Time Out's The 100 Best British Films

Don’t Look Now is a thriller starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland as a married couple who tragically loose their daughter and thereafter are confronted with only mysterious occurrences.

An American pulp writer arrives in post-WWII Vienna only to find that the friend who waited for him is killed under mysterious circumstances. The ensuing mystery entangles him in his friend's involvement in the black market, with the multinational police, and with his Czech girlfriend.

The second film in Terence Davies's autobiographical series (TRILOGY, THE LONG DAY CLOSES) is an impressionistic view of a working-class family in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool, based on Davies's own family.

Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.

A fledgling ballerina falls in love with a brilliant composer, but the jealous head of the ballet company plots to drive them apart.

When a young airman miraculously survives bailing out of his aeroplane without a parachute, he falls in love with an American radio operator. But the officials in the other world realise their mistake, and despatch an angel to collect him.

In underworld terms Chas Devlin (James Fox) is a 'performer,' a gangster with a talent for violence and intimidation. Turner (Mick Jagger) is a reclusive rock superstar. When Chas and Turner meet, their worlds collide--and the impact is both exotic and explosive.

Louis Mazzini's mother belongs to the aristocratic family D'Ascoyne, but she ran away with an opera singer. Therefore, she and Louis were rejected by the D'Ascoynes. Once adult, Louis decides to avenges his mother and him, by becoming the next Duke of the family. Murdering every potential successor is clearly the safest way to achieve his goal.

In this allegorical story, a revolution lead by pupil Mick Travis takes place at an old established private school in England.

"Choose life." Trainspotting is a Scottish cult film from the 1990’s about a group of junkies and their perspective on life. The film was the most commercially successful British film of the 20th century.

Brief Encounter is a classic from British director David Lean about two people who fall in love yet face the fact that they are already married and can never be together.

Johnny flees Manchester for London, to avoid a beating from the family of a girl he has raped. There he finds an old girlfriend, and spends some time homeless, spending much of his time ranting at strangers, and meeting characters in plights very much like his own.

The 39 Steps is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces. A romantic thriller that revolves around a Canadian tourist visiting London who gets caught in the middle of a murder plot that has police and the secret service after him. A classic Hitchcock of romance mixed with adventure and picturesque scenes.

General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been ...

Two 'resting' actors living in a squalid Camden Flat - and living off a diet of booze and pills - take a trip to a country house (belonging to Withnail’s uncle) to 'rejuvenate'. Faced with bad weather, altercations with the locals, and the unexpected arrival (and advances) of Uncle Monty, the pairs wits and friendship are tested...

based on the novel of the same name by Rumer Godden. It is a psychological drama about the emotional tensions within a convent of nuns in an isolated Himalayan valley

A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.

A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.

A brilliant parody from the British comedy group Monty Python about the history of Jesus. A Terry Jones directed film from 1979 that has since gained cult status.

The family of Raymond, his wife Val and her brother Billy live in working-class London district. Also in their family is Val and Billy's mother Janet and grandmother Kath. Billy is a drug addict and Raymond kicks him out of the house, making him live on his own. Raymond is generally a rough and even violent person, and that leads to problems in ...

A rebellious, hard-living factory worker juggles relationships with two women, one of whom is married to another man but pregnant with his child.

Lawrence of Arabia is the classic film from David Lean starring Peter O’Toole and based on the autobiography from Thomas Edward Lawrence who during the first World War was on assignment by the British Empire in Arabia. The film would become a cult classic and is known today as a masterpiece.

Brazil is a Terry Gilliam dystopic black comedy film that reflects the melancholy, dreamlike quality of a famous Brazilian song that’s been translated into English. The film parodies the mostly dysfunctional bureaucratic world we live in and takes us to a post-apocalyptic world in the future yet with our present day attitudes in mind.

A humble orphan suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor.

A 33-year-old Englishwoman goes to the Hebrides to marry her older, wealthier fiancé, but when the weather keeps them apart from each other on separate islands, she begins to have second thoughts.

The first part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an eight-year-old living on the breadline with his half-brot...

When Jamie's maternal grandmother dies, he and his brother Tommy are separated - Tommy is taken off to a welfare home and Jamie goes to live with his other grandmother and uncle. His life is far from happy, filled with silence, rejection and bouts of violence.

Jamie leaves the children's home to live with his paternal grandmother. After working in a mine and in a tailor's shop, he is conscripted into the RAF, and goes to Egypt, where he is befriended by Robert, whose undemanding companionship releases Jamie from self-pity.

Police sergeant Neil Howie is called to an island village in search of a missing girl whom the locals claim never existed. Stranger still, however, are the rituals that take place there.

A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.

Meet "The Unholy Five"...The Most Befuddled Set of Assorted Thugs That Ever Fouled Up a Million Dollar Bank Robbery!!

The Lady Vanishes is a crime thriller from Alfred Hitchcock from 1938 about a train ride in which mysterious events take place.

Michael Caine is Jack Carter, a small-time hood working in London. When word reaches him of his brothers death, he travels to Newcastle to attend the fulneral. Refusing to accept the police report of suicide, Carter seeks out his brother's friends and acquaintances to learn who murdered his sibling and why.

Roxanne drives her mother crazy. Maurice never speaks to his niece. Cynthia has a shock for her family. Monica can't talk to her husband. Hortense has never met her mother.

In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all perso...

A decadent London aristocrat hires a man-servant to attend to his needs. However, the balance of power starts to shift...

A rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy's reformatory for robbing a bakery, rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his life and times before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as the Governor's prize runner.

Robert Hamer's bleak portrait of life in London's East End.

The quiet village of Bramley End is taken over by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Their task is to disrupt England's radar network in preparation for a full scale German invasion. Once the villagers discover the true identity of the troops, they do whatever they can to thwart the Nazis plans.

A psycho-geographic journey through London and its history, as undertaken by an unseen narrator and his companion, Robinson, at the time of the 1992 general election.

A naïve young lad navigates the dirty squalid streets of 1973 Glasgow and the poor youth around him.

England is torn in civil strife as the Royalists battle the Parliamentary Party for control. This conflict distracts people from rational thought and allows unscrupulous men to gain local power by exploiting village superstitions. One of these men is Matthew Hopkins, who tours the land offering his services as a persecutor of witches.

British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II.

Karl Anton Verloc and his wife own a small cinema in a quiet London suburb where they live seemingly happily. But Mrs. Verloc does not know that her husband has a secret that will affect their relationship and threaten her teenage brother's life.

Carol is a young beauty parlor worker who falls into violent paranoia (including terrifying hallucinations) over a weekend. This classic psychological thriller by Roman Polanski still holds up today.

The film is told through the naive eyes of a diplomat's young son, Phillipe, who idolises his best friend, the diplomat's butler Baines. Baines has constructed a heroic persona, full of exotic adventures, that fascinates the boy.

BLOW-UP is the story of a successful fashion photographer, Thomas (David Hemmings), who, whilst scouting for fresh subjects in a park one afternoon, photographs a mysterious couple in 'flagrante delicto.' Upon returning to his studio loft later that day, he develops the pictures and discovers that he has inadvertently stumbled upon a murder.

The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike in which Republican prisoners tried to win political status. It dramatises events in the Maze prison in the six weeks prior to Sands’ death.

One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry, which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life.