When Esse (Nicolas Duvauchelle, in his debut feature role) a young apprentice baker, loses his job, he is drawn in to a dark underworld of gangs and petty crime. Zonca delivers a raw and gripping portrait of life on the margins of society, as a boy on the verge of adulthood is pulled in by the t...

The sole directorial credit by the German-born founder of distributor Artificial Eye, Andi Engel, is a cerebral thriller about an art critic drawn into an assassination plot. Jeroen Krabbe plays the German ex-pat who reconnects with his radical past when he’s asked to assist with the hit of a C...

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...

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...

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...

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.

Much criticised at the time of its release, Michael Powell’s psychological study of a shy camera technician who films for his home movies the death throes of the women he kills is now widely regarded as a dark classic. Less a straightforward serial-killer thriller than a Freudian meditation on ...

Obeying the first rule – 'write what you know' - former youth worker turned filmmaker Henry Blake turns in an original, stylish debut feature which premiered at the 2019 BFI London Film Festival.

It exposes the urban-to-rural drugs system of the title, a network which exploits children to use as...

Irreversible is perhaps one of the cruelest films ever made. Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) set off on a blind rage of revenge after the former’s girlfriend Alex (Monica Bellucci) is raped. The twist is that their revenge spools out in reverse. Noé structured his notorious s...

In Huntleigh prison, a group of cell mates (Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins and David Lodge) plan the perfect burglary. By escaping the day before their release, then breaking back in again, they will have the perfect alibi when they rob a maharajah's palace of its diamonds - they will seemingly ...

When London gangster “Pearly” Gates (Peter Sellers) discovers he has been swindled by a group of criminals impersonating police officers, he teams up with a detective to entrap them. Throw in a rival gang, a double-crossing girlfriend and much identity confusion, and you have a delightfully a...

It is 1912, and the shadow of war looms over a wealthy family. As they celebrate their eldest daughter's engagement in their lavish Yorkshire manor, they're interrupted by an ominous police detective who is investigating a young woman's suicide, and what role each of them played in her death.

Basil Dearden directs this classic cop thriller which gave rise to long-running TV drama Dixon of Dock Green and influenced a swathe of British crime dramas. Jack Warner is PS George Dixon, the steadfast bobby approaching retirement, who has to contend with a new breed of criminal in the form of ...

The British New Wave came a decade earlier than advertised with Robert Hamer's downbeat postwar thriller. In a dank East End of ration-book misery, dosshouses and black marketeering, a world-weary housewife is shaken by the sudden reappearance of an old lover, now an escaped convict on the run. R...

Hard-bitten Flying Squad officer Jack Regan gets embroiled in a deadly political plot when an old friend asks him to investigate the death of his girlfriend. Framed on a drunk-drive charge and suspended from the force, with his partner and best mate George Carter unable to help, Jack must rely on...

In this delightful fantasy adventure a mild-mannered newspaper columnist (Richard Hearne) finds himself presented with an intriguing proposition from an elderly fan (Margaret Rutherford). She suggests that they conspire to steal a secret whiskey formula from ruthless distillers who themselves sto...

This film is a blunt, brash and blood-smeared revenge tale of two sex workers who decide to go on a killing spree through France. Co-directed by French feminist provocateur Despentes, and based on her book, Baise-moi does not care for cinematic slickness, instead using handheld visuals and raw la...