Best Films - British films - Crime/Thriller

British cinema: Crime/Thriller (Page 1 of 2)

10 Rillington Place (1971)

Richard Fleischer

In 1948, Tim and Beryl Evans, a young married couple, move into a top floor flat at 10, Rillington Place, Ladbroke Grove, London. They have a one-year-old daughter and find it difficult to make ends meet, thanks to Tim’s illiteracy and learning difficulties. When Beryl discovers that she is pregnant with a second child, she decides to have an abortion... [More...]

The 39 Steps (1935)

Alfred Hitchcock

Not long after arriving in London, the Canadian Richard Hannay visits a music hall theatre to watch the star act, Mr Memory, a man who startles his audience with his infallible recollection of trivial facts. During the show, gunshots are fired. In the panic, Hannay leaves the theatre holding a woman he has never met before... [More...]

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Stanley Kubrick

Alex DeLarge is a Beethoven-loving juvenile delinquent who spends his evenings indulging in orgies of violence with his droogies. This involves beating up rival gangs, breaking into houses and generally having a good time before heading back to the Korova Milk Bar for some nourishing lactose-based refreshment... [More...]

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Charles Crichton

London gangster George Thomason has masterminded the perfect jewel robbery, which he is about to put into action with his henchman Ken Pile, an animal-lover with a crippling stutter, and a pair of Americans - Wanda Gerschwitz and Otto West. The latter pretend to be brother and sister but are in fact lovers who intend to double-cross George and Ken after the robbery... [More...]

Beat the Devil (1953)

John Huston

Billy Dannreuther and his wife Maria are on their way to make their fortune in Africa, but are held up in an Italian port whilst their steamboat undergoes some repair work. Here, they meet an eccentric English couple, Harry and Gwendolen Chelm, and a strange foursome led by a man named Peterson. It gradually becomes apparent that they all have one thing in common – to secure the rights to land that is reputed to be rich in uranium ore... [More...]

Blackmail (1929)

Alfred Hitchcock

Alice is unimpressed when her boyfriend Frank, a Scotland Yard detective, fails to keep their appointment one evening. After a slight quarrel, they decide not to go to the pictures together. Instead, Alice goes off with another man who has taken her fancy, a young painter named Mr Crewe. She allows her new beau to take her back to his apartment so that he can show her his latest artistic achievements... [More...]

Blind Terror (1971)

Richard Fleischer

Having lost her sight in a horse riding accident, a young woman named Sarah decides to spend a period of convalescence with her uncle, George Rexton, at his large country house. Whilst Sarah is out amusing herself with her boyfriend, Steve, a strange man enters the house and kills the entire Rexton household... [More...]

Brighton Rock (1947)

John Boulting

Beneath its quaint, tourist-friendly surface impression, Brighton of the 1930s is a squalid town where gangland crime is rampant. When the leader of his gang is killed, 17-year old Pinkie Brown takes revenge by murdering a journalist, Fred Hale. To cover his tracks, he has no option but to marry a naive young waitress, Rose, who mistakes his interest in her for love... [More...]

Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)

Otto Preminger

A few days after arriving in London, American Ann Lake leaves her four-year old daughter Bunny at a school for toddlers before rushing off to meet the removal men at her new apartment. That afternoon, Ann is unable to find Bunny at the school and discovers that not one teacher has seen her all day. Convinced that her daughter has been abducted, Ann immediately contacts the police, but her brother Stephen assures her that Bunny has come to no harm... [More...]

The Collector (1965)

William Wyler

Having won a fortune on the football pools, Freddie Clegg, a modest bank clerk, decides to buy a solitary house in the middle of the English countryside. It is the perfect location for him to pursue his hobby – catching butterflies. It is also the ideal setting for something else he has in mind... [More...]

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

Fred Zinnemann

Dissatisfied with President De Gaulle’s decision to grant independence to Algeria, a number of men in the French military form an underground organisation, the OAS, with the sole aim of assassinating the president. A first assassination attempt in August 1962 ends in failure. The target escapes unharmed and the would-be assassins are rounded up by the French police and executed... [More...]

Footsteps in the Fog (1955)

Arthur Lubin

London, in the early 1900s. When she discovers that her employer, Stephen Lowry, poisoned his wife, housemaid Lily Watkins soon turns the situation to her advantage. She blackmails Lowry into making her his housekeeper and dismissing the other servants, although her motive is not malice but love. She worships her master and dares to imagine that he might one day love her... [More...]

Frenzy (1972)

Alfred Hitchcock

In London a serial killer is at large. The victims are all young women who have been raped and strangled with a necktie. Meanwhile, former RAF man Richard Blaney is having difficulty fitting back into civilian life. Having lost his job as a pub barman, he looks up his ex-wife Brenda, who now runs a successful matrimonial agency, and vents his frustration on her... [More...]

Get Carter (1971)

Mike Hodges

London-based gangster Jack Carter returns to his home in Newcastle to attend the funeral of his brother, Frank. The official story is that Frank Carter died in a car accident whilst heavily intoxicated, but Jack soon begins to suspect that he was murdered. As he renews old acquaintances, Jack realises that someone was keen to have his brother put away... [More...]

The Good Die Young (1954)

Lewis Gilbert

Four men, all law abiding citizens, decide to rob a mail van. Mike is a retired boxer who is unable to find work after having had his hand amputated. Joe is an unemployed office clerk who needs money to return to the United States with his pregnant wife. Eddie is a US airman who has deserted after learning that his wife, a famous actress, has been having an affair with her director... [More...]

Green for Danger (1946)

Sidney Gilliat

August 1944. A postman injured in a V1 bombardment of southern England dies during an operation at a country hospital. No one takes seriously the suggestion that foul play is involved until a second murder is committed. Nurse Bates is stabbed to death shortly after dramatically announcing that she knows who killed the postman... [More...]

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

Terence Fisher

When Sir Charles Baskerville dies in mysterious circumstances one evening, his friend Dr Mortimer is convinced that he is the latest victim of an old family curse. Ever since Sir Hugo Baskerville murdered a young woman, some centuries ago, the Baskervilles have been haunted by a hound from Hell. Concerned that Sir Charles’ heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, is to be the hound’s next victim, Dr Mortimer consults the world famous detective Sherlock Holmes... [More...]

Hue and Cry (1947)

Charles Crichton

Joe Kirby, a 15 year-old lad living in London’s East End, has a passion for adventure stories. When he notices the similarity between a car parked in the street with one he has and seen in his favourite comic, he suspects foul play is afoot. He confides in Inspector Ford, but the latter puts this down to an overactive imagination and finds the boy a job in Covent Garden... [More...]

The Ipcress File (1965)

Sidney J. Furie

When a renowned physicist named Radcliffe mysteriously disappears, security operative Harry Palmer is taken off routine surveillance and assigned to a counterintelligence department headed by Major Dalby. Radcliffe’s unorthodox play-it-by-ear methods soon bring him into conflict with his superiors... [More...]

The Italian Job (1969)

Peter Collinson

Within hours of being released from prison, small-time mobster Charlie Croker is visited by the wife of a former associate, Roger Beckermann, who has recently been murdered by the Italian Mafia. Before he died, Beckermann had been planning an audacious robbery, the execution of which he now leaves to Charlie... [More...]

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