Best Films - British films - Drama

British cinema: Drama (Page 1 of 7)

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...]

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Stanley Kubrick

Millions of years ago, a tribe of herbivorous apelike hominids discover a mysterious black monolith which immediately exerts a strange influence over them. They learn how to kill other animals, to fashion bones into weapons and to assert their control over the world around them. Cut to the year 2001 AD, and Dr Heywood Floyd arrives at an American base on the moon where a remarkable discovery has been made... [More...]

49th Parallel (1941)

Michael Powell

Early in WWII, a German U-boat surfaces off the east coast of Canada. Only six members if its crew survive when RCAF bombers destroy the submarine in a fierce raid. These six head for the 49th parallel, the unguarded frontier between Canada and the United States, hoping to seeking sanctuary in the latter country which has yet to enter the war... [More...]

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Richard Attenborough

September, 1944. D-Day has come and gone but the allied advance has slowed to a crawl owing to over-extended supply lines. Field Marshal Montgomery and General Paton are both confident that they can win the war with one more decisive push. U.S. President Eisenhower backs Montgomery’s plan – codenamed Operation Market Garden - to land 35,000 paratroops behind enemy lines to secure half a dozen bridges in Holland... [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 Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)

Anthony Asquith

One night, a convict escapes from Dartmoor prison and races across open countryside towards a remote farm cottage. Unaware of the trouble that is coming her way, the young woman inside this solitary building is putting her child to bed. The man enters the cottage and confronts the woman, who realises in an instant what is to be her fate... [More...]

A Dandy in Aspic (1968)

Anthony Mann

Eberlin, a British intelligence operative, is surprised when his superiors assign him to find and assassinate a troublesome KGB agent named Krasnevin. The truth is that Eberlin is himself Krasnevin, a double agent who has been in the employ of the Soviets for nearly twenty years. Partnered with a ruthless British agent named Gatiss, Eberlin is sent to West Berlin, where Krasnevin was apparently last sighted... [More...]

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Fred Zinnemann

England, 1527. King Henry VIII needs to divorce his barren wife Catherine of Aragon so that he can marry Anne Boleyn and ensure the Tudor succession. When Cardinal Wolsey fails to obtain an annulment from the Pope, Thomas More replaces him as Lord Chancellor, but he soon loses the King’s favour when his unwillingness to support the divorce becomes apparent... [More...]

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Michael Powell

During WWII, an RAF fighter pilot Peter Carter is returning to England after a raid over Germany when his plane is hit. Realising his has no parachute, he sends one last radio message, which is received by a young American radio operator, June, before bailing out to certain death. Miraculously, he survives and wakes up to find himself on a beach in the south of England, where he meets June and falls in love with her... [More...]

A Night to Remember (1958)

Roy Ward Baker

On 10th April 1912, RMS Titanic leaves the port of Southampton, England on her maiden voyage. At 883 feet in length, she is the largest ship ever to have been built, and is reputed to be unsinkable. The first class accommodation is palatial, whilst those who travel steerage class have to content themselves with bunks in cramped cabins... [More...]

A Passage to India (1984)

David Lean

In the 1920s, Adela Quested makes the journey from England to India, where she intends to marry her fiancé, Ronny Heaslop, the magistrate of a provincial town named Chandrapore. She is accompanied by Heaslop’s elderly mother, Mrs Moore, who, having barely set foot in the country, becomes disgusted by the way in which the local population suffer under British colonialism... [More...]

A Tale of Two Cities (1958)

Ralph Thomas

In 1775, the banker Jarvis Lorry travels to Paris to be reunited with his old friend, Dr Alexandre Manette, who has been held prisoner in the Bastille for the last eighteen years. Dr Manette is revived from his near-catatonic state when he sets eyes on his daughter Lucie and the pair leave for England to start a new life together... [More...]

A Town Like Alice (1956)

Jack Lee

In 1942, Jean Paget is working in Malaya when the Japanese army begins to attack the country. In no time, she ends up with a party of women and children who are instructed to walk fifty miles to Kuala Lumpur, where they will be allowed to leave the country for Singapore. Before they reach their destination, the party is halted by more Japanese soldiers and sent in another direction... [More...]

The African Queen (1951)

John Huston

In 1914, Rose Sayer assists her brother, the Reverend Samuel Sayer, in leading a missionary village in German East Africa. Their supplies are brought to them by Canadian Charlie Allnut on his steam-driven barge, The African Queen. The Sayers disregard Charlie’s advice to leave the village now that Germany is at war with England and decide to stay on... [More...]

Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)

Charles Jarrott

England, 1525. King Henry VIII is anxious to produce a male heir to secure the Tudor lineage but his queen, Katherine of Aragon, has passed child-bearing age and has borne him only a daughter and dead sons. Anne, the 18-year-old daughter of the courtier Sir Thomas Boleyn, makes such an impression on Henry that he resolves to make her his mistress... [More...]

Battle of Britain (1969)

Guy Hamilton

In the spring of 1940, British fighter pilots are waging a losing battle against the Nazis in continental Europe. Seeing that the fall of France to Germany is inevitable, Air Chief Marshal Dowding advises the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to withdraw all RAF fighters and prepare for a German attack on mainland Britain... [More...]

The Battle of the River Plate (1956)

Michael Powell

November 1939. When his freighter, The Africa Shell, is sunk by the German pocket battleship Graf Spee, Captain Dove finds himself a prisoner of Captain Langsdorff. Despite the humiliation of his situation, Dove is impressed by Langsdorff’s courtesy and professionalism, and shows him the respect due to a fellow naval officer, albeit one on the opposing side... [More...]

Becket (1964)

Peter Glenville

In 12th Century England, the young King Henry II is more preoccupied with the hedonistic pursuits of youth than with matters of state, and in this he is aided and abetted by his good friend Thomas Becket. But Henry gets a rude awakening when he learns that the royal coffers are running low. He must find new sources of revenue if he is to hold the country together and prevent the native Saxons from turning on the Norman monarchy... [More...]

Black Narcissus (1947)

Michael Powell

At the invitation of General Toda Rai, Sister Clodagh leads a group of Anglican nuns to a remote part of India to start a convent. High in the mountains of the Himalayas, the nuns convert an old palace into a school and hospital for the local people. Although their arrival is initially greeted with mistrust by the natives, the nuns soon find themselves fully occupied... [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...]

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