Best British Film

I’ll go with The Third Man & Naked.

even though im British i’ve never really liked british realism films. I find the culture portrayed as uninspiring alot of the time, and it never really grabs me as anythign special, but i guess thats how i see britain anyway.

but of course there are some wonderful one offs.

like the 39 steps, clockwork orange etc etc

Just seen…

Marvelous, or in this case I’ll say, marveLLous.
At the cost of being redundant, I must say… every time I watch an important British movie such this one, I wonder WHY the cinema of this beautiful nation isn’t recognized properly, or better, isn’t recognized at all. So many biases about comedies or the famous “comicality lacks”, or other things.
Instead Hooray for England!

I don’t think i’ve seen The Captive Heart. Well, i prefer the films of several other countries and i’ve not been one to jump up with jingoistic excitement in overrating some homegrown film, but i’ve been very pleasantly surprised by my viewing in the last few days- with the tremendous documentaries Sleep Furiously (from little Wales), and Of Time and the City. I think it may be that the influence of the New Wave and Truffaut’s (misguided if not racist) comments on the incompatability of Britain and cinema have had an unduly strong and negative effect on proper appreciation of British films. Tavernier has been right about not throwing the baby out with the bath water, as some of the Cahiers critics have done.

From the series: "Reisz, forgotten “look back in anger” master, reborn, we need you".

Looks like I’m late to the party, but I’d posit either “O Lucky Man!” or “This Sporting Life” as the best of Her Majesty’s brood. Either way, it comes down to Lindsay Anderson.

(Honorable mention to Nic Roeg’s “Performance,” but it doesn’t quite bristle with the same quintessentially British qualities as Anderson’s work takes pains to highlight, for cultural good or ill.)

>>Jack Clayton did a film called “Our Mother’s Farm” which is supposed to be very chilling, but it’s incredibly unavailable.<<
Actually OUR MOTHER’S HOUSE, I believe. TCM has shown it … I DVDRed it.

Surprisingly little mention here of Richard Lester who, in films like A HARD DAY’S NIGHT and HELP, practically reinvented the syntax of cinema. Little mention of Ken Russell, too; surely one of the great British film directors.
I am happy to see so many nominations for Lindsay Anderson’s IF, however.
And if we can list DR NO, then we ought to list THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN which had the effect of altering the horror genre worldwide … and without which there probably would have been no WITCHFINDER GENERAL … or WICKER MAN, for that matter.
(Only slightly kidding)

The Red Shoes, or one of P&P’s other films.

I’ll go with Peeping Tom, though I haven’t seen enough British films to say for sure.

I really liked Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)

I used to feel the same way as a certain french person, who said that British Cinema is an oxymoron or something, but during last year, or maybe some more months , thanks to a certain person (not french)…. I started to change my mind… Anyway I always loved BLACK NARCISSUS an UNBELIEVABLE FILM and more than a few of P & P’s
other british film – exceptions :) … that I’d always recommend: Barry Lyndon, The Long Good Friday, Naked ehm well Performance added just recently….!

ok: here’s another 1: the innocents! and im about to watch (again)

The Night Of The Demon ….

“it has been written… since the beginning of time… even onto these ancient stones…. that evil supernatural creatures EXIST in a world of DARKNESS!”

jimmymarkum, welcome back!! And I miss that Torneur…

I salute the mention above of Nil by Mouth. Considering Britain is famous for its social realism I’ve found the vast majority of films which would fall into that category much too safe and tame for me to really be able to connect with them – or they begin promisingly and with a bite of bite like Sweet Sixteen only for the writing to slip into formulaic television drama scene development. I’ve watched Ken Loach until his films are coming out of my ears and as much as I respect where the man’s heart is I find the films themselves contrived. I put My Name is Joe on again the other day and having recently experienced Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy and witnessed just how far you can go with social realism, Loach’s film by comparison felt very watered down and artificial. Watching the Dardenne brothers at work in Le Silence de Lorna I really can’t think of anything Loach has done since Cathy Come Home that can get anywhere near them. And that’s very much my experience of British social realism across the canon. Oldman’s Nil by Mouth is an exception; he gives it to us raw, unadulterated. There is an openness about the characterisation which makes the characters themselves refreshingly autonomous and such a strong sense of verisimilitude about the scenarios depicted that I have no trouble trusting the reality being presented just as in the Winding Refn films. That’s the kind of social realism I connect with.

I won’t mention Leigh because although I have a great fondness of Secrets and Lies on the whole his caricature characters leave me cold. I think he does period drama (Topsy Turvy and Vera Drake) so much better than he does social realism. It’s possibly the filmmaking skills he brings from the latter domain to the former that makes the period texts so strong.

I also salute the mentions of Ratcatcher and Hunger. Ramsey and McQueen show that it is possible to be British and make a film with the kind of lyricism you’d expect only to be possible from the aesthetic hearts and minds of continental directors.

Last Resort is a really worthy mention. The way Pawlikowski arranges his mise-en-scène, directs and choreographs actors and encodes his technical elements to so powerfully convey meaning in and around his themes is masterful and for me places him way beyond his British contemporaries.

I give a slightly smaller thumbs up to the mention of Don’t Look Now. Although the film, if I’m honest, feels very dated as I return to it (in contrast to older Resnais and Malle texts which seem to withstand the ravages of time and retain a freshness about them) Roeg still has my full admiration for bringing a much needed artistry to British filmmaking. Truffaut’s famous put down of British film made me want to stuff one or two of his own now tedious efforts right where the sun doesn’t shine. And yet, whenever I see a list of British films like the above, I secretly and reluctantly find myself a little in agreement with Frenchman.

So I express my appreciation for the abovementioned films, to the cinephiles who mentioned them. British Cinema from New Wave to New Millennium is something which for my sins I have to teach. From time to time it can leave me feeling a little depressed not because I can’t objectively find things in the texts to praise – I always can – but because they so seldom inspire and move me as a viewer the way a Bergman or Tarkovsky, Haneke or Hsiao-Hsien does.

I’ll add Anton Corbijn’s Control to the list. With Corbijn we fall into the same debate à la Kubrick above, because the director once again isn’t English, he’s Dutch. But Control still feels very much as though it can be classed as a British film (and I don’t just mean that it would past the UKFC’s cultural test, which of course it would, I mean rather that it penetrates regional and cultural identity quite profoundly).

I think that may well be my answer. I like British films either when they’re made by fine or time based artists such as McQueen or Ramsey or when they’re made by filmmakers with foreign sensibilities like Pawlikowski and Corbijn. And I like Gary Oldman for his unparalleled honesty. If you’re going to do social realism, they’re the ways to do it.

Gary Oldman. Here, here.

Preparing myself to the World Cup, I’ve seen It Always Rains on Sunday (Hamer) and it disappointed me for 3/4 but in the end, there are wonderful pursuit sequences and an amazing cinematography. 6,5.
Besides, there’s the most beautiful girl ever lived, dead too young, consumed by alcohol. Dan misses her.

>>Psychomania (1973)<<
I can’t believe I missed someone listing this seven months ago.
Hysterical.

How about Finney and Courtney in “The Dresser”?

The Devils-Ken Russell
Naked-Mike Leigh
Black Narcissus-Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressburger
Made in Britain-Alan Clarke
Looks and Smiles-Ken Loach
Performance-Nicolas Roeg
Distant Voices,Still Lives-Terence Davies
Jubilee-Derek Jarman
Blow Up-Michelangelo Antonioni

The Go-Between
I Know Where I’m Going !
Women in Love
Accident
The Criminal

The Servant
Cul de Sac
Repulsion
Dead of Night
Odd Man Out
Night Train to Munich
Lady Vanishes
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
Night of the Demon +
The Innocents
From Beyond the Grave
The Madness of King George
The Private Life of Henry VIII
The Thief of Bagdad +
Black Narcissus
The Life and Death of Col Blimp
A Matter of Life and Death
The Offence (with an amazing Sean Connery)
Quadrophenia
Goldfinger
Diamonds are Forever
Maurice
A Room With A View
Howards End

to be continued