Bell). In Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool , director Paul McGuigan shows us how age is just a number.

5. Man on the Moon (1999)

Directed by Miloš Forman

Starring Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, Paul Giamatti

Biography, Comedy, Drama (1h 58m)

7.4 on IMDb — 64% on RT

Andy Kaufman was a very different kind of actor. The "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion" purposefully went out of his way to annoy people. Indeed, there were no Oscar ceremonies for him—but there were quite a few wrestling matches (with women only).

In Man on the Moon , Andy Kaufman is played by Jim Carrey, who famously stayed in character and went around annoying everyone on set. A whole documentary— Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017)—was even made about Carrey's behavior.

Andy Kaufman was initially a stand-up comedian who made people laugh by being terrible. His Tony Clifton character was particularly grating, and he later featured in the sitcom Taxi with Danny DeVito (who plays Kaufman's manager in Man on the Moon .)

4. Stan & Ollie (2018)

Directed by Jon S. Baird

Starring Steve Coogan, John C. Reilly, Shirley Henderson

Biography, Comedy, Drama (1h 38m)

7.2 on IMDb — 92% on RT

Laurel and Hardy were an infamous comedy duo of the silent film era, mixing with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Their slapstick gags were beloved around the world, with Stan Laurel playing the clumsy man-child and Oliver Hardy the mean bully.

By the 1950s, this type of cinema was dwindling. The pair were starting to age and—having spent so much time together—their friendship even started taking a toll. Clutching at straws, they embarked on a less-than-easy UK musical hall tour.

Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly flesh out the men in Stan & Ollie , moving with humor and humility. Jon S. Baird's biography doesn't try to be too heavy. It's simply sincere.

3. James Dean (2001)

Directed by Mark Rydell

Starring James Franco, Michael Moriarty, Valentina Cervi

Biography, Drama (2h)

7.1 on IMDb — 93% on RT

James Franco's depiction of another actor named James is what effectively put him on the map. Mimicking such a specific personality as James Dean? A tightwalk situation that, thankfully, worked out.

Dean's elusive and cool exterior occasionally breaks away to the chaos and anger underneath in Mark Rydell's biopic. Nobody believed Dean could make it big, but he proves them all wrong.

Dean's own indifferent father likely fueled his emotive performances in East of Eden (1955) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955), which Franco recreates seamlessly here in James Dean .

2. Judy (2019)

Directed by Rupert Goold

Starring Renée Zellweger, Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock

Biography, Drama, Music (1h 58m)

6.8 on IMDb — 82% on RT

Actress Judy Garland starred in hits like A Star Is Born (1954) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), but she remains most famous for playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Most people already know that Judy Garland had a hard life, but few of us really understood how bad it was until we watched Judy . Heaps of horror stories have since come out about the production of The Wizard of Oz , and that's where all the trouble began for Garland.

For starters, MGM forcing her to take drugs as a teenager is likely what propelled Garland into early-life substance abuse.

While Garland's troubles are at the center of Rupert Goold's drama, Judy switches between the start and end of Garland's life (played by an unrecognizable Renée Zellweger).

1. Chaplin (1992)

Directed by Richard Attenborough

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Geraldine Chaplin

Biography, Comedy, Drama (2h 23m)

7.5 on IMDb — 60% on RT

Charlie Chaplin is a name everyone's heard of. Even if you took the title off Chaplin 's poster, you'd know what this film was about! The silhouette of a bowler-hatted tramp is recognizable anywhere.

Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for an Oscar for his honorable portrayal of this timeless figure. Looking eerily similar to the real Chaplin, Downey takes us on his literal rags-to-riches journey. (Chaplin went from homelessless to being one of the richest men in the world.)

Chaplin's character of The Tramp was revolutionary for many reasons—mainly for blending pathos and humor during the Keystone days—but he wasn't always so innocent in real life.

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The 100 best British movies

We spoke to over 150 movie experts and writers to put together this definitive list of British films

How exactly does one define British cinema? It’s more difficult to nail down than it seems. Okay, so the accents usually give it away. But the essential qualities of the best British movies are as wide-ranging as the Commonwealth itself. In terms of the stories it tells, it’s basically limitless. Want a widescreen epic? Go straight to the work of David Lean or Powell and Pressburger. In the market for a smaller, more personal drama? Try Joanna Hogg or Shane Meadows. Thrillers? Comedies? Period dramas? Movies about drugs? Movies that seem to be on drugs themselves? The UK film industry has produced them all, each displaying a distinctly English slant.

In compiling this list of the best British movies of all-time, we surveyed a diverse array of actors, directors, writers, producers, critics and industry heavyweights, from Wes Anderson, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Sam Mendes and Terence Davies, David Morrissey, Sally Hawkins and Thandiwe Newton. Unsurprisingly, the results are as diverse as the country itself.

Written by  Dave Calhoun, Tom Huddleston, David Jenkins, Derek Adams, Geoff Andrew, Adam Lee Davies, Paul Fairclough, Wally Hammond, Alim Kheraj, Matthew Singer & Phil de Semlyen

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100-91 Best British Movies

100.  In This World (2002)

Director Michael Winterbottom Cast  Jamal Udin Torabi, Enayatullah The first of three films by the prolific Michael Winterbottom on this list, ‘In This World’ is the best example of the director’s urge to explore contemporary issues on screen and to employ cinema as a sideways view on current affairs. This, ‘ Welcome to Sarajevo ’, ‘ Road to Guantanamo ’ and ' A Mighty Heart ' were all films discussed on news pages as well as in arts reviews. ‘In This World’ is admirable as a feat: Winterbottom cast two Afghan refugees in Pakistan and with a small crew shooting on digital cameras took them on a journey west over land, through Iran, Turkey and Europe, eventually arriving in London. At a time of headlines about immigration and political trouble in Afghanistan, the effect was to offer an alternative spin on the news and to do it in a manner that made clear the often terrible realities of being a refugee. DC

99.  The Railway Children (1970)

• Family and kids

Director Lionel Jeffries Cast Dinah Sheridan, William Mervyn, Jenny Agutter

As warm and cosy as a cup of Horlicks, Lionel Jeffries’s 1970 adaptation of E Nesbit’s Edwardian children’s novel centres on a well-to-do London family torn apart when its patriarch is arrested on suspicion of treason. With a sudden urge to start life over in the country, the remaining family members – mother Dinah Sheridan and her three children – up sticks and settle alongside a quaint Yorkshire railway line where the film slowly begins to work its very English charm. Jenny Agutter and little Sally Thomsett are the film’s cornerstones, but a special mention to Bernard Cribbins’s archetypal British stationmaster. Naturally, the film won’t play well with today’s digital generation – it’s far too fusty and polite in both tone and colour – but it still has the capacity to generate fond childhood memories. Nice to see it make the list of best British movies, albeit in the penultimate spot. DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Railway Children’

98.  Dunkirk (2017)

Director Christopher Nolan

Cast Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, Harry Styles

Never has a military defeat looked so victorious as in Christopher Nolan's trifecta of interlocking vignettes in this old-school-feeling epic. Entitled 'Land', 'Sea' and 'Air', they offered three pulse-ratcheting perspectives on the British desperate retreat from France in 1940. Tom Hardy's RAF pilot gets the hero moments, but kudos to Nolan for unearthing a bunch of talented relative unknowns too. We reckon that Harry Styles guy has a future. PDS

Buy, rent or watch ‘Dunkirk’

97.  28 Days Later… (2002)

Director Danny Boyle Cast Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson

Oh no, not fast zombies! Those are the worst kind! Danny Boyle didn’t invent the concept of speedy flesheaters, nor the idea of setting a zombie outbreak in the UK. Nothing about 28 Days Later , frankly, is especially novel. And yet, it feels quite unlike any zombie movie before or since, to the degree that it nearly exists outside the genre. That’s not to say it skimps on scares; to the contrary, it includes some of the most horrifying set pieces of the last two decades. But there’s a humanistic quality in Boyle’s direction unique to the dark, dour canon of post-apocalyptic horror. The characters aren’t just meaty automatons who only exist to be disembowelled - they seem like actual, flesh-and-blood humans desperate to stay that way. (Cillian Murphy is particularly soulful as a bike courier who awakens from a coma in an abandoned London, the world as he knew it fully decimated in less than a month.) That makes it particularly tempting to draw parallels to our current pandemic-stricken world. If we must find some connection, let it be the upnote of hope at the end, when the film’s final word is not ‘help’ but rather ‘hello’.

96.  Theatre of Blood (1973)

Director Douglas Hickox Cast Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry Vincent Price adopts the more psyched-out style of British horror in the ’70s in this serial-killer romp that gives the great man a crack at the Shakespearean roles he felt cinema had denied him. As Edward Lionheart, Price plays a ham passed over for the award he most cherishes: Best Actor as voted by the Critics’ Circle. His years of dedication to the Bard are dismissed by his beret-wearing tormenters but prove inspirational when he plots their murders: each is to be despatched in the manner of a Shakespearean death, from ‘Julius Caesar’s’ gang- knifing to a grisly rewriting of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and the hard-to-swallow cuisine of ‘Titus Andronicus’. It’s a gory, funny trip, as Price dons a series of preposterous disguises to entrap his victims through their own foibles. His post-homicide delivery of Shakespeare will surprise anyone who bought his popular image as a one-dimensional hack, adding yet another layer to a film that satirises both its stars and audience without ever sacrificing its disconcerting edge. PF

Buy, rent or watch ‘Theatre of Blood’

95.  London to Brighton (2006)

Director Paul Andrew Williams Cast Lorraine Stanley, Johnny Harris, Georgia Groome The post ‘Lock, Stock…’ landscape is littered with the corpses of a thousand pretenders to the mockney gangster pic throne. Remember ‘ Rancid Aluminium ’? ‘ Love, Honour and Obey ’? ‘ The 51st State ’? ‘ Rise of the Footsoldier ’? Aside from Jonathan Glazer’s eminently stylish ‘ Sexy Beast ’, only Paul Andrew Williams’s pithy and relentlessly entertaining debut has managed to poke its head above the sea of mediocrity. A rape, revenge and road movie (in that order) about a distressed young girl (Georgia Groome) helped by a prostitute (Lorraine Stanley – stunning) to flee a gang of tinpot hoods, it’s a film where no shot, line and character is wasted. Williams claims to have written the film over one weekend, and both the clamp-like tightness of its structure and the bracingly realistic progression of its characters – if you get hurt, you stay hurt – make that entirely believable. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘London to Brighton’

94.  24 Hour Party People (2002)

Director Michael Winterbottom Cast Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Ron Cook

24 Hour Party People is the rare music biopic that understands historical accuracy is less crucial than getting the vibe right. That’s not to say Michael Winterbottom’s depiction of the Manchester punk scene of the late ’ 70s and ’80s is a lie - he just makes it clear that, when faced with either presenting the facts or perpetuating the myth, the myth will win out nearly every time. (After all, this is a movie where the Buzzcocks’ Howard Devoto pops up while his avatar is having sex in a club bathroom with another man’s wife to dispute the veracity of the encounter.) And anyway, how could anyone hope to parse truth from fiction when dealing with martyr figures like Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, perpetually soused Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder and professional self-aggrandizers like Factory Records founder Tony Wilson? Best, again, to focus on capturing the vibe, and to that end, Winterbottom pulls out every postmodernist trick he knows, from fourth-wall breaking to to snarky voiceovers to rewinds and freeze-frames. It’s dizzying, maddening, hilarious and nonstop - and in that way, it gets the story exactly right.

93.  Zulu (1964)

• Action and adventure

Director Cy Endfield Cast Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Michael Caine ‘Zulu’ may take a few liberties with the exact levels of Welshness on show during the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, but – Richard Burton, Catherine Zeta-Jones and gold-standard Richard Burton impersonator Anthony Hopkins notwithstanding –Welsh film fans have never had all that much to cheer about. So we’re keeping this one! An account of the South Wales Border Regiment’s seemingly hopeless last-ditch stand against the massed ranks of the Zulu Nation, it’s a massively successful enterprise – especially from first-time producer (and star) Stanley Baker and a director previously known chiefly for low-budget noirs. That it still stirs the blood and moistens the eye proves that few films manage to be as expansive and yet so intimate as this. ALD

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92.  Dead Man's Shoes (2004)

Director Shane Meadows Cast Paddy Considine, Gary Stretch, Toby Kebbell Shane Meadows’s fourth film shows the importance of staying true to your instincts. The Midlands director’s third film, ‘ Once Upon a Time in the Midlands ’ had seen him working with a bigger budget and a more recognisable cast (Rhys Ifans, Ricky Tomlinson, Robert Carlyle, Kathy Burke) and the result, if amiable, was much less raw, personal and anarchic than his first two features and earlier shorts. ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ was an uncompromising and successful attempt by Meadows to rediscover his old voice. He cast old pal Paddy Considine, who had been gripping as a volatile loner in ‘ A Room for Romeo Brass ’, and went for the jugular with this tale of a man who seeks and dishes out violence in revenge for something terrible that happened in his family’s past. Considine is terrifying, and Meadows pulls no punches in painting a portrait of just how low men can go – for fun and for love. DC

91.  Land and Freedom (1995)

Director Ken Loach Cast Ian Hart, Icíar Bollaín, Tom Gilroy Ken Loach’s 1995 film about fatal splits on the Left during the Spanish Civil War – told from the viewpoint of David (Ian Hart), a Liverpudlian Communist who travels south to Spain to join the cause – achieved an epic look and feel while remaining committed to the cut and thrust of ground-level debate. It remains one of Loach’s most ambitious and important films both for its raw combat scenes and for the way it shines a light on a crucial moment in twentieth-century history. The focus of Jim Allen’s script on one group of militia allows for strong personalities with varying motivations and ideas to emerge, while the book-ending of the story with the discovery in the present of David’s letters by his granddaughter gives it a powerful immediacy. This British movie doubly confirmed Loach’s return from the wilderness in the 1980s and set a precedent for his later films exploring global stories in Nicaragua, Los Angeles and Ireland. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Land and Freedom’

90-81 Best British Movies

90.  Blue (1993)

8Director Derek Jarman Cast Tilda Swinton, John Quentin, Nigel Terry (voices) ‘My mind is bright as a button, but my body is falling apart.’ It’s rare that a ‘last film’ is conceived as such, but Derek Jarman knew he was dying from Aids-related illnesses when he made ‘Blue’ in 1993 – a film simultaneously broadcast on television and radio months before his death in 1994 at 52. It was his encroaching blindness, much referred to in the voiceover read by several actors, which gave Jarman the idea to apply words to an unchanging, blue screen for 76 minutes. The voiceover is a mix of diary and poetry, relating variously to Jarman’s illness, art and the colour blue. It’s a bold, moving work, but it’s Jarman’s ability to conjure up such a unique, experimental event as ‘Blue’ that we must remember and honour – the way that, with this avant-garde work, he drew attention to him, his work, sexuality and illness and made an unembarrassed, deathbed claim for art itself. DC

89.  The Go-Between (1970)

Director Joseph Losey Cast Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Dominic Guard ‘The past is another country. They do things differently there’: one of two Joseph Losey-Harold Pinter collaborations to feature in our poll (the other is ‘ The Servant ’) is this radiant and evocative adaptation of LP Hartley’s tale of thwarted love and class prejudice set against the halcyon British summer of 1900. It was dumped initially by MGM because of its supposed ‘difficulty’ but was subsequently the winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or and a box-office and critical success in the US. The reputations of both the film and late-career Losey went into decline in Britain (if not elsewhere) by the mid-1990s – in 1994 The Independent’s Anthony Quinn, typically, thought this film ‘overrated’ and part of Losey’s decline. But its complexity of feeling, the undoubted chemistry of its reunited stars Julie Christie and Alan Bates, the lushness of cinematographer Gerry Fisher’s Norfolk landscapes and the critical late-1960s sensibility provided by the acute eye and complex psychological insight of Losey – plus the revelatory use of time-frames, flashback and point-of-view in Pinter’s script – guarantee its lasting appeal. WH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Go-Between’

88.  This Is England (2006)

Director Shane Meadows Cast Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Jo Hartley You could hear the British movie industry breathe a collective sigh of relief when writer-director Shane Meadows got the breakthrough hit he so richly deserved after much critical but little commercial success with his previous films. Clearly ripped from his own experiences, this rite-of-passage tale sees a naive, isolated youngster (Thomas Turgoose – a revelation) scooped up by some friendly skinheads and introduced to the joys of young love, ska, short hair and oversized, steel toe-capped Doc Martens. But Meadows’s film shows that this initially benign enclave was very different to the growing ranks of supporters of the National Front, even if their appearance was similar. The film established Meadows in a league of his own when it comes to naturalistic, comic dialogue and wringing sensitive performances from young cast members. It also confirmed him as a director whose predominant interest is in contrasting the invigorating highs and vicious lows of English working-class life. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘This Is England’

87.  Night and the City (1950)

Director Jules Dassin Cast Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers London noir may have been more of a literary movement than a cinematic one, but its undoubted pinnacle – both on the page and screen – is ‘Night and the City’. The film may bear little relation to Gerald Kersh’s far nastier (and more grimly believable) source novel, but Jules Dassin’s stark, unforgiving direction, Max Greene’s oppressive monochrome cinematography and Richard Widmark’s twitchy central performance gives the movie a paranoid power all of its own. The centrepiece scene remains a staggering, emotionally draining wrestling match between avuncular old-timer Gregorius and new-fangled masked avenger The Strangler, arguably the most punishing fight ever committed to celluloid, five unforgiving minutes of sweat, muscle and dogged determination. TH

86.  The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Director David Lean Cast Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins Not even the breeze coming off his twirling moral compass can keep Alec Guinness’s stiff upper lip from wilting in the maddening Burmese heat during David Lean’s truly epic – as opposed to simply lengthy – meditation on the possibilities of humane behaviour in wartime. Guinness is otherwise in fine form as a captured British colonel overseeing Allied troops charged with assisting the Japanese war effort by building said bridge across said river. William Holden’s engaging, wiseacre American GI, on the other hand, is quite unshakeable in his belief that the war would get on quite well without him thank you very much, and spends an enviable amount of the film goosing the nurses in a Ceylon military hospital. Ultimately, both men’s attitudes are compromised to the greater good as the bridge comes crashing down in a riveting scene of unbridled catharsis. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’

85.  God's Own Country (2017)

Director Francis Lee

Cast Josh O’Connor, Alec Secareanu

To label Francis Lee’s feature directorial debut as Yorkshire’s answer to ‘ Brokeback Mountain ’ does the film and its actors a disservice. While both films feature the farming of sheep and two men who, while camping in the hinterland, share an intense sexual and romantic bond, the similarities end there. ‘God’s Own Country’ is more of a quiet love story that avoids melodrama for internal struggles with isolation, loneliness and the stark circumstances of hard rural lives. The inability of protagonist Johnny Saxby to open up is delivered with piercing melancholy and palpable physical frustration by Josh O’Connor. This is contrasted with Alec Secareanu’s portrayal of the thoughtful Gheorghe, who exudes a gentle sensitivity. Their unlikely love affair will melt even the most jaded of hearts. AK

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84.  Fish Tank (2009)

Director Andrea Arnold Cast Katie Jarvis, Kierston Wareing, Michael Fassbender Former kids’ TV presenter Andrea Arnold, 49, came to attention in 2005 when she declared live on television that it was ‘the dog’s bollocks’ to be awarded an Oscar for her short film, ‘Wasp’. Since then, she has made two features, ‘ Red Road ’ and ‘Fish Tank’, both of which triumphed at Cannes. Like ‘Red Road’, ‘Fish Tank’ intimately explores the life of one female character on a housing estate, this time potty-mouthed teen Mia (Katie Jarvis), who falls into a relationship with her mum’s new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender). The beauty of Arnold’s films lies in their poetry and brilliance at expressing interior feelings through quiet observation. Arnold was awarded an OBE at the end of 2010 and is now finishing a version of ‘Wuthering Heights’ populated by little-known actors. We suspect – and hope – that Arnold is not about to cross over to the mainstream any time soon. DC

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83.  A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)

Director Anthony Asquith Cast Hans Adalbert von Schlettow, Uno Henning, Norah Baring  Better known for his sterling Terence Rattigan adaptations ‘The Winslow Boy’ (1948) and ‘ The Browning Version ’ (1951), Anthony Asquith’s recently re-appraised silent melodrama is totally deserving of its place on this list of best British movies and is perhaps the biggest reminder of how much the age of the DVD has allowed us better access to such hidden gems. Edited with the quick-chopping fury of a Darren Aronofsky movie, this pacy and occasionally very funny film looks at a love triangle forming at a busy barber’s shop: hairdresser Joe (Uno Henning) is madly in love with manicurist Sally (Norah Baring) but can’t quite seal the deal, a fact of which Dartmoor farmer and regular customer Harry takes full advantage. As Joe’s jealousy escalates, Asquith’s direction takes on more weird and wonderful forms, referencing silent comedy, German expressionism and Russian montage, sometimes all in the same scene. When violence erupts, it’s swift and brutal, but the film’s main pleasure is its pragmatic handling of the central romance. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Cottage on Dartmoor’

82.  Orlando (1993)

Director Sally Potter Cast Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, John Wood Tilda Swinton is said to be planning a collaboration with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, director of ‘ Uncle Boonmee… ’, and if the Thai dream weaver is in any doubt about casting her in one of his metaphysical opuses, he need only watch Sally Potter’s Jarmanesque time, space and gender-switching adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, ‘Orlando: A Biography’. What’s clear from the off is that Swinton and Potter possess an acute understanding of the droll subtleties of the text about an immortal nobleman who leaves his stamp on various points in modern history and then transforms from man to woman. The film is not merely about the strictures of gender through the ages, but also an essay on the nature of evolution (the Godardian final shot even switches from film to video) and it scores points through knowing casting (Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I!) and production design that’s just jaw-droppingly plush for what must’ve been a modest budget. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Orlando’

81.  Dr No (1962)

Director Terence Young Cast Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman It might look fresh today, but ‘Dr No’ must have seemed like ‘ Avatar ’ to post-war British audiences. A transgressive explosion of colour, exoticism, modernity and impetuous sex, James Bond’s first mission sees the imperious Sean Connery saunter through an overripe cocktail of Caribbean intrigue abetted by Jack ‘Hawaii Five-O’ Lord as his shifty CIA opposite number Felix Leiter and Ursula Andress as racy cockler, Honey Ryder, all of whom are variously hot under the collar for the bionic hide of Dr Julius No – major player in the Spectre spy organisation we shall become all-too familiar with in further instalments. The bad doctor is the first of many Bond supervillains to crave global domination, but when ‘Dr No’ made its million-dollar budget back 109 times over, it was immediately clear that 007 had come out on top – and would be back for more. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘Dr No’

80-71 Best British Movies

80.  Under the Skin (1997)

Director Carine Adler Cast Samantha Morton, Claire Rushbrook, Rita Tushingham Women directed only four of our top 100 British movies, although perhaps we should celebrate that all four of those are from the last 20 years, which might suggest the gender gap in cinema is gradually closing. (When the BFI organised a similar poll in 1999, not one director on their list was a woman.) That said, the careers of two of those four directors, Lynne Ramsay and Carine Adler, have stalled in recent years and only Andrea Arnold seems able to move easily from film to film. So far Adler’s 1997 film ‘Under the Skin’ is her one and only feature, but it still remains rare for offering a female writer-director’s view on a woman’s extreme sexuality as a young Liverpudlian woman Iris (Samantha Morton) embraces promiscuity and a heightened sexual awareness as part of the grieving process in the wake of her mother’s death from cancer. Adler might not have fulfilled her promise – but this film launched Morton as one of our most bold and smart young actresses. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Under the Skin’

79.  The Offence (1972)

Director Sidney Lumet Cast Sean Connery, Trevor Howard, Vivien Merchant American filmmaker Sidney Lumet brought a keen outsider’s eye to this deliriously depressing slab of British noir. Sean Connery is at his cruel, bullying best as an immoral police detective on the trail of a child molester – a mission that leads to a harrowing, tragic face-off with grateful suspect Ian Bannen and to a long, dark night of the soul in which all the horrors, mis-steps and dismembered bodies Connery has psychically stockpiled over 20 years on the force coalesce into a grisly butcher’s bill that he has no hope of meeting. The film displeased United Artists – who funded it as a thank you to Connery for wigging his way through the previous year’s ‘ Diamonds Are Forever ’, and who didn’t want 007 to be viewed as any more of a pitiless shitbag than strictly necessary – and went unreleased in many countries. But it’s outstanding quality remains undeniable. As does its capacity to unsettle. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Offence’

78.  Billy Liar (1963)

Director John Schlesinger Cast Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, Wilfred Pickles Few films exemplify the fearsome contradictions inherent in British filmmaking better than ‘Billy Liar’. Is it better to dream of a better world, or to keep both feet planted firmly in the real one? Is escapism a creative act, or an indulgence? Is social class really the thing that keeps us apart, or is it just a convenient distraction? And is London really the promised land, or just a place to ‘lose yourself’? While director John Schlesinger and writer Keith Waterhouse don’t really come up with much in the way of actual answers – perhaps there is no satisfactory solution to Billy’s dilemma – they do a superb job of asking the right questions. Tom Courtenay is unforgettable in the title role, and Julie Christie’s fleeting, flitting presence is as convincing a ‘star is born’ moment as British film has to offer. TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Billy Liar’

77.  Piccadilly (1929)

Director EA Dupont Cast Anna May Wong, Gilda Gray, Jameson Thomas One of the oldest British movies on our list is this glorious silent-era melodrama set mainly in London’s West End in the late 1920s but which takes detours to the slums of Limehouse and to the showbiz world’s less glamorous nooks and crannies. Made on the cusp of the sound era (and a ‘talkie’ prologue exists as an extra on the BFI’s recent DVD), the film has a vibrant, jazz-age energy to it that takes its cue from the dance scenes on the floor of Valentine Wilmot’s (Jameson Thomas) Piccadilly Club – where Charles Laughton has an amusing cameo as a disgruntled diner. Anna May Wong gives an empowering performance as the dancer Shosho and her first appearance, dancing on the sideboard in the club’s scullery, feels as luminous and provocative today as it surely must have in the late 1920s. For us, the film is also a thrilling imagining (almost entirely studio-shot, of course) of a long-gone city. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Piccadilly’

76.  Scum (1979)

Director Alan Clarke Cast  Ray Winstone, Mick Ford, Julian Firth, John Blundell There have been many movies set inside British lock-ups, ranging from grim and gritty (‘Hunger’, ‘Starred Up’) to oddly jaunty (‘The Italian Job’, ‘Paddington 2’). None of them packs quite the wallop of Alan Clarke’s hugely influential portrayal of life inside of a British borstal. A 22-year-old Ray Winstone is a revelation as Carlin, an offender who finds grimace-inducing things to do with a sock, a couple of snooker balls and his fellow inmates’s jaws. But the violence is all in service of the message, here, as Clarke sets about dismantling brutalising power structures, racism and the disinterest of officialdom in these young lives. Watch it for free here and you’ll still feel its surge of electricity.  

75.  A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)

Director Shane Meadows Cast Paddy Considine, Andrew Shim, Ben Marshall The importance of imperfection cannot be overlooked in British movies: while there’s plenty to be said for the studied slickness of Hitchcock or Lean, I’ll take the shaggy-edged, off-kilter unpredictability of ‘ A Canterbury Tale ’, ‘ Kes ’ or ‘Romeo Brass’ any day. This was Meadows’s second film, his trickiest, his loosest and perhaps his best. It marks the debut screen appearance of Paddy Considine, and though it’s easy (and probably appropriate) to refer to him as our De Niro, it took Bob five years to get to Johnny Boy, while Paddy knocked it flat first time in the ring. The edge-of-your-seat savagery of his performance, contrasted with the sweet-natured, bucolic nature of the central friendship, makes for a more honest and believable portrayal of the shift into adulthood than 100 prim and polished pretenders. TH

74.  Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Director Mike Newell Cast Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas  The film that set Hugh Grant on the road towards ‘ Notting Hill ’ and a varied career as Britain’s jester of romcom. Using one of Richard Curtis’s less cheesy screenplays, director Newell fashioned a richly rewarding and funny microcosm of various relationships centred mostly around Grant’s likeable bachelor, Charles. The film benefits from a raft of well-observed moments – the subtle comedy of Rowan Atkinson’s tongue-tied vicar, for instance – yet emotions are cleverly twisted once we attend the funeral and the film’s sole serious moment. It’s this scene alone – in which John Hannah reads WH Auden’s poem ‘Funeral Blues’ – that cast the greatest influence over audiences. Emotionally honest and full of human warmth, ‘Four Weddings…’ stands out as one of the most enjoyable of British romcoms. And what’s more, it’s the only film in this list to open with the word ‘fuck!’ DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’

73.  The Man in the White Suit (1951)

Director Alexander Mackendrick Cast Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker The price of progress Of all the top-rank Ealing comedies, ‘The Man in the White Suit’ is the one which least deserves the tag, partly because it’s not meant to be funny, and partly because it diverges so much from the Ealing template: it’s not set in London, it doesn’t feature wisecracking criminals, plodding bobbies or apple-cheeked tykes, and it eschews good-natured patriotism in favour of a rather cold, even misanthropic view of class-obsessed workers and short-sighted bosses. Alec Guinness’s blinkered scientist Sidney is every bit as irksome as Professor Marcus in ‘ The Ladykillers ’, but quieter, subtler and less flashy, and while gravel-throated Joan Greenwood and simpering beau Michael Gough feel like a stereotypical Ealing couple, there’s something pathetic about the way they’re so powerless to affect the course of events. The result is a genuinely unusual film: part political treatise, part social satire, even part science fiction, all building towards a magnificently unsettling climax of mob justice. TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Man in the White Suit’

72.  The Long Day Closes (1992)

Director Terence Davies Cast Marjorie Yates, Leigh McCormack, Anthony Watson It’s clear Davies believes we are shaped by the movies we watch. If Fellini saw life as a circus, then Davies sees life as a cinema. Young Bud (Leigh McCormack) is his alter ego, and this is a rhapsodic scrapbook of memories from a working-class Liverpool childhood accompanied by dispatches from the wireless, popular songs and rousing classical standards. Davies rejects a linear narrative in favour of creating layers of emotion through a succession of detached scenes such as Bud’s attempts to get into a cinema and his presence at a drunken family sing-song. But first and foremost this is a film which weighs up the consolations of cinema against the consolations of religion, and – if we are to read anything into the final shot of Bud and a friend watching a film of clouds drifting by starlight as Arthur Sullivan’s song ‘The Long Day Closes’ plays in the background – cinema wins by a mile. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Long Day Closes’

71.  Edvard Munch (1974)

Director Peter Watkins Cast Geir Westby, Gro Fraas, Iselin von Hanno Bart Left-leaning director Watkins is most famous for the challenging, innovative, vérité-style docs he made in the mid-1960s for the BBC (see ‘ Culloden ’). The negative reaction to – and 20-year banning of – his exposure of the threat of nuclear war in ‘ The War Game ’ (1965) led him into self-imposed, globe-trotting exile and obscurity. Even his masterpiece, ‘Edvard Munch’ – a beautiful, heartbreaking and extraordinarily empathetic three-and-a-half hour meditation on the life and work of the Norwegian painter describing ‘the illness, insanity and death’ that pre-occupied the artist’s life – was largely unavailable for 20-or-so years. It’s surprising therefore to see a place in this poll for a hitherto neglected classic of British cinema, as well as further testament to the power and necessity of DVD revivals. WH

70-61 Best British Movies

70.  Bad Timing (1980)

Director Nicolas Roeg Cast Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell, Harvey Keitel It might have divided the critics with its disturbing notions of sexuality on its release, but ‘Bad Timing’ has grown in reputation to be counted amongst Nicolas Roeg’s best. His mastery of kaleidoscopic inter-cutting techniques – though subdued here – has never found better employment than the chronological quick-step and intersecting flashbacks he uses to reveal the psychosexual labyrinths of a fateful off/on love affair between Theresa Russell’s free-spirited boozehound and Art Garfunkel’s collected, monopolising, Malboro-smoking psychoanalyst. Set amid the icy old-world charm of Vienna, the fragmentary romantic drama builds into a hallucinatory thriller, as Harvey Keitel’s police detective – sans accent but with killer shoulder-length John the Baptist locks – begins to question Garfunkel over Russell’s abortive suicide attempt and forces us to reconsider all that’s gone before. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘Bad Timing’

69.  Oliver! (1968)

Director Carol Reed Cast Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed For someone who couldn’t play a note of music, Lionel Bart sure knew how to pen a memorable ditty. ‘Consider Yourself’, ‘Got to Pick a Pocket or Two’ and the title song are all up there with the best in the musical genre. Carol Reed’s 1968 film is essentially a watered-down, family-friendly reworking of Dickens’s oft-adapted novel. But with its dark, grimy Dickensian squalor (courtesy of one of Shepperton Studios’ most authentic sets – now sadly dismantled), Oliver Reed’s memorably chilling arch crim Bill Sikes, and at least one shocking murder, the film also displayed a level of foreboding darkness capable of scaring the bejesus out of younger viewers. The rest of the casting, too, is mostly spot-on, none more so than Ron Moody’s iconically OTT performance as slimy child-gang leader, Fagin. A fabulously entertaining family musical, then, but one that, I suspect, is on this list for nostalgic value alone. DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Oliver!’

68.  Dead of Night (1945)

Directors Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer Cast Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave, Roland Culver   Modern audiences heading into Ealing’s portmanteau chiller keenly anticipating the film Martin Scorsese picked as the fifth scariest movie ever (and also inspired Fred Hoyle to formulate his ‘Steady State’ theory of cosmological expansion, science fans) may find themselves wondering, for a while, what all the fuss was about. The framing narrative, set in a delightful country house populated by jolly upper-crust eccentrics, is more cosy than creepy, the first three episodes – the psychic racing driver, the Victorian children’s party and the haunted mirror – while increasingly ominous, are hardly hair-raising, while the fourth is intentionally funny. So it’s upon Cavalcanti’s closing tale that the film’s reputation rests: the story of a disturbed ventriloquist – or a possessed dummy – has been done so often that one might expect the thrill to have gone. Not so – the final 15 minutes of ‘Dead of Night’ remains the pinnacle of pre-Hammer homemade horror, a truly disturbing flight into the arms of madness. TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Dead of Night’

67.  Whisky Galore! (1949)

Director Alexander Mackendrick Cast Basil Radford, Joan Greenwood, Jean Cadell In the post-war years, a number of films were made on both sides of the Atlantic intended to extol national virtues, restore civic pride and celebrate those values which make us who we are. But while the Yanks were busily indulging their national tendency towards flag-waving, pie-making, gingham-sewing and casual racism, we Brits were more likely to sing the praises of pastimes such as authority-baiting, petty larceny and the simple pleasure of drinking to the verge of blindness. ‘Whisky Galore’ is an unashamed celebration of alcoholism: the magic liquor greases the social machinery, gets communities communicating, even cures a bedridden geriatric of all that ails him. But it’s also a celebration of bloody-minded Britishness (or at least Scottishness) and the rebel spirit which, according to Ealing, showed Gerry what for. TH

66.  Wonderland (1999)

Director Michael Winterbottom Cast Gina McKee, Shirley Henderson, Molly Parker, John Simm Now into his sixties and with a brimming CV to his name, Michael Winterbottom has three films on our list – as probably befits such a gifted stalwart of British cinema and TV. This is the  versatile, Blackburn-born director’s highest-placed film, which may have something to do with just how real and recognisable Winterbottom and writer Laurence Coriat’s vision of London is as he tells of one Bonfire Night weekend in the lives of three variously troubled sisters, played by Gina McKee, Shirley Henderson and Molly Parker. The relationships and events amount to a credible portrait of modern city and family life, but it’s the intimate, improvised shooting style (16mm, natural light, all on location) and Michael Nyman’s evocative, memorable score (this often feels like a film made to music) that define this British movie and give it the sense of immediacy and compassion that make it so enduring. DC

65.  Dracula (1958)

Director Terence Fisher Cast Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough Hammer stalwart Fisher delivered this rum and rather gory (for the time) take on Bram Stoker’s horror classic of the battle of wills between a devilish, blood-sucking Transylvanian count and his bookish slayer. It helps that Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Dracula are both on top scenery (and in the case of Lee, neck) chewing form, while you also watch in amazement at how they managed to make such a lavish film on the near-pittance of £81,000. Of course, you can titter at the gothic excess of the production design, how po-faced the whole enterprise is (with its lithe hotties darting around in lace negligees) and the cheapo effects, but the subtext of the story about the tragedy of addiction and the transmission of disease remains deadly serious. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Dracula’

64.  Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Director Mike Leigh Cast Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Timothy Spall Notwithstanding ‘ Naked ’ and the second half of ‘ Another Year ’, Mike Leigh’s in some ways most atypical film – it’s a period drama, with song and dance, and rather longer than usual – is also his finest. About Gilbert and Sullivan responding to withering criticism of ‘Princess Ida’ by making a comeback with ‘The Mikado’, it’s the kind of film that perhaps shouldn’t work but does – magnificently, thanks to a clutch of great performances and unshowy but precise direction, which ensures the movie succeeds on three levels: as an illuminating, partly self-reflexive meditation on the creative process; as an unusually vivid insight into just how different the world was as recently as the 1880s (all that wariness of the newfangled telephone!); and as witty, touching, utterly engrossing entertainment. GA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Topsy-Turvy’

63.  Nuts In May (1979)

Director Mike Leigh Cast Roger Sloman, Alison Steadman Judging by its surprise inclusion in this poll of British movies, this second episode in Mike Leigh’s ‘Play for Today’ TV series has remained one of the director’s most fondly remembered early features. Originally broadcast in 1976, it centres on a Dorset camping trip embarked upon by bearded, anally retentive and suffocatingly authoritarian husband Keith (Roger Sloman) and his hippy-drippy, plain-Jane wife Candice-Marie (Leigh’s ex-wife Alison Steadman). Leigh’s crafty powers of societal observation are very much to the fore as we witness a gradual breakdown in relations between middle-class Keith and a noisy young fellow camper who refuses to turn his radio off. That Candice-Marie appears to be showing sympathy towards the other party only serves to inflame the situation… It’s a film of so many memorable moments – from Keith’s cringeworthy grovelling when a policeman questions the roadworthiness of his beloved Morris Minor to Candice-Marie’s hilariously lispy vegetarian folk song. DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Nuts In May’

62.  Deep End (1970)

Director Jerzy Skolimowski Cast Jane Asher, John Moulder-Brown, Diana Dors One of the all-time great London movies, the splendidly sleazy ‘Deep End’ definitively proves that it takes an outsider’s eye to really capture the true textures of a city. Written and directed by Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski (who cut his teeth co-writing Polanski’s masterful debut ‘ Knife in the Water ’), the film captures the sexual shenanigans of the staff and clientele of a squalid South London swimming bath. Naive teen Mike (John Moulder-Brown) is the new kid, and – amid much inappropriate bum-pinching and his near-rape by regular bather Diana Dors (who else?!) – he falls madly in love with his coquettish manager Susan (a stone-cold tour de force from Jane Asher – who else?). But from its ‘Carry On’-ish opening, the film morphs into something much more sinister, even segueing into ‘ Peeping Tom ’ territory, as Mike’s love turns to violent fixation. Plus, its ultra-seedy depiction of Soho nightlife is the sort of thing you might find nowadays in a Gaspar Noé movie. DJ

61.  Walkabout (1971)

Director Nicolas Roeg Cast Jenny Agutter, David Gulpilil, Lucien John As reported in the terrific 2008 Ozsploitation doc ‘ Not Quite Hollywood ’, Australian cinema in the late ’60s was non-existent. You can argue the importance of tax breaks, TV training and the burgeoning counterculture, but it’s hard not to see Roeg’s haunting Outback tragedy as a breakthrough moment. Other directors, notably Peter Weir, would refine what would come to be known as the landscape movie, but few would capture the desolate wilderness on every Aussie’s doorstep more convincingly. Remembered chiefly for Jenny Agutter’s borderline inappropriate only-just-of-age nude swim, ‘Walkabout’ possesses innumerable charms, not least David Gulpilil’s heartbreaking performance, an astonishing opening scene and of course Roeg’s ravishing photography. TH

60-51 Best British Movies

60.  The Long Good Friday (1980)

Director John Mackenzie Cast Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Derek Thompson   That electro-synth score! Bob Hoskins wandering in close-up through Heathrow! The Docklands as the future! And the actor Derek Thompson, whose movie career was stalled by 25 years of playing Charlie in ‘Casualty’! Some of it might look like old episodes of ‘Dempsey & Makepeace’, but John Mackenzie’s gangster thriller still has great energy and momentum and isn’t a patch on recent pretenders to its throne. In retrospect, it’s the location shooting, especially around the docks – post-industry but pre-development – that resonates the most, as well as writer Barrie Keefe’s capturing of the Thatcherite zeitgeist in the person of gangster Harry Shand (Hoskins), who declares ‘I’m not a politician: I’m a businessman with a sense of history, and I’m also a Londoner’ from the back of a yacht cruising under Tower Bridge. Shand’s criminal network and its involvement with the Mafia and the IRA aren’t at all believable, but Keefe’s portrait of corruption and racism among white males in the underworld, police and local government certainly is. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Long Good Friday’

59.  Blackmail (1929)

Director Alfred Hitchcock Cast Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, John Longden Which film do you want? The silent version or the more familiar, partly reshot movie that was Britain’s first talkie feature? It doesn’t matter that much, really, since the stylish, occasionally Langian visuals already present in the first cut are still there in the second one, though it’s fascinating to hear Hitchcock’s engagingly experimental, at times even playful approach to sound echoing the elements of expressionism to be found in some of the imagery: the scene in which Anny Ondra’s heroine, having recently stabbed a lecher in self-defence, listens in to a conversation (somewhat improbably) full of references to knives is rightly famous. But, as Tony Rayns has argued, it’s also of interest for its intriguing narrative structure, shifting from a straightforward, rather detached police procedural to something altogether more intimate and messily involving, while the set pieces also display the level of expertise Hitchcock had attained during the silent era as a manipulator of audience emotions and a showman entertainer: the British Museum climax remains a classic sequence. GA

58.  Gregory's Girl (1981)

Director Bill Forsyth Cast John Gordon Sinclair, Dee Hepburn, Claire Grogan

Of all the British filmmakers who, flush with the success of their first few homegrown efforts, decided to go and seek their fortunes across the pond, the tale of Bill Forsyth is the most cautionary. Forsyth’s first ‘proper’ feature following the youth-theatre experiment ‘That Sinking Feeling’, ‘Gregory’s Girl’ is as flawless an example of personal cinema as this nation has to offer: witty, insightful, beautifully observed and heartbreakingly accurate, it says everything there is to say about suburban lust, adolescent romance, the pressure to fit in – truly, all of teenage life is here. The dialogue is poetic but wholly believable, the cast is note-perfect, the characterisation is broad but distinctive and the photography is simple, unfussy and real. None of which made a blind bit of difference when Forsyth tried to take Hollywood by storm and found himself on the sharp end of studio recuts with his career-ending four-year folly ‘ Being Human ’. Ignominious doesn’t begin to cover it.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Gregory's Girl’

57.  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

• Science fiction

Director Stanley Kubrick Cast Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

Okay, so the director, money and most of the cast are American, but it was shot here, dammit, so we’re claiming ‘2001’ as our own. True, the same could go for most of Hollywood’s bigger-budget ’70s and early ’80s efforts (‘Star Wars’, ‘Raiders’, ‘Aliens’…), but none of those films feel remotely British whereas, in a strange way, ‘2001’ does. Perhaps it’s the fact that Kubrick had, by this point, become an honorary Englishman, or the influence of co-writer Arthur C Clarke (himself, ironically, an ex-pat). Perhaps it’s the fact that the groundbreaking effects were, to a large extent, designed and built by British crews, or simply that the film feels so resolutely un-Hollywood in tone, structure and impact. Personally, I attribute the film’s Britishness to the roughly three-minute appearance of Leonard Rossiter: even though he’s supposedly playing a Russian scientist, with Rigsby’s arrival it feels like a little piece of northern suburbia has been transplanted to earth’s orbit.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

56.  Caravaggio (1986)

• Documentaries

Director Derek Jarman Cast Nigel Terry, Sean Bean, Tilda Swinton

The late Derek Jarman took the same anachronistic liberties in depicting the life of his subject – Italian, seventeenth-century painter Caravaggio – as the painter himself did with his subjects. Little-known actor Nigel Terry is great as the violently impulsive title character, and the film comprises flashbacks over his life as he lies dying. Specific focus is given to his fraught relationships with two of his models: Sean Bean’s muscular Ranuccio Thomasoni and Tilda Swinton’s Lena. But this is no cut-and-dried biopic, as Jarman frames the drama within ornate tableaux and honours the complexity of the emotions by reining in the melodrama and telling the story through the stresses of his camera and glances of the actors. As you’d expect from a film about a painter, it’s a visual marvel made from very spare ingredients and with the help of a discerning and intelligent director.  DJ

55.  Radio On (1980)

Director Chris Petit Cast David Beames, Lisa Kreuzer, Sandy Ratcliff

Few British movie debuts come as distinctive – or as quietly influential – as former Time Out Film editor Chris Petit’s Europhile mission statement. Not quite a road movie – England’s not large enough – Petit’s film takes the aesthetic and social imperatives of Wim Wenders’s luminous monochrome and his continental enquiries, transplanting them to the fields and motorways of southern England. A nominal plot – the strange death of a brother in Bristol – prompts a journey west from London into a place beyond narrative cinema. Utterly cinematic, powered by a startlingly resonant late ’70s soundtrack (with Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ the ironic turntable centre) and with an acute sense of transformative hybrid landscapes as equal players in the film’s unfolding sensibility, ‘Radio On’ sits, quite literally, on the precipice between a failing post-war reality and the coming abyss of Thatcherism. More relevant than ever, Petit’s essay on existential enquiry in an English setting remains critical viewing.  GE

Buy, rent or watch ‘Radio On’

54.  Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)

Directors Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones Cast Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle et al

It’s a miracle this British movie got off the ground. According to interviews given on the most recent DVD release, the production of the Pythons’ first properly scripted feature was not only dogged by differences between its co-directors Terry Gilliam (who was more interested in camera positions and framing) and Terry Jones (who felt they should focus more on performances) but also by Graham Chapman’s alcoholism – he played most of his parts under the influence. But none of this matters one jot: an absurd and very loose conjoining of the Arthurian and Holy Grail legends, the film remains one of the Pythons’ most memorable piss-takes. Soused or not, Chapman is superb in his tailor-made role of a slightly effeminate King Arthur, and who could forget John Cleese’s neatly carved Black Knight (‘It’s just a flesh wound’) or his similarly hilarious abusive French guard (‘You don’t frighten us, English pig-dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person’)? Priceless.  DA

53.  This Sporting Life (1963)

Director Lindsay Anderson Cast Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts

In Lindsay Anderson’s first feature film, Richard Harris grimaces and bellows as a miner hired by his local rugby team and condescended to by the club’s management while juggling a difficult home life as the tenant of a widow and single mother. The film didn’t emerge from Tony Richardson and John Osborne’s Woodfall Films, which produced ‘ Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ’, ‘ A Taste of Honey ’ and ‘ The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner ’, but it was very much part of the same movement of filmmakers coming to drama from documentaries and theatre, and looking to represent the lives of young working-class men and women more truthfully. There’s been a backlash against these British movies in recent years (partly levelled at the public school, Oxbridge provenance of the filmmakers), but the fact that most of them ride high on this list suggests they’re still credited with initiating a new age of storytelling in British cinema, both in terms of the range, social and geographical, of subjects and a style of filmmaking that honours realism above all else.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘This Sporting Life’

52.  Robinson In Space (1997)

Director Patrick Keiller Cast Paul Scofield (voice)

The late actor Paul Scofield returned to lend his acerbic narration to the middle chapter of Patrick Keiller’s singular ‘Robinson’ trilogy, which began in 1994 with ‘ London ’ and was completed recently with ‘ Robinson in Ruins ’. Static, wittily composed images (vaguely reminiscent of the photography of Martin Parr) of buildings and places of natural interest are harmonised with quotations, music and discourse. Here, the dangerously inquisitive Robinson has been tasked with solving the ‘problem of England’ and takes that as his cue to circumnavigate these hallowed isles and pontificate to his heart’s content. As with ‘London’, Keiller’s Daniel Defoe-inspired script seeks to investigate the social, political and economic present by looking back at the historical and literary origins of numerous venues, which mostly include factories, dockyards and, of course, pubs. It’s ruthlessly intelligent stuff, and the conclusions are strangely prophetic.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Robinson In Space’

51.  Local Hero (1983)

Director Bill Forsyth Cast Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson

Cockle-warming comedy can be a tough sell in serious film circles – note that ‘ The Ladykillers ’ and ‘ Kind Hearts and Coronets ’ made this list while the likes of ‘ Passport to Pimlico ’, ‘ The Full Monty ’ and ‘Billy Elliot ’ are nowhere to be found. But there remains a small handful of crowd-pleasers guaranteed to tickle the toes of the most hardened cynic, and ‘Local Hero’ is a prime example. Taking his inspiration from Powell and Pressburger, notably ‘ I Know Where I’m Going! ’ (see no. 26), Forsyth built on the goodwill engendered by ‘Gregory’s Girl’ to craft another tale of life’s better possibilities, not overlooking the chance of disappointment but refusing to submit to easy cynicism. The result is richly emotional without ever spilling into outright schmaltz (well, hardly ever), as what could have been a slushy tale of hugging, learning and growing is tempered with healthy (and often hilarious) sarcasm and a deep understanding of humanity’s capacity for goodness.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Local Hero’

50-41 Best British Movies

50.  Culloden (1964)

Director Peter Watkins Cast George McBean, Alan Pope, the people of Inverness

Produced as a softer option after the BBC thought his blunt atomic-age satire ‘ The War Game ’ too harrowing by half, Peter Watkins’s remarkable reproduction of the 1746 Battle of Culloden stands up as a true one-off of both TV and cinema. Initially coming across like a documentary of your average Sealed Knot weekender, the film delivers a minutely detailed chronicle of the battle via the ingenious method of modern TV news reporting: only the rank odour of the battlefield itself is missing. Grunts from both sides sound off directly to camera, political intrigues are speculated upon by the anchor, and we even get to witness the hordes of malnourished Jacobite rebels being torn apart by the power of the English musket. What’s even more interesting is that Watkins chooses to trace the legacy of the battle, patiently observing as the English army wade across the Highlands slaughtering women and children in the name of communal cleansing and retaining the authority of the British monarchy. It all looks scarily familiar.  DJ

49.  The Souvenir (2019)

Director Joanna Hogg The first in a two-part cinematic memoir of rare emotional precision and ambition, Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Souvenir’ tells the semi-autobiographical story of a wannabe filmmaker’s (Honor Swinton Byrne) painful journey through film school and a toxic relationship. A snapshot of London life in Thatcher’s ’80s, it conveys both the airless suffocation of class privilege and the weightless joy of creativity through the eyes of a young woman still learning her own heart. And whether as a coming-of-age drama, a haunting love story, a filmmaking odyssey or simply a time capsule back to an era when everyone wore bad suits and smoked too much, it’s nothing short of a masterpiece.

48.  Gallivant (1996)

Director Andrew Kötting Cast Andrew Kötting, Eden Kötting, Gladys Morris

The incomparable Andrew Kötting – artist, filmmaker, performer – took his eight-year-old daughter Eden and 80-something grandma Gladys on a tour of the British coastline for this anarchic travelogue which turns out to be both a snapshot of the country and a self-portrait of this unlikely trio on an equally unlikely adventure. Kötting’s highly original methods of storytelling mean that ‘Gallivant’ looks nothing like most docs: he mixes formats, throws in archive footage and has much fun with the sound and picture edit. ‘He’s being silly, isn’t he? As daft as they make them,’ says Gladys of her grandson as he swims fully clothed somewhere off the coast of Scotland, having put behind them Sussex, Devon, Cornwall, Wales and the various, illuminating personalities they meet on the road. It’s rare that experimental filmmaking is this humane and enjoyable. The unique result is a work that is both formally radical and eminently accessible and entertaining.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Gallivant’

47.  Hunger (2008)

Director Steve McQueen Cast Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham

About as raw and unshakeable as historical dramas get, Steve McQueen’s first feature film is based on the six-week hunger strike conducted by IRA member Bobby Sands at Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison, an ordeal the artist-filmmaker had been obsessed with since childhood. McQueen immersed himself in literature about Sands’ five-year 'no wash protest', and the film presents life in the prison with detailed, near-documentary-style realism. Similarly, Michael Fassbender goes above and beyond to play Sands, dropping 40 pounds to make an already harrowing performance even more searing. It’s a remarkably assured debut for McQueen – see the unbroken, 17-minute single take between Fassbender and Liam Cunningham as a priest trying to convince him to end his strike. He’d go on to make even better films, but none quite so powerful. MS  

46.  Blow-Up (1966)

Director Michelangelo Antonioni Cast David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Bowles

‘Blow-Up’ sees swinging London transformed into a sprawling, alienating crime scene where brusque Notting Hill, ahem, ‘fashion’ photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) believes that while idly snapping away in a South London park, he’s captured a homicide in mid-flow. Antonioni’s attitude towards the hippy-dippy cultural revolution taking place in the city during the 1960s is ambivalent at best. When he takes us on a detour through a Yardbirds gig, it’s left to us to decide whether we’re in heaven or in hell. Yet, his film has a more cynical edge than only being about the sensations of a city. As Thomas’s grasp on his investigation becomes more tenuous, Antonioni twists his film to be about the nature of making, collecting and editing images, also suggesting that – try as we might – life is a first-hand experience that no camera can ever really capture. And to sate the cabaret set, it’s all topped off with some mimed tennis. Splendido!  DJ

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45.  The Fallen Idol (1948)

Director Carol Reed Cast Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan, Bobby Henrey

Given his reputation as a novelist, it’s easy to forget how major a force Graham Greene became in post-war British cinema, and how many key aspects of national life became cemented in the public consciousness as a result of his extraordinary run of work between ‘ Confidential Agent ’ in 1945 and ‘ Our Man in Havana ’ in 1959. ‘The Fallen Idol’ is primarily a film about class, which even then was nothing new. But it’s Greene’s approach to his topic which sets the film apart: by viewing the social hierarchy through a child’s eyes, the author allows us to view the matter afresh, an approach which would bear fruit again in films as diverse as ‘ The Spanish Gardener ’, ‘ The Go-Between ’ and ‘ Atonement ’. But ‘The Fallen Idol’ is the best of the bunch, and indeed one of the finest British movies about children, about the ways they can be manipulated and betrayed, their loyalties misplaced and their emotions toyed with.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Fallen Idol’

44.  Repulsion (1965)

Director Roman Polanski Cast Catherine Deneuve, Yvonne Furneaux

Emeric Pressburger, Karel Reisz, Joseph Losey, Stanley Kubrick… This list isn’t short of writers and directors who brought an outsider’s sensibility to British movies. The young Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski came to London to make his second film – and first in English – and cast 21-year-old Catherine Deneuve as Carole, a fragile young Belgian woman living in South Kensington with her sister and working in a local hairdressing salon. When her sibling goes away for a few days with a boyfriend, Carole’s nervousness and discomfort with men descends into full-blown paranoia, illustrated subtly by Polanski with sparing but sinister visual tricks such as cracking plaster and even hands emerging from walls. The film remains influential on both horror directors and those looking to represent mental breakdown on film (look at Darren Aronofsky’s ‘ Black Swan ’).  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Repulsion’

43.  Sabotage (1936)

Director Alfred Hitchcock Cast Oscar Homolka, Sylvia Sidney, John Loder

‘Sand! Sabotage! Deliberate! Wrecking!’ are the terse first words of Hitchcock’s atmospheric, exciting and sometimes funny, 1936 London-based suspenser, adapted from Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Secret Agent’. This tale of a bomber and saboteur (Oscar Homolka) whose terrorist activities lead his young wife (Sylvia Sidney) and brother into tragedy is full of the master’s touches. It’s moodily rendered with expressionist-tinged chiaroscuro photography by Hitchcock’s regular cameraman of the 1930s, Bernard Knowles, and was subject to a stinging review by long-time doyen of British critical circles, CA Lejeune. ‘I committed a grave error in having the bomb go off. Never repeated it!’, Hitch told the BBC in 1964. But that choice, augmented by the extraordinary and moving study in lonely isolation offered by Homolka as Verloc, helps provide the film with a stature and depth that not only impressed Hitchcock champions and  Cahiers du Cinéma  critics Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol in the 1950s, but ensures its place today as the third most favourite Hitchcock film in our poll.  WH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Sabotage’

42.  Fires Were Started (1941)

Director Humphrey Jennings

The documentary-maker Humphrey Jennings has been well remembered in recent years, first with a film in 2002 by Kevin Macdonald and then in 2004 with a biography by Kevin Jackson – which might explain the placing of this and his stirring ‘Listen to Britain’, both wartime films, so high on our list. A leading light of the GPO and Crown Film Units and a founder of Mass Observation, Jennings was responsible for so many of our received images of Britain during World War II. For ‘Fires Were Started’, he filmed firemen in London’s East End but devised characters for them and showed them during both the peace of day and the struggle of fighting a major fire in the docks at night. His film is a celebration of heroism, a lament for lives lost and a stoical expression of the necessary wartime maxim that life must go on. Yes, it’s propaganda – but what humane, artful propaganda it is.  DC

41.  Witchfinder General (1968)

Director Michael Reeves Cast Vincent Price, Patrick Wymark, Ian Ogilvy

The quaint English countryside acts as the backdrop for much enthusiastic sadism in this Civil War tale based very loosely on the life of Protestant zealot Matthew Hopkins and his reign of witch-burning terror in East Anglia’s badlands. While we can only imagine the pleasure of watching original choice Donald Pleasance as the sexually repressed misogynist Hopkins, Vincent Price makes a horribly effective substitute, lisping biblical lore to the screams of his victims on the rack and at the stake. The real star, though, is the textured, bleak cinematography of John Colquillon (who later shot ‘ Straw Dogs ’), which lends an eerie, tripped-out detachment to the pitiless violence and casts the landscape as a timeless witness to casual horror. Despite its camp reputation, ‘Witchfinder’ is grimmer and more effective than many of its costumed contemporaries and fully deserved both the revulsion it attracted at its initial release and the rehabilitation as a classic it has enjoyed since.  PF

Buy, rent or watch ‘Witchfinder General’

40-31 Best British Movies

40.  Ratcatcher (1999)

Director Lynne Ramsay Cast William Eadie, Tommy Flanagan, Mandy Matthews

As debut features go, this one rubs shoulders with the likes of Terrence Malick’s ‘ Badlands ’, Charles Burnett’s ‘ Killer of Sheep ’ and Terence Davies’s ‘ Distant Voices, Still Lives ’ for the sublime fluency of its technique and conviction in the belief that a film doesn’t need a beginning, middle and end to be meaningful, dramatic and poetic. Following on from a trio of shorts, director Lynne Ramsay revisited her birthplace of Glasgow to deliver an account of innocence and experience, love and death during a dustmen’s strike in the early 1970s . The pranks of monosyllabic scamp James (William Eadie) form the core of the film, and we eventually learn that James wants nothing more than to abandon the squalor of the city and move to a new housing project next to a cornfield in which he can frolic. Ramsay asks, ‘Do you know where your kids are?’, but she doesn’t forget that it is possible to be socially responsible and artistically audacious at the same time.  DJ

39.  London (1994)

If you didn't know Patrick Keiller's smartly rambling, tricksy walking tour of our city from 1994, you might think that his title was pompous or presumptive. But his film is anything but as he gives us a fictional, unseen narrator, Robinson (voiced by Paul Scofield), who takes us on a tour of London, known and less known, grand and grotty, around the time of the film’s making, taking in such references as the 1992 general election and the IRA bomb at Bishopsgate in 1993. Cinematic psychogeography, you might call it, but that’s a bit, well, pompous for a film that is endlessly self-mocking, witty and perceptive. If only British cinema produced more such films that dance merrily on the border between fact and fiction – but, then, again, Keiller’s film – the first in a trilogy – is so unique in tone that imitators would easily be caught out.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘London’

38.  Went the Day Well? (1942)

Director Alberto Cavalcanti Cast Leslie Banks, Elizabeth Allan, Frank Lawton

What if, right, the Hun were on the cusp of clinching victory in Europe, and all that stood between your average, flat-capped English patriot and the swift introduction of sauerkraut to the national menu was the collective muscle of a close-knit countryside community? Well, that’s ‘Went the Day Well?’ in a nutshell. It’s a droll, Ealing-made World War II propaganda film that also happens to be a ridiculously taut suspense thriller about how the denizens of the fictional Bramley End put aside their differences and foil a Nazi plot to capture Britain, sometimes even sacrificing life and limb by diving on live grenades and going on ad hoc axe rampages. And if that isn’t enough, it also contains the single greatest dialogue exchange in this entire list, as the well-to-do Mrs Fraser asks Cockney urchin George, ‘Do you know what morale is?’ to which he replies, ‘Yeah, it’s summink what the wops ain’t got.’  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Went the Day Well?’

37.  It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)

Director Robert Hamer Cast Googie Withers, Edward Chapman, John McCallum

You’ll find Robert Hamer’s ‘ Kind Hearts and Coronets ’, also from Ealing Studios, higher up our list, but two years earlier he made this lesser-known gem which manages to pull off the trick of being both a credible snapshot of post-war East End life and an effective noir thriller as it unfolds over one Sunday in 1947. The plot – a Bethnal Green mother and housewife (Googie Withers) hides an on-the-run con and ex-lover (John McCallum) in her busy home – allows us intimate access to a working-class home. We witness its routines, rituals and relationships, while at the same time we’re hooked in by the suspense of the crime element of the story and the threat of a dangerous romance in contrast to the drabness of lives defined by rationing and duties. There’s the odd over-fruity line or performance, but a stunning final night-time chase sequence in a railway depot more than compensates.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘It Always Rains on Sunday’

36.  The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

Director Tony Richardson Cast Tom Courtenay, James Bolam, Julia Foster

As with its French equivalents, much of the British New Wave looks horribly dated in a modern context: all that light jazz, casual romantic disaffection and overeager jump-cutting doesn’t really wash with contemporary audiences. But what’s beyond criticism is the commitment to emotional veracity which fuelled films like ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’. So while the timeworn clichés of the kitchen sink remain intact – grubby class warfare, county-hopping pseudo-Northern accents, the God’s-eye shot of ‘our town from that hill’ – the film is anchored in Tom Courtenay’s remarkable, remorseless performance as the eponymous runner Colin, torn between selfishness and sacrifice, class loyalty and commercial gain, impossible victory and inevitable surrender.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’

35.  The Servant (1963)

Director Joseph Losey Cast James Fox, Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig

Two films by the American exile Joseph Losey have made our list, and few would argue that this chilling domestic two-hander from 1963 is his most enduring. It’s Harold Pinter’s tense, subtle script, adapted from a Robin Maugham novel, which gives life to the story of an aristocratic bachelor, Tony (James Fox), who hires a servant, Hugo (Dirk Bogarde), whose machinations, including moving in his girlfriend (masquerading as his sister) as a maid, wear down Tony so that their hierarchical roles blur and mutate. In other hands, this would be a mildly interesting thriller, but Pinter’s sharp characterisations and unspoken suggestions, along with Losey’s full, slavering embrace of the potentials of Tony’s grand Chelsea home, make this a more open, suggestive work, offering ideas to do with class, power and sexuality. The actors are tremendous. For Bogarde, it built on his daring turn in ‘ Victim ’. For Fox, it was a rehearsal for his similarly shape-shifting role in ‘ Performance ’.  DC

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34.  A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Director Stanley Kubrick Cast Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates

Swap Beethoven for heroin, and Stanley Kubrick’s scandalous 1971 Moog-mare based on Anthony Burgess’s novel might work as a forerunner to ‘ Trainspotting ’. It presents the wayward travails of Little Alex (Malcolm McDowell) a tearaway who likes nothing more than a bit of the old ultra-violence. But after a bungled break-in where he is abandoned by his band of cock-nosed droogs, he is packed off to a hospital to be ‘cured’. The style of filmmaking is at once clinically precise and imaginatively loose. This is down to the multitude of tricks that Kubrick hoists in (slo-mo, fast-forward, cartoon inserts, back projection) to encapsulate the total autonomy these characters have and why they see their behaviour as thrilling. The violence is plentiful and invites a mixture of revulsion and amusement, not least because it is usually overlaid by Walter Carlos’s mad reinterpretations of classical standards. Does it stand up psychologically? Probably not. But as an example of a work in which the filmmaking style matches the tone of the material, it’s peerless.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘A Clockwork Orange’

33.  Secrets & Lies (1996)

Director Mike Leigh Cast Brenda Blethyn, Timothy Spall, Marianne Jean-Baptiste

‘ Naked ’ proved to many that Mike Leigh was a filmmaker who would continue to surprise well into and beyond his third decade of filmmaking – but ‘Secrets and Lies’ proved the same to everyone else when it won the Palme d’Or and Best Actress prizes at Cannes and was nominated for five Oscars. The story of an adopted, professional black British woman (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) who tracks down her white, working-class birth mother (Brenda Blethyn) came with its own themes and ideas. But it also allowed Leigh to refine interests he had been exploring for years, such as the relationships between parents and kids, the love and antagonism of siblings and our awkward relationships to material wealth. Ultimately, it’s about the power – and destructiveness – of the unspoken, and a climactic barbecue scene, in which Timothy Spall breaks the silence and gives one of the best performances of his career, is both heartbreaking and liberating, for the characters and for us.  DC

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32.  Get Carter (1971)

Director Mike Hodges Cast Michael Caine, Britt Ekland, John Osborne

Its overfamiliar poster, score and lazy stylistic appropriation by glossy lads’ mags may make the very idea of ‘Get Carter’ something of a chore, but once the train starts rolling, there’s simply no getting off. A cold, impossibly grimy film, ‘Get Carter’ is a ‘ Third Man ’ for the three-day week generation that drags you through the sulphurous backrooms of hell. Michael Caine’s frosty Lahndahn gangster uncovers layer upon layer of villainy as he travels to Newcastle to investigate his brother’s death, but the details – and, for many, the plot – are secondary to the air of desperation, squalor and complicity. ‘The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over and… we have failed to paint it black,’ might well have been the mantra in Ladbroke Grove and Camden Town , but ‘Get Carter’ presents the more desolate reality of those for whom the swinging ’60s were something that happened to other people and a grim, forlorn post-war mindset remained the pervading norm.  ALD

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31.  The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Director Alfred Hitchcock Cast Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave

Some argue that Hitchcock made his greatest works in the US, but the presence of four of his British movies on our list suggests that not everybody holds that view – or at least that his earlier work is still held in very high regard. ‘The Lady Vanishes’ builds on the mysterious, on-the-run mood of the earlier, more well-known ‘ The 39 Steps ’ (1935), but its 1938 date, mittel-European setting on a train from an Alpine location and well-integrated political nods slyly tie it to debates over appeasement and engagement. That said, it’s first and foremost a suspenseful thriller as a little old lady, Miss Froy, disappears on a train and everyone bar a young man and woman (Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood) proceed to deny she exists. It’s very funny, and it's ridiculous but masterly twists and turns are made doubly fun by a colourful cast of characters including a nun, a surgeon and a pair of cricket-loving bounders.  DC

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30-21 Best British Movies

30.  The Ladykillers (1955)

Director Alexander Mackendrick Cast Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Katie Johnson

Small wonder this classic Ealing crime caper remains a mainstay of so many film polls. The casting and performances, for a start, are brilliantly sharp. As is Ealing writer William Rose’s finely wrought script: five caricatured criminals (Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Cecil Parker and Danny Green) masquerading as a group of classical musicians arrive at the King’s Cross home of a dear little old lady (Katie Johnson, who won a Bafta for her pitch-perfect performance) and enquire whether they might rent a few rooms – while they surreptitiously plot an audacious railway robbery. The set-up paves the way for a wonderful series of amusing dialogues between the old biddy and the ‘quintet’ whose pretence she never twigs until the final comically violent frames. Guinness and Lom are the standouts; both look as if they’d strayed in from a Hammer production. Unforgettable.  DA

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29.  Peeping Tom (1960)

Director Michael Powell Cast Karl Böhm, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley

Michael Powell stabbed so Alfred Hitchcock could slash. Released months prior to Psycho , this Technicolor horror show traversed similarly transgressive terrain, following the exploits of a serial killer who murders women using a dagger affixed to the end of a camera, and in some ways primed audiences for the audacities Hitch was about to unleash on the world. Another way to look at it is that Powell took the fall. While Psycho further burnished Hitchcock’s legend, Peeping Tom just about ruined Powell’s reputation; he never made another film in Britain. It would take decades for the movie to get its due as a taboo-smashing piece of psychological horror – but as an indictment of a voyeuristic society, its prescience has only grown in the internet age. MS    

Buy, rent or watch ‘Peeping Tom’

28.  The Wicker Man (1973)

Director Robin Hardy Cast Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland

The pagan folk revival of the late 1960s and early ’70s was easy to express in music: all you needed was a cape, beard, acoustic guitar and a crumhorn player in winklepickers. In film, it was a different matter: what sane production company was likely to shell out thousands for tales of earth-worship and mystic rites, especially when the target audience was a) notoriously cash-strapped and b) largely confined to rambling country cottages miles from the nearest picture palace? To be fair, Robin Hardy did his best to make ‘The Wicker Man’ a commercial prospect, roping in Hammer legends Christopher Lee and Ingrid Pitt, TV icon Edward Woodward and tabloid eye candy Britt Ekland to help pull in the punters. That the resulting film was still compulsively weird, highly atmospheric and a total financial disaster is a testament to Hardy’s misjudgment of the marketplace. That its rediscovery continues to gather pace almost four decades later is a testament to his skill as a filmmaker.  TH

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27.  Bill Douglas Trilogy: My Childhood (1972), My Ain Folk (1973) and My Way Home (1978)

Director Bill Douglas Cast Stephen Archibald, Hughie Restorick, Jean Taylor-Smith

It would be easy to dismiss ‘My Childhood’ (1972), ‘My Ain Folk’ (1973) and ‘My Way Home’ (1978) – the trilogy of short-ish films made by the late Scottish director Bill Douglas – as textbook examples of the glum social realism that so often besmirches the name of British cinema. These films capture a rare poetry in their depiction of wayward youth, the death of industry and the small, diligent ways in which the downtrodden are able to retain hope and ward off constant darkness. Set during the 1940s in Douglas’s own birthplace (the dead-end mining town of Newcraighall) the emotional focal point of these films is Jamie (Stephen Archibald), an inquisitive, defensive young scamp whose day-to-day existence is a fight for survival and friendship. Filmed with great care and precision in piercing monochrome and with barely any dialogue to drown out the intense expressiveness of the people and the landscapes captured on camera, Douglas has often been cited as Britain’s answer to France’s Robert Bresson. It’s an accolade that makes total sense.  DJ

26.  I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)

Directors Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Cast Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey

‘Will you do something for me before I go away? I want you to kiss me!’ It might be Joan Webster’s (Wendy Hiller) first unplanned move in all of Powell and Pressburger’s film, a witty and characteristically eccentric romance filmed largely in the Western Isles of Scotland about a headstrong young woman who heads north from London to a remote island to marry a wealthy man she barely knows. It’s not just a physical journey for Joan, but a spiritual one, as P&P maroon their heroine on a neighbouring island where she must wait until the weather dies down before continuing her trip. By the time Joan is battling a storm and a whirlpool in a tiny boat, her ‘heart of stone’, as one islander calls it, is finally cracking and she’s woken up to a less material and more honest world represented by the Scottish folk – including Roger Livesey’s local sailor – she meets, a world the filmmakers are happy to celebrate in a fashion that’s unsentimental but still stirring.  DC

25.  Great Expectations (1946)

Director David Lean Cast John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Martita Hunt

The chocolate-box social politics and borderline anti-semitism of David Lean’s other Dickens adaptation ‘Oliver Twist’ hasn’t worn so well in the new millennium, but there are no such drawbacks with ‘Great Expectations’. This is a film so deeply ingrained in the national psyche and so widely referenced in popular culture that seeing it for the first time feels like a nostalgic experience, albeit a slightly discomfiting one: for all the film’s rosy-cheeked, aspirational cheer, the dark undercurrents of the novel are never ignored. The way Lean weaves elements of Universal horror and film noir into his depiction of nineteenth-century London is breathtaking, and his treatment of Miss Havisham as a giant time-ravaged spider-queen wrapped in a crumbling web of dust and rotting lace finds unexpected echoes in everything from ‘ Psycho ’ to ‘ Aliens ’.  TH

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24.  Brazil (1985)

Director Terry Gilliam Cast Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond

Thank God for Universal Studios. Not only did they finance Terry Gilliam’s one and only undisputed masterpiece, but thanks to the machinations of short-sighted studio supremo Sid Sheinberg, who ordered a re-cut, they managed to ensure that ‘Brazil’ became a critical cause célèbre and cult classic, with Gilliam the poster child for the battle between art and commerce. The film would have endured either way, but its abject failure might have brought Gilliam’s career to a juddering halt sooner than it otherwise did. Grim, confusing and scattergun it may be, but ‘Brazil’ is a film rich in deep and diverse pleasures, many of them uniquely British: Jonathan Pryce’s nervy, utterly isolated performance, cameos from the likes of Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Jim Broadbent, Michael Palin, Simon Jones and Gordon Kaye, the oppressively beautiful, wholly London-ish architecture, and a pervasive, post-war, proletarian sense of utter helplessness and bureaucratic desperation from which the only escape is sweet oblivion.  TH

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23.  Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Director David Lean Cast Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness

At the time of its release in 1962, David Lean’s desert epic dwarfed the oppostition both in length (228 minutes) and breadth. But what is it about this particular film that springs mostly to mind when composing, from memory alone, one’s favourite list of British movies? There’s the exoticism of its unique Saharan locations; Maurice Jarre’s stirringly melodious string-laden score; and, above all, the undeniable quality of Freddie Young’s cinematography. Indeed, that single shot of Omar Sharif’s extraordinarily slow emergence through the distant haze of the desert sun remains one of cinema’s singularly most striking and iconic moments. And you’ve got to hand it to Peter O’Toole; he plays the role of TE Lawrence – a British Army liaison officer during the Arab v Turkish revolt of 1916 – with gusto.  DA

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22.  Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)

Director Karel Reisz Cast Albert Finney, Rachel Roberts, Shirley Anne Field

This is a man’s world

Forging the template for films about swarthy, unreconstructed men whose only solace can be found in the bottom of a pint glass, Karel Reisz’s raucous and relevant 1960 character study showed the lengths that the young, disenfranchised working-class stiff would go to shirk the responsibilities of adulthood. Based on the first novel by ‘Angry Young Man’ author Alan Sillitoe, (who also wrote ‘ The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner ’), the film gave Albert Finney his big break as the hard-drinking, hard-smoking and hard-loving Arthur Seaton, a nihilistic machine worker in Nottingham who habitually funnels his modest wage packet on pleasures of the flesh. Finney’s all-pistons-firing lead performance is note-perfect, and props still go to him for making us empathise with Arthur’s naivety rather than being alienated by his bravado and the fact that he’s, well, a bit of a shit. Makes a lovely double with ‘ Billy Liar ’, only Billy never got duffed up by squaddies. Alas…  DJ

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21.  Nil by Mouth (1997)

Director Gary Oldman Cast Kathy Burke, Ray Winstone

What a pity Gary Oldman has never been able to fulfil his dream of following up this, his directorial debut! However fine many of his performances had been, both the writing and the direction of this deservedly acclaimed British movie displayed considerably more than great promise. ‘Nil by Mouth’ remains, even now, one of the most painfully honest and eloquent studies of a kind of London working-class life. Often erroneously described as ‘autobiographical’, the film’s astute portrait of macho violence, alcoholic excess, drug addiction and petty criminality nevertheless benefitted from Oldman’s proximity to such behaviour in his early years, and that, coupled with a style partly inspired by Cassavetes, makes for a movie as riveting in its raw, nocturnal ‘realism’ as it is unsentimental in its humanity and dark humour. It won Kathy Burke a Cannes prize, revived Ray Winstone’s fortunes and kickstarted the acting career of the director’s sister (under the pseudonym of Laila Morse).  GA

20-11 Best British Movies

20.  Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Director Terry Jones Cast Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle et al

One of the strangest but most welcome side effects of great comedy is the way it crystallises ideas, bringing concepts previously vague and inexpressible into the public consciousness. How long into a chat about the splintering of political pressure groups before someone mentions the People’s Front of Judea? When talking about the impossibility of a successful military occupation, how long before someone mentions what the Romans did for us? When discussing religion in general, and cults in particular, how long before someone pipes up, ‘Yes, we’re all individuals?' The controversy may have faded, but three decades on, ‘Life of Brian’ still dominates our perceptions of organised religion (and organised resistance) and their many obfuscations, untruths and double standards in a way that is not just remarkable, but extremely heartwarming.  TH

19.  Barry Lyndon (1975)

Director Stanley Kubrick Cast Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee

Is it a surprise that Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon’ (1975) should beat off ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971) and ‘2 001: A Space Odyssey ’ (1968) in our poll for the best-loved British Kubrick? The 1976 Academy showered Kubrick’s painstaking, candlelit version of Thackeray’s 1844 novel of a scoundrel Irish soldier’s picaresque adventures with Oscars for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Music. Despite those garlands, however, it was a relative failure at the time – notably in the US, albeit a hit with the discerning Parisians – and by the mid-1980s, its reputation had further declined: our own film editor, Chris Peachment, was not alone when he described it as ‘a triumph of technique over any human content’ and ‘an array of waxwork figures against lavish backdrops’. But what technique; what waxworks; and what backdrops there are in this $11million, three-hour epic, shot over an impossible eight months. ‘“Barry Lyndon” is a story which does not depend upon surprise,’ Kubrick told Michel Ciment in one of his rare interviews, nailing the film’s re-found appeal. ‘What is important is not what is going to happen, but how it will happen. I think Thackeray trades off the advantage of surprise to gain a greater sense of inevitability and a better integration of what might otherwise seem melodramatic or contrived.’ Likewise, as time goes by, Kubrick’s own contrivances – the technical obsessions, the outwardly puppet-like performances, Ryan O’Neal’s seemingly endless wanderings, adventures and increasingly futile ambitions – have themselves fallen away to reveal something quite extraordinary: the shape of a life, a human’s rise and fall, rendered as an epic, mesmeric, suffusing slow dance of immersive cinema – and therefore, not only Kubrick’s most beautiful but also his most empathetic and understanding work.  WH

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18.  The Innocents (1961)

Director Jack Clayton Cast Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave

This superior ghost story is an adaptation of Henry James’s novella ‘The Turn of the Screw’ that still manages to feel more subtle and inventive than the vast majority of spooky pretenders that came in its wake. The story sees Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) become governess to two children who live in a sprawling country pile and are the wards of an absent uncle (Michael Redgrave) who lives in London. As Miss Giddens spots ghosts and becomes convinced of the kids’ malevolence, it’s the ambiguity of both the story and film that impress. Is Miss Giddens mad? Are there ghosts? Are both things true, even? If you list a lot of the film’s more creepy tics – sweet but demonic children; ghostly visions; a music-box score; stuffed animals; a scary attic – they now sound like clichés, but the film still works fantastically well as a supernatural-cum-psychological chiller and most obviously feels like a template for Polanski’s ‘ Repulsion ’, ‘ Rosemary’s Baby ’ and even ‘ The Tenant ’.  DC

17.  A Canterbury Tale (1944)

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Cast Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, John Sweet, Dennis Price

For many, this light-fingered take on Chaucer’s infamous tome will always be Powell and Pressburger’s great work. It’s possibly the film of theirs which touches most poignantly on what it means to live and what it means to be living in England. Amusing, tragic, inquisitive and profoundly poetic, on the surface it’s a World War Two-set shaggy dog story of three unlikely compatriots – a British sergeant, an American GI and a Land Girl – who are thrown together in the sleepy, fictitious town of Chillingbourne which sits on the rail link to Canterbury. No sooner have they disembarked from the train than one of their number is stung by a night-time prowler who’s getting his jollies by putting glue in women’s hair (and no, this isn’t a foresight into ‘ Peeping Tom ’). Their hokey investigation to locate the scoundrel acts as the narrative through-line with which Powell and Pressburger hang a gorgeous, panoramic vision of an England steeped in history, tradition and eccentric, downhome custom. It also takes a comic look at the cultural divisions between America and Britain and the need to bridge that divide for the common good. A heady, almost surreal climax in Canterbury, where the three pals part ways and find comfort in friends, music and memory, is tremendously moving, not least because we also discover the reason why they were all there in the first place.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘A Canterbury Tale’

16.  Black Narcissus (1947)

Directors Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Cast Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar

All those prissy critics outraged by Powell’s shift into voyeuristic overkill with ‘ Peeping Tom ’ should have done their homework: from the perverted ‘glue man’ and his ‘sticky stuff’ in ‘ A Canterbury Tale ’ through the abusive, alcoholic anti-romance of ‘ The Small Back Room ’, his films are rife with suppressed deviance and sexual panic, none more so than this unsettling adaptation of Rumer Godden’s nuns-in-peril novel ‘Black Narcissus’. All The Archers’ best work resisted categorisation, and this might be the pinnacle of their tendency for audience-baiting idiosyncracy: set in Darjeeling but shot in West Sussex, the film seems as far out of time as it does out of place, eschewing genre (is it romance? Period drama? Horror? Social satire?) in favour of pure atmosphere and an unparalleled sense of mounting hysteria. Deborah Kerr’s career-best performance is just the icing on the Himalaya.  TH

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15.  Withnail & I (1987)

Director Bruce Robinson Cast Richard E Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths

Arguably, three years ago writer-director Bruce Robinson’s riotous black comedy – describing the misadventures of two recent ex-students/‘resting’ young actors in an unwelcoming north London – would have pipped ‘ Kind Hearts and Coronets ’ as the highest, rather than the second-highest-rated British comedy in our poll. At that point, the ‘Withnail & I’ fan club was at its bibulous height, with its ardent admirers, word-perfect in Robinson’s semi-autobiographical script, meeting in Camden pubs to swap quotes and play the DVD-extra drinking games (though, more properly, they should have frequented tea shops, demanding ‘the finest wines available to humanity!’). At auction, Withnail’s ragged Harris check coat went to Chris Evans for £8,000 and the leather worn by Marwood – for he is ‘I’ – was bought by Danny Baker. In 2000, Total Film readers voted it the third-best comedy of all time. That said, ‘Withnail & I’ was no instant success: it managed a paltry three-week run on its opening and, including its 2007 UK Film Council remastered re-release, has only grossed £1.5million in British cinemas. Robinson has said the film’s mid-1980s production for Handmade Films almost made him as penurious as his hero: having to provide £30,000 of his own cash to film Richard E Grant and Paul McGann on their fateful trip in their clapped-out Jaguar MK2 to the Lake District. But if, initially, ‘Withnail & I’ was a cult success, built up on video and DVD viewing, our poll shows it now has a solid place in British viewers’ hearts; its inspirationally funny script, spot-on performances and evocative soundtrack helping to combine a gloriously mocking elegy for Britain’s supposedly Swingin’ Sixties with a moving, bittersweet distillation of personal memory and of friendship recalled.  WH

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14.  The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Cast Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr

Two things are well known about Powell and Pressburger’s 1943 epic about the life of an old-fashioned ex-army officer serving in the Home Guard during World War II: Churchill disliked the whole idea of it, and may have thought it was about him, and the Blimp character, over-fed and irascible, was inspired by David Low’s cartoon character of the same name in the Evening Standard. The reality is that ‘Colonel Blimp’ is a much more wise, surprising and measured film than either of these things suggest. It’s a film about the unknowability of others, the complexity of lives, the power of time on our character and the influence of history on our behaviour. It has the depth and sweep of a novel, while remaining wonderfully cinematic (think of the duel in Berlin, the snappy montage of animal heads on Blimp’s wall, the desolate battle scenes…). At the time of its release at the height of war, it was also very bold in trying to counter some myths about history and give colour to black-and-white prejudices (not least about Germany and Germans). The trick and power of Powell and Pressburger’s film is that, by first giving us the Blimp we expect – loud, angry, stuck in his ways – and then flashing back and recounting events in his life from 1902 to 1943, including a lifelong friendship with a German officer, a lost love and time spent serving in three wars, they give us an entirely different character: a complex, rounded and sympathetic man. Blimp may not be us, and we may not even like him – but by the end we know and understand him, and that’s the brilliance of Powell and Pressburger’s work.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp’

13.  The 39 Steps (1935)

Director Alfred Hitchcock Cast Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Godfrey Tearle

For this writer, Hitchcock’s adaptation of John Buchan’s novel is not only his very finest British movie – for suspense, pace, wit, vivid characterisation, atmosphere and virtuoso set-pieces it even outdoes the brilliant ‘ The Lady Vanishes ’ – but the warmest, most affecting movie of his career. It’s not just that Robert Donat’s Hannay is one of his most sympathetic protagonists (compare him to that other innocent-on-the-run, Cary Grant’s complacent Roger O – ‘for nothing’ – Thornhill in ‘ North by Northwest ’), nor that Donat and Madeleine Carroll, for all their initial sparring, finally make such a lovely couple. No, the entire film is packed with touching moments, from the affectionate depiction of banter between members of the music hall audience at the film’s beginning to the unexpectedly touching moment of Mr Memory’s death at the Palladium, when his brief dialogue with Hannay deftly suggests the men’s mutual respect. In between, there’s the strangely courageous death of the otherwise absurdly exotic female ‘agent’, the cosy, understanding matrimonial love of the Scottish innkeeper for her more innocent husband, and even the steadfast loyalty shown by the villainous Scottish spymaster’s spouse. Most heartbreaking of all, however, are the brief but unforgettable scenes at the crofter’s cottage, where Hannay’s talk of London and perfectly sincere compliments afford the young wife (Peggy Ashcroft) a tantalising glimpse of a far happier life than the one she faces with her mean, brutish husband (John Laurie). These few minutes include some of the subtlest acting to be found in Hitchcock’s oeuvre, not to mention an emotional depth and delicacy he never again quite managed to attain.  GA

Buy, rent or watch ‘The 39 Steps’

12.  Brief Encounter (1945)

Director David Lean Cast Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson

Few British movies divide opinion like ‘Brief Encounter’. Many view the film as cold, heartless, too stiff-lipped to be truly moving (check the current Time Out review by Dave Calhoun for evidence). But without wishing to cause offence to my esteemed colleagues, they’re dead wrong. Because for those willing to chip through the ice-shelf, there’s a raging emotional torrent waiting to sweep them away. And it’s not as though Lean is celebrating these characters’ inability to communicate, to break through their social strictures and live real lives. ‘Brief Encounter’ is a tragedy, not just for two mismatched lovers but for an entire class of people, trapped in empty suburban existences ruled by propriety and that desperate, heartbreaking, terribly British desire to remain anonymous, to avoid offence, to blend in. And therein lies the film’s extraordinary power, because despite the miles and the decades which lie between, that’s still us up there on the screen.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Brief Encounter’

11.  Naked (1993)

Director Mike Leigh Cast David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp, Karin Cartlidge

From its initial release, it was clear that ‘Naked’, which is Mike Leigh’s highest-ranked film on our chart of best British movies, was destined to appear on lists like this for years to come. And yet, of all the films in the higher echelons of this list, it might be the most flawed and difficult. There are at least three performances in ‘Naked’ – Katrin Cartlidge as the bruised Sophie, Claire Skinner as shrieking Sandra and Greg Cruttwell as vicious yuppie psycho Jeremy – whose tone threatens to derail the film. And yet, despite these wobbles, ‘Naked’ is a masterpiece and perhaps Leigh’s best film to date, or at least the one which most appeals to his sceptics. Certainly, at the time it marked a departure for Leigh into more mythical, less domestic territory, and in retrospect marked a new maturity in his filmmaking. Set in a seedy, strip-lit London populated almost exclusively by predators and prey, this is the one film in which Leigh drops the idea that life is sweet: his characters are mostly either cruel or pathetic, and drifting above them all – or crawling beneath – is David Thewlis’s Johnny, the derisive observer of everyone else’s flaws who can’t bear to deal with his own. A moustachioed Mancunian angel of death with a mouth like a Salford sewer and a mind teeming with useless information, Thewlis guarantees the film’s central place in our cultural pantheon for another century at least.  TH

Top 10 Best British Movies

10.  Trainspotting (1996)

Director Danny Boyle Cast Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller

At the planning stage of this survey, not a single member of the Time Out Film team would’ve expected Danny Boyle’s eye-wateringly hip, epoch-defining second feature to make much of a dent, let alone break into the top ten. Yet here we are, and it seems that ‘ Slumdog Millionaire ’ (which didn’t place) was not enough to make us overlook the ambition, charisma and sheer, blood, sweat and shit-soaked brio of this 1996 Irvine Welsh adaptation which gave Ewan McGregor a role that – if we’re being honest – he has never bettered.  The film – which now bizarrely makes the mid-1990s Britpop fad appear to have been the cultural highlight of modern times – told of happy-go-lucky junkie Mark Renton (McGregor) and the band of mischievous associates he would occasionally call friends, including Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Tommy (Kevin McKidd) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle). It’s still a lively watch, especially in the way its meandering, episodic first half emphasises the highs of pub fights, drugs scores, casual sex and a sub-aqua, Eno-scored mission down the world’s most disgusting lavatory bowl, only for the second half to condemn the drug culture that so many claimed it was glamourising.  Director Danny Boyle had already shown with his previous film, ‘ Shallow Grave ’ (1994), that he could reel off a juicy, character-driven yarn which had depth and ambiguity, but what makes ‘Trainspotting’ stand above the crowd is the industrious way in which he uses editing and camera movement to convey time, activity, violence, love, ecstasy and pain. Plus, is this the greatest opening five minutes ever?  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Trainspotting’

9.  If.... (1968)

Director Lindsay Anderson Cast Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick

A portrait of life in an English, male boarding school may sound niche and conservative, but Lindsay Anderson’s second feature after ‘ This Sporting Life ’ was one of the most radical British movies of the 1960s – and the first of three films from that decade to enter our top ten.  The mischievous face of Malcolm McDowell as rebellious sixth-former Mick Travis is, in retrospect, an obvious predecessor of his character in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, not least when he iconically appears wearing a fedora and with a scarf wrapped around his face to conceal a moustache. From there, we discover that Travis and his two friends are thorns in the side of their rigid boarding house, where their peers exercise brutal authority purely because of their ties or badges – or, as Travis puts it, ‘That bit of fluff on your tit’.  Many scenes stick in the mind, most of them tinged with a strange comedy. There’s the master who rides a bike into class; the headmaster who opens a drawer to reveal a teacher; Travis’s wrestle with a waitress at a local café… But these more surreal scenes aside, the film’s success is down to its detail: Sherwin and Anderson well knew the world they were satirising, which is why the rituals, slang and behaviour all ring so disturbingly true. That said, the film’s knock-out scene is a rousing, shocking, guns-blazing climax that’s only credible as glorious wish-fulfilment.  The film’s attack on tradition and authority undoubtedly encapsulated and tapped into the counter-cultural mood of the time – but its themes of community, leadership, oppression and rebellion, as well as its edge of comic surrealism and weird fantasy, continue to endure more than forty years later.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘If....’

8.  Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Director Robert Hamer Cast Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood

The Ealing comedies undoubtedly remain a bastion of British whimsicality, but the results of this poll suggest they have fallen out of favour. Does the fanciful madcap of ‘ The Lavender Hill Mob ’ now just feel empty? Has ‘ Passport to Pimlico ’ lost its political piquancy? And is there too much running around in that otherwise barbed consumerist satire, ‘ The Man in the White Suit ’? Still, you could judge that our contributors were merely hedging their bets by voting for Ealing’s finest: ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’.  There’s something satisfying about the fact that one of the most charming, literary and romantic films  on this list involves a penniless fop going on a murderous rampage against his aristocratic in-laws. Dennis Price is Louis Mazzini D'Ascoyne, bon mot-dropping avenging angel and class warrior by default, out to take down the remaining D'Ascoyne clan (all played by Alec Guinness) as punishment for excommunicating his dear, dead mother.  The beauty of this film is how easy it is to divorce yourself from its horrors and side with this gentleman psychopath on his quest. Guinness’s broad (though hilarious) caricatures make the pill even easier to swallow, as they show us that Louis’s crimes are little more than a savage attack on the hypocrisy, entitlement and haughtiness of English blue bloods.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’

7.  Performance (1970)

Directors Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell Cast James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at the first screening of ‘Performance’ for Warner Bros executives. Expecting a jolly, Beatles-esque musical romp starring those loveable rogues The Rolling Stones, they were subjected to 105 minutes of graphic gangland violence, explicit three-way sex, celebratory drug-taking and Mick Jagger in a dress. Dismissed on release as incoherent and indulgent (LA Times critic Richard Schickel described it as ‘the most worthless film I have seen’), ‘Performance’ has grown in stature and influence, culminating in its top ten appearance here, a leap of 41 places since the BFI’s similar list in 1999.  So why is a film which should, by rights, be too dated to watch still gaining traction well into its fourth decade? The sex ’n’ drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll aspects don’t hurt, but there’s more to it. Perhaps it’s simply that ‘Performance’ is the most perfect example of imperfection, a ragged, uncontrolled miasma of disparate influences and conflicting ideas, genres and even directors battling for dominance.  But where most superficially similar works of consciousness-expanding ’60s experimentalism are now embarrassing, ‘Performance’ manages to remain confrontational, exhilarating and relevant. True, there’s the odd awkward moment, and the depiction of women leaves something to be desired. But as the story fragments along with James Fox’s consciousness, as Jagger pouts and struts like the world’s sexiest junkie ostrich, as the visuals become more berserk and hallucinatory, you can almost hear Roeg and Cammell rubbing their hands together and chuckling at the sheer, mindblowing intensity and uniqueness of this monster they’ve somehow managed to create.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Performance’

6.  A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Cast David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey

This is one of Powell and Pressburger’s most imaginative and thoroughly enjoyable films, but it's also one of Britain’s most substantial fantasy films, in that for all its visual invention, wit, romantic flair and sense of fun, it is most definitely about something.  Actually, of course, it’s about a number of things: the improbable love affair between a British pilot forced to bale out of his plane and the American girl who takes his mayday call; the long-tricky ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US, strained during the later years of World War Two when the Americans were ‘over here’; and it’s perhaps even to some degree about the likewise uneasy relations between the practitioners of Britain’s documentary-realist tradition and those of the rather more flamboyantly ‘arty’ strand of filmmaking as perpetrated by Powell & Pressburger. (It may not be accidental that our quotidian earthly existence is shown in colour while the fanciful realm of the hereafter is consigned to the monochrome favoured by Grierson et al.)  Perhaps most importantly, however, it’s about exactly what it claims to be: the inevitably symbiotic relationship between life and death, which are in the end all part and parcel of the same thing. The heaven in the film not only reflects the need of many to believe in an afterlife where justice might finally prevail; it is also made quite explicit that it’s a dreamworld, the construct of the poet-pilot’s brain, in traumatic shock after he unexpectedly survives the plunge from his flaming cockpit. Quite dazzling.  GA

Buy, rent or watch ‘A Matter of Life and Death’

5.  The Red Shoes (1948)

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Cast Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring

The rise of The Archers, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, might be the big story in this new list of the 100 Greatest British Movies. Their presence was, of course, felt in a similar 1999 BFI list: ‘The Red Shoes’ placed in the top ten, with three other films (‘ A Matter of Life and Death ’, ‘ Colonel Blimp ’ and ‘ Black Narcissus ’) and Powell’s ‘ Peeping Tom ’ lurking further down the list. This latest poll has added only two new titles (‘ A Canterbury Tale ’ and ‘ I Know Where I’m Going! ’), but it’s the change in rank which is astonishing: not one of these films has fallen outside the top 30, with two in the top ten and another three in the mid-teens. Considering that their votes were split seven ways, The Archers have received far more votes than any other director on the list.  The increased availability of their work on DVD will have played a major role here, particularly in the rediscovery of the two new titles. But there’s been a shift in critical fortunes, too, beginning before the BFI round-up but gathering pace since: while the gritty heavy-handedness of the Angry Young Men has begun to seem increasingly irrelevant, the emotional richness, subtle wit and visual inventiveness of The Archers’ films seems ever more enchanting and poignant.  And the pinnacle of their achievements remains ‘The Red Shoes’: investing an old story with freshness and vigour and revelling in unabashed emotional excess, this is the absolute peak of Powell’s visionary tendencies as a director, a flawless blend of cinema and dance, animation and music, narrative rigour and experimental freedom, without doubt the most breathtakingly beautiful film ever to come out of these isles.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Red Shoes’

4.  Kes (1969)

Director Ken Loach Cast David Bradley, Lynne Perrie, Freddie Fletcher

As the tide of the 1960s began to recede, taking with it all that class-obsessed ee-by-’eck pub-jazz new wave chest-beating that had threatened to drag British cinema into some kind of socialist-modernist-industrial nightmare, the real realists were revealed, sitting quietly and waiting for someone to notice. And chief among them was (and still is) Ken Loach, this country’s most relentless cinematic artisan, 47 years at the cultural coalface and still no sign of flagging.  ‘Kes’ was Loach’s second feature film, and just a few years later he was struggling to make work for cinema at all: proof, perhaps, that honesty isn’t always the best policy. Because ‘Kes’ is, if nothing else, a powerfully honest piece of work, in its performances and relationships, its treatment of trapped lives, its sad-eyed acceptance of human failings. It’s trite but true to say that Billy Casper stands for the crushed child in all of us, with his beloved kestrel as the soaring soul that school, work, family and society conspire to kill quietly in the woodshed.  But this isn’t the true horror of the film. Because Loach is not just suggesting that Billy’s fate is inevitable, but that it’s necessary: in order to survive in this world of barking gym teachers, harried parents and brutalised big brothers (each of them once as open and inspired as Billy), he’ll have to take his lumps and like it. And so ‘Kes’ remains devastating, the peak of British realism and one of the most heartbreaking works in all of cinema.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Kes’

3.  Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

Director  Terence Davies Cast  Pete Postlethwaite, Freda Dowie

Too often it’s assumed that there’s an arthouse cabal in British cinema obsessed solely with telling stories of the working classes from a distant perspective and with a drab realism – or, to borrow the moaners’ own word, ‘miserabilism’. Certainly, there are guilty culprits, but if any filmmaker blows such assumptions out of the water, it’s Terence Davies, whose ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’ is arguably among the very greatest British movies of the last 25 years – a judgement our poll seems to confirm. The doubly good news is that, after a hiatus of a decade, 65-year-old Davies is back behind the camera making feature films and is currently editing an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s ‘The Deep Blue Sea’, his first film since 2000’s ‘ House of Mirth ’.  This fiercely literate and independent Liverpudlian spent the first 16 years of his career, with three shorts, and then two feature films, ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’ and ‘ The Long Day Closes ’ (1992), finding different, personal and poetic ways of making sense of his recollections of his childhood in a post-war, working-class Liverpool home. ‘Distant Voices…’ is essentially a portrait of his parents and siblings around the time he was born – but with Davies himself removed from the frame. As such, its fractured, truthful evocation of life in 1940s and ’50s Liverpool is as much about memory as truth. We experience the stuff of life – the brutality of a patriarch (Pete Postlethwaite), a daughter’s wedding, sing-songs at the pub – but the flow of the film is more emotional than chronological, and Davies prefers resonant images and moments to straightforward storytelling. Its songs lift us, while its sadnesses bring us down. Mostly, though, it’s Davies’s love for cinema that is apparent in every single frame of this beautiful film.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’

2.  The Third Man (1949)

Director Carol Reed Cast Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alide Valli

It swooped in at number one on the BFI’s 1999 British cinema poll, but here, Carol Reed’s The Third Man’ will have to settle for second spot. But, hey: it’s still a masterpiece. The genius at the core of this superlative, bible-black Euro noir is the way it teases you into thinking that you’re watching a disposable pulp yarn about an honest schlub who touches down in a crumbling, post-war Vienna and won’t rest until he uncovers a conspiracy concerning the death of an old pal.  Our hero, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), is a writer of dimestore westerns. His pal is Harry Lime (Orson Welles), a bootlegger whose latest grift has landed him in an early grave, or so it seems. The further down the rabbit hole Holly ventures, the more it becomes clear that Reed’s glibness is mere cover for a bleak lament to a world tainted by corruption and evil. Replace Vienna with Los Angeles, and it’s basically ‘Chinatown’.  Inventive and exhilarating though the story is, its beauty lies in its flawlessly judged and occasionally eccentric construction: Robert Krasker’s high-contrast cinematography; Anton Karas’s eerily chipper zither score; and the depiction of a world so divided by politics, religion, gender and language, that you begin to understand why compassion would lose its appeal to these characters. ‘Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?’ asks Harry Lime. It’s a chilling conundrum that rings with truth and despair, and one of which politicians, businessmen and, well, everyone, should continually be wary.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Third Man’

1.  Don't Look Now (1973)

Director Nicolas Roeg Cast Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland The number one film on our list of greatest British movies, is Nicolas Roeg’s hallucinatory 1973 Daphne du Maurier adaptation – the story of a couple, played by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, who decamp to a spooky Venice after the death by drowning of their daughter. We can speculate on the roots of its popularity: that it satisfies the genre and arthouse crowds; that it uses framing, sound, editing and camera movement to unreel a transfixing tale and flesh out excruciatingly authentic characters; that it dares to coax out the ghosts lurking in every watery passageway in Venice, Europe’s most ornate and singular city; that it contains arguably the greatest sex scene on film. Or, we can just accept it as a movie whose every glorious frame is bursting with meaning, emotion and mystery, and which stands as the crowning achievement of one of Britain’s true iconoclasts and masters of cinema.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Don't Look Now’

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The 20 Best Biographical Movies

The 20 best biographical movies I have ever seen

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. Gandhi (1982)

PG | 191 min | Biography, Drama, History

The life of the lawyer who became the famed leader of the Indian revolts against the British rule through his philosophy of nonviolent protest.

Director: Richard Attenborough | Stars: Ben Kingsley , John Gielgud , Rohini Hattangadi , Roshan Seth

Votes: 240,144 | Gross: $52.77M

2. Schindler's List (1993)

R | 195 min | Biography, Drama, History

In German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Liam Neeson , Ralph Fiennes , Ben Kingsley , Caroline Goodall

Votes: 1,449,548 | Gross: $96.90M

3. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013)

PG-13 | 141 min | Biography, Drama, History

A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

Director: Justin Chadwick | Stars: Idris Elba , Naomie Harris , Terry Pheto , Robert Hobbs

Votes: 29,187 | Gross: $8.32M

4. Patton (1970)

GP | 172 min | Biography, Drama, War

The World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton .

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: George C. Scott , Karl Malden , Stephen Young , Michael Strong

Votes: 107,902 | Gross: $61.70M

5. Amadeus (1984)

R | 160 min | Biography, Drama, Music

The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , as told by Antonio Salieri , the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.

Director: Milos Forman | Stars: F. Murray Abraham , Tom Hulce , Elizabeth Berridge , Roy Dotrice

Votes: 427,691 | Gross: $51.97M

6. Cleopatra (1963)

G | 192 min | Biography, Drama, History

Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt experiences both triumph and tragedy as she attempts to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.

Directors: Joseph L. Mankiewicz , Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor , Richard Burton , Rex Harrison , Pamela Brown

Votes: 37,386 | Gross: $57.78M

7. Chaplin (1992)

PG-13 | 143 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama

An elderly Charlie Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor, recounting his amazing journey from his poverty-stricken childhood to world-wide success after the ingenious invention of the Little Tramp.

Director: Richard Attenborough | Stars: Robert Downey Jr. , Geraldine Chaplin , Paul Rhys , John Thaw

Votes: 62,192 | Gross: $9.49M

8. Elizabeth (1998)

R | 124 min | Biography, Drama, History

The early years of the reign of Elizabeth I of England and her difficult task of learning what is necessary to be a monarch.

Director: Shekhar Kapur | Stars: Cate Blanchett , Liz Giles , Rod Culbertson , Paul Fox

Votes: 105,068 | Gross: $30.08M

Also Elizabeth : The Golden Age (2007)

9. Waterloo (I) (1970)

G | 123 min | Action, Biography, Drama

Facing the decline of everything he has worked to obtain, conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte and his army confront the British at the Battle of Waterloo.

Director: Sergey Bondarchuk | Stars: Rod Steiger , Christopher Plummer , Orson Welles , Jack Hawkins

Votes: 12,613 | Gross: $3.05M

10. 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)

PG-13 | 154 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama

Christopher Columbus' discovery of the Americas and the effect this has on the indigenous people.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Gérard Depardieu , Armand Assante , Sigourney Weaver , Loren Dean

Votes: 32,790 | Gross: $7.19M

11. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Approved | 218 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama

The story of T.E. Lawrence , the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.

Director: David Lean | Stars: Peter O'Toole , Alec Guinness , Anthony Quinn , Jack Hawkins

Votes: 314,132 | Gross: $44.82M

12. The Iron Lady (2011)

PG-13 | 105 min | Biography, Drama

An elderly Margaret Thatcher talks to the imagined presence of her recently deceased husband as she struggles to come to terms with his death while scenes from her past life, from girlhood to British prime minister, intervene.

Director: Phyllida Lloyd | Stars: Meryl Streep , Jim Broadbent , Richard E. Grant , Susan Brown

Votes: 113,591 | Gross: $30.02M

13. Lust for Life (1956)

Approved | 122 min | Biography, Drama

The life of brilliant but tortured artist Vincent van Gogh .

Directors: Vincente Minnelli , George Cukor | Stars: Kirk Douglas , Anthony Quinn , James Donald , Pamela Brown

Votes: 12,503 | Gross: $3.48M

14. Miss Potter (2006)

PG | 88 min | Biography, Drama, Romance

The story of Beatrix Potter, the author of the beloved and best-selling children's book, "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", and her struggle for love, happiness, and success.

Director: Chris Noonan | Stars: Renée Zellweger , Ewan McGregor , Emily Watson , Barbara Flynn

Votes: 32,007 | Gross: $2.98M

15. Selma (2014)

PG-13 | 128 min | Biography, Drama, History

A chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.

Director: Ava DuVernay | Stars: David Oyelowo , Carmen Ejogo , Oprah Winfrey , Tom Wilkinson

Votes: 95,437 | Gross: $52.08M

16. The Young Victoria (2009)

PG | 105 min | Biography, Drama, History

A dramatization of the turbulent first years of Queen Victoria's rule, and her enduring romance with Prince Albert.

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée | Stars: Emily Blunt , Rupert Friend , Paul Bettany , Miranda Richardson

Votes: 66,351 | Gross: $11.00M

17. Bright Star (2009)

PG | 119 min | Biography, Drama, Romance

The three-year romance between 19th-century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne near the end of his life.

Director: Jane Campion | Stars: Abbie Cornish , Ben Whishaw , Paul Schneider , Kerry Fox

Votes: 28,687 | Gross: $4.44M

18. MacArthur (1977)

PG | 130 min | Biography, Drama, History

Biopic of General Douglas MacArthur covering his war exploits during WW2 and the Korean War.

Director: Joseph Sargent | Stars: Gregory Peck , Dan O'Herlihy , Ed Flanders , Ivan Bonar

Votes: 5,118

19. The Letters (II) (2014)

PG | 114 min | Drama

A drama that explores the life of Mother Teresa (Juliet Stevenson) through letters she wrote to her longtime friend and spiritual advisor, Father Celeste van Exem (Max von Sydow) over a nearly fifty-year period.

Director: William Riead | Stars: Juliet Stevenson , Rutger Hauer , Max von Sydow , Priya Darshini

Votes: 1,113 | Gross: $1.65M

20. Coco Before Chanel (2009)

The story of Coco Chanel's rise from obscure beginnings to the heights of the fashion world.

Director: Anne Fontaine | Stars: Audrey Tautou , Benoît Poelvoorde , Alessandro Nivola , Marie Gillain

Votes: 42,088 | Gross: $6.11M

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