Before she hit the big time with Bend it Like Beckham, Gurinder Chadha made this fascinating documentary on what it meant to be a young British Asian in the 1980s. The young people interviewed are from across the UK; the common thread is that they see it as home, but their differing views about w...

Richard Attenborough is unforgettable as ‘Pinkie’, the brutal gangster who seduces and grooms a simple waitress, Rose (Carol Marsh) in the belief that she could incriminate him in a murder.

The bomb-torn streets of postwar London are the stage for a ripping boys'-own adventure in this buoyant classic, the first of the great 'Ealing comedies'. When schoolboy dreamer Joe discovers that robbers are planning their crimes using secret codes in a children's comic, the police are unconvinc...

When it is announced that term is about to begin at St. Trinian's, townspeople board up their shops, and policemen panic, for St. Trinian's is a school like no other. Presided over by headmistress Miss Fritton, the unorthodox free expression she preaches leads to her students being uninhibited. W...

When a mistake at the Ministry of Education sends the girls of St. Swithin's to board with the boys of Nutbourne College, it causes mayhem for both headmasters. The two must, however, join forces, in order to conceal the mistake from parents and governors. The Happiest Days Of Your Life is a mast...

The opening film in Terence Davies' powerful Liverpool-set Trilogy introduces Robert Tucker as a withdrawn young boy, bullied at school and terrorised by a violent father. His strict Catholic upbringing hinders his sexual awakening and as a young man he's still living at home with his mother. A v...

The second instalment of Terence Davies' masterful Trilogy finds Robert Tucker in middle age, with the clash of religion and sexuality taking its toll. A depressed loner who takes the ferry across the Mersey to work as an office clerk, Robert is haunted by nightmares of his own death and tormente...

The anguished finale of the Terence Davies Trilogy opens with the death of Robert Tucker’s beloved mother, jumping forward in time to show an elderly Robert bedridden in hospital (an astonishing appearance by Steptoe and Son’s Wilfrid Brambell). Fragments of his past - a school nativity play, mal...

The second instalment of Bill Douglas’ revered Trilogy. Though life becomes ever harder for Jamie, so that he eventually ends up in a none-too-comforting children’s home, the bold, uncompromising assurance of Douglas’ very personal brand of realism ensures that the film effortlessly avoids the pi...

Set in 1945, the first part of Bill Douglas’ poetic and profoundly stirring autobiographical triptych revisits his impoverished childhood, living with his grandmother and half-brother in the Scottish mining village of Newcraighall.

Concluding his acclaimed Trilogy, Bill Douglas’ autobiographical film follows young Jamie as he leaves home to live with his paternal grandmother, only to be conscripted into the RAF. Ironically, military service in Egypt brings a sense of freedom and friendship unimaginable in his earlier years....

When four children try to raise money to replace a broken saw, their schemes take them on an unexpected journey through the capital. Beautifully photographed, The Salvage Gang by acclaimed director John Krish (I Think They Call Him John) is an affectionate tour of bomb-damaged London, featuring a...

When 11-year-old Terry runs away from home he only intends to put the wind up his parents. But a gang of older bullies, led by the tough Les, soon draw him into their daunting world of break-ins and stolen goods.

The friendship of a young white boy and a black girl reaches out across the generations in this uplifting mid-60s short, directed by South African-born actor and anti-Apartheid activist Lionel Ngakane. Against a background media narrative suggesting ever-worsening racial tensions, Jemima + Johnny...

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...

A rare chance to see an extremely elusive short; one of a handful of films directed by celebrated photographer David Bailey. This singular take on the mania of the swinging sixties - from one of its key protagonists - follows an ageing pop singer as he is hounded by mysterious assassins.
The re...

Luke (Steven Brandon), a young man with Down's syndrome who prizes his independence, is forced into a care home after the death of his mother. There he rails against the restrictions imposed on him, but his frustrations are allayed by his budding friendships with his care-worker Eve (Shana Swash)...

Italian director Lorenza Mazzetti borrowed techniques from the neorealist school to conjure this striking study of East End life, one of the original Free Cinema shorts. Following the ambling existence of two deaf-mute dock workers, Mazzetti crafts a poetic depiction of post-war London populated ...

When one of four teenage friends goes through a break-up, the gang decide the time is right for a Mediterranean holiday. Expecting the trip to be ripe for sexual escapades, the lads are sorely mistaken, and what instead results is them falling head-first into numerous crude and embarrassing antics.