In this rousing kids’ crime yarn, Bernard Cribbins is 'Pyramid', a dastardly master-of-disguise who plans to smuggle an ancient Egyptian mummy out of the country. When young Jeff (Graham Fletcher-Cook) discovers the plan, a dangerous chase via South London's Victoria Station and Clapham Station...

Made thirteen years after Britain’s first major gay film Nighthawks, Strip Jack Naked puts the earlier film into a historical and personal context, with director Ron Peck drawing on his own journey from closeted suburban teen to politically radicalised filmmaker. A lucid account of the responsi...

The first major British gay film, this study of a closeted schoolteacher who spends his nights cruising London’s gay clubs in search of Mr Right defies categorisation. Both a fascinating glimpse into the 1970s scene and a portrait of an ordinary gay man living in a homophobic society, Nighthawk...

A soldier, out on reconnaissance in the American Civil War, finds himself trapped - buried alive and alone under the rubble of a fallen wall - deep in enemy territory. Unable to move, he is overcome by a mad terror as he hallucinates and awaits his almost certain death. This potent short, based o...

In this favourite from the Children’s Film Foundation, a fresh-faced John Moulder Brown (Deep End) gives a sparkling performance as the schoolboy out to foil a pair of North London crooks with his crack spy unit – his classmates and kid sister. With its groovy 1960s soundtrack, Operation Thir...

Shot on location around Derbyshire, this atmospheric and entertaining ghost story - which sees the dispossessed spirit of a young plague victim making contact with modern kids - is one of the highlights of the latter days of the Children's Film Foundation. Past intrudes on present with increasing...

Tilda Swinton stars in a playful and ingenious cine-essay from art critic John Berger (Ways of Seeing) and author/filmmaker Timothy Neat.

By the end of the silent era around 300 films of Shakespeare’s work had been produced. This celebration from the BFI National Archive draws together a delightful selection of thrilling, iconic and humorous scenes from 24 titles (many unseen for decades), newly digitised and brought to life with...

Hailed as Britain's first black feature film, Pressure is a hard-hitting, honest document of the plight of disenchanted British-born black youths. Set in 1970s London, it tells the story of Tony, a bright school-leaver, son of West Indian immigrants, who finds himself torn between his parents' ch...

Chris Petit's cult classic is one of the most striking feature debuts in British cinema – a haunting blend of edgy mystery story and existential road movie, crammed with eerie evocations of English landscape and weather.

What drives people to have sex with complete strangers? That's the subject of this bold and insightful film, based on interviews with five men and women who describe the chance encounters that led to impulsive sex. Director Clio Barnard uses performers to lip-sync their recorded confessions, merg...

A private detective (Fairport Convention musician Dave Swarbrick) investigates the case of a young woman held captive by her drug-addict mother. This is just one of many witty, imaginative reframings of the Brothers Grimm fairytale in this beguiling feminist film. The wildly diverse episodes show...

Harrowing drama based on the true story of a murder and suicide that took place on the Luxton family farm in Devon in the 1970s. Sensitively handled by director Bob Bentley and superbly edited by the acclaimed David Gladwell, Recluse stars Maurice Denham and boasts fine naturalistic perfomances f...

Comic thriller influenced by the French New Wave which, with its unorthodox narrative about a woman's confession of murder, deconstructs the conventions of the thriller genre. Directed by Christopher Monger (Voice Over), who would go on to have a successful Hollywood career, Repeater was produced...

The idyllic, rural past of a Suffolk village comes to life through the memories of an old man who tends a country graveyard, in this extraordinary, film directed by David Gladwell. Although best known for his celebrated work as editor on Lindsay Anderson’s If…. and O Lucky Man!, Gladwell has,...

Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s visually accomplished and intellectually rigorous Riddles of the Sphinx is one of the most important avant-garde films to have emerged from Britain during the 1970s. The second collaboration between Mulvey and Wollen, both of whom are recognised as seminal figures ...

Robinson in Space again finds Patrick Keller pushing the limits of British cinema to fascinating degrees with a rewarding and unparalleled pay-off. Robinson and his unseen companion, a narrator voiced by Paul Scofield, have been commissioned to investigate the 'problem' of England.

Newly released from prison, Robinson has been haunting the Oxfordshire countryside with a cine camera. Film cans and a notebook are later discovered. Shot during the 2008 financial crisis, this film-essay is a fictional account of a real project.

Simon Pummell's (Bodysong) visually ravishing sci-fi thriller exploring the future of virtual reality and the desire to transcend human limits. The theft of an experimental drug to suppress the immune system reveals a case of virtual reality addiction and forces a detective to confront his night...

Kay moves into a new flat and finds herself unexpectedly intrigued by the open sexuality of the lipstick lesbian couple next door. Surprised and turned on by the intensity of her feelings, she sets out to change her desire into reality. An erotic tale of voyeurism, power dressing and fantasy, cla...

Sammy dreams of becoming a super athlete, despite his puny build. When his lucky training t-shirt is thrown into a scientist's lab it becomes imbued with 'super strength' power. When Sammy manages to recover the t-shirt he uses his new-found strength to out-run baddies and bullies alike.

1963: When Larry Winters violently murders a Soho barman in cold blood he is sentenced to life imprisonment. Within ten years he is addicted to prescription drugs and feared as Scotland's most violent inmate.

Bombay, 1962: Sera Kotwal (Souad Faress) gives birth to Brit (Firdaus Kanga), a boy whose bones are so brittle that he can just hiccup and break a rib. Based on Kanga's acclaimed autobiographical novel, Trying to Grow, Sixth Happiness is the funny, acerbic and moving story of a young man's sexual...

Presented as found footage à la The Blair Witch Project, this chilling and provocative fake home movie presents the story of three dissidents and their plan to commit a revolutionary act on film. Will Knightley (father of Keira) plays one of the guerrillas who kidnap and torture a cabinet minister.