Noel Coward's classic tale of a passionate affair is all the more thrilling for being played out with British reserve of the tightest order. Laura (Johnson) encounters the handsome Dr Alec (Howard) in a train station tearoom after her weekly shopping trip.

Peter Ustinov stars as Agatha Christie's immortal detective, Hercule Poirot, in this star-studded murder-mystery. Poirot is tying up some loose ends on a shimmeringly beautiful Adriatic island when he's dragged into the case of an actress' strangling. In typical Christie style, everyone on the be...

After receiving an anonymous tip, a policeman ( Edward Woodward ) travels to the Scottish island of Summerisle to search for a missing girl. When he arrives, the Islanders, most of whom seem to be practising pagans, claim to have never seen or heard of the young girl. The mystery leads to our pro...

Affable bank worker Henry Holland plots to steal £1million from the Bank of England. He enlists the help of his friend, a small businessman, as the two scheme to smuggle the money out of the country. This light-hearted Ealing comedy sees Alec Guinness and Stan Holloway star as the charming pair o...

One of the greatest British films, Carol Reed's classic very consciously emphasises its time and place - post-war Vienna - yet its resonant themes around loss of innocence and a fall from grace render it timeless. Joseph Cotten plays the writer searching the Austrian capital for his missing frien...

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...

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...

Dennis Price plays Louis, a young man snubbed by his aristocratic family as a result of his mother's marriage. When she's killed, Louis becomes determined to inherit the family title, and won't let anything or anyone stop him. With an unforgettable performance by Alec Guinness as all eight remain...

When she meets a hip television director, a young woman is swept into the world of London's lavish sixties nightlife. However, her lust to belong to the scene doesn't even begin to quench her thirst for fun, as she drifts from clique to clique looking for an unattainable sense of belonging.

Despite Harold Pinter's fear that Joseph Losey would turn his play into 'a completely homosexual picture', The Servant stands as one of the great critiques of British social and sexual mores. As power relationships between the classes fuel a sexual subtext about dominance and submission which goe...

Menelik Shabazz’s pioneering first feature, shot around the communities of Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove, marked a coming of age for black British cinema. A love story that traces the emotional and political growth of a young black couple in Thatcher's London, it was the first British film to ...

Christmas 1183. An elderly King Henry the Second (Peter O'Toole) is torn over naming his successor. He wants the young Prince John (Nigel Terry), one of his three sons, to take over, however, his wife Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katherine Hepburn) wants another of his sons, Prince Richard the Lio...

A young scientist invents an unbreakable fabric that dispels dirt. Soon, he finds himself being hunted by both textile moguls and trade unionists, both determined to keep his invention from reaching the public. Alec Guinness shines in this inspired Ealing comedy, one of the most cherished entries...

A rich and challenging account of the experiences of a German Jewish musician who settled in Britain to escape Nazi persecution. Two of his friends are being sued by a former SS Kommandant, who denies their accusation that he was responsible for the genocide of 300 Belgians. Documentary interview...

Margaret Tait's tale of three generations of women in a Scottish family swirls out through a series of interlinking stories and recollections, taking place in Edinburgh and the Orkney Islands. Drawn to the sea, it appears that the grandmother and mother both drowned accidentally, and their unfold...

Pat Murphy and John Davis' experimental film attempts to posit an alternative, feminist perspective on the Troubles and Irish nationalism. Flitting between the various pasts and present, it follows the experiences of the titular character as she grows up under the spectre of sectarianism, leaves...

Shiv, an enterprising Indian immigrant, navigates industrial Birmingham in an attempt to set up a business manufacturing plastic toys and trinkets. He negotiates the tricky differences between the expectations of his Indian community and the ambitions of his private life, switching picket lines ...

Three teenagers forge a firm friendship while living in a children's home on the remote Northumbrian coast. Linked by a mutual sexual bond, they are involved in a terrible, life-changing incident that forever ties them together. Based on some of writer Danny Padmore's childhood experiences, Speak...

The flagship of the GPO Film Unit's output and a cornerstone of British documentary. Harry Watt and Basil Wright's study of the down postal express stands as a beacon for John Grierson's original purpose for documentary - to make the working man the hero of the screen. A truly collaborative effor...

The men disaffected by the turbulence of the 1980s place themselves at the forefront of black liberation, embodying their authoritative traditional gender roles to dictate a vision for the future. Feminist Maggie Baptiste and her friend Gary (Chance), a gay black man, are youthful advocates who r...

Set in a world before Elvis, a Liverpool before the Beatles, Terence Davies' debut feature is a remarkable evocation of working-class family life in the 40s and 50s and a visionary exploration of memory. In a powerful succession of searing vignettes, Davies paints an autobiographical picture of a...