This agreeably murky tale of court intrigue, corruption and sexual manipulation is a rare excursion for Ealing into historical drama. Peter Bull and Joan Greenwood are perfectly cast as the dissolute Prince George-Louis and his reluctant bride Sophie Dorothea. Shooting in colour for the first tim...
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...
Tackling issues of race, representation and identity, this collection celebrates the work of Black storytellers who have enriched our understanding of the Black British experience, including landmark features such as Horace Ové's Pressure (1975) and Menelik Shabazz's Burning an Illusion (1981).
A gripping apocalyptic thriller from the Boulting Brothers, the relevance of which remains undiminished today. Praised upon its release as 'the most intelligent film so far to touch upon one of the problems confronting an atomic age', it used some 70 locations around London and remains a vivid sn...
When a Hollywood movie company arrives, stars in tow, to make a picture, the village of St Mary Mead is delighted. However, when a local woman is murdered, and the poison seems to have been intended for a visiting movie star, local detective Inspector Craddock (Edward Fox) turns to his Auntie, Mi...
Agatha Christie put Britain on the map as the premiere destination for mystery solving thrillers. Here we see her work next to other marvellous interpretations of the genre, some dark and brooding, and others bordering the experimental. One thing is for sure, plenty of deception, and in some case...
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...
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...
Ultimately a collection of the unclassifiable, these original and ground-breaking cult classics exude pure style however obscure, offbeat or controversial.
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.
In post-war Britain following the detonation of an unexploded bomb the inhabitants of a London street discover riches and artefacts. These documents state that they are citizens of the medieval kingdom of Burgundy. When the government attempts to claim the fortune, the citizens of Burgundy declar...
The very best of classic British comedy, from Ealing studios to the raucous working-class revolt of Carry On. Celebrating side-splitting cinema, slapstick legends and the art of the expertly executed sight-gag.
Jack Clayton’s 1959 romantic drama tells the story of Joe (Laurence Harvey), a young and ambitious man who has just moved to Yorkshire to work for the Borough Treasurer’s Department. He instead becomes romantically involved with Alice (Simone Signoret in an Oscar-winning performance), and what en...
Carol Reed, fresh off the success of Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949), directs this crime thriller with James Mason and Claire Bloom in the lead roles. In post-war Berlin, Ivo Kern (Mason) is a man with a criminal past who participates in the accidental kidnapping of British citizen Su...
It wouldn’t just be the actors themselves making the transition from the boards of West End to the big screen. Armed with the collected works of playwrights known the world over - from William Shakespeare to Joe Orton - Britain’s rich theatrical history was ripe for cinematic inspiration. Bringin...
With his reign coming to an end, a dying Henry VIII looks back on his life and the six marriages that would go on to define him. The film looks back with the King, following his life from his marriage to a Spanish princess to the foundation of Protestantism, to the beheadings and divorces that wo...
Legendary director Werner Herzog plays up to his intrepid documentarian persona, cultivated in films like Grizzly Man, in this hilarious mockumentary about a film crew travelling to Scotland to try and find the elusive Loch Ness Monster. Pitched somewhere between Waiting for Guffman and The Blair...
Explore this gripping selection of films packed with paranoia and conspiracy, with inescapably brilliant performances from some of Britain’s best loved stars, come and traverse the underside of British cinema.
Forceful and deeply moving mining drama that provided the legendary American singer/actor Paul Robeson with what was undoubtedly his best British film role. An unemployed ship’s stoker (Robeson) arrives in a small Welsh mining village looking for work and wins the hearts of the local community ...
