Cinema - British films - Romance/Drama

British cinema: Romance/Drama (Page 1 of 3)

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 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 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...]

The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936)

Alfred Zeisler

The life of the idle playboy millionaire does not agree with Ernest Bliss. Worried about his deteriorating health, he is persuaded to see a Harley Street consultant who advises him to give up his extravagant life style for one year and try to get by on less than five pounds a week. Ernest rises to the challenge and wagers £50,000 that he can give up his old life for one full year... [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...]

Brief Encounter (1945)

David Lean

Each Thursday, housewife Laura Jesson treats herself to a day in the nearby town of Milford, to do some shopping and watch a film at the cinema. Afterwards, she takes the train back to her comfortable suburban home where her husband and two children await her. It’s a drab life but Laura is not unhappy... [More...]

The Captive Heart (1946)

Basil Dearden

In August 1940, a German prisoner-of-war camp receives a fresh intake of captured British soldiers. These include Captain Hasek, a Czech soldier who, after escaping from a Nazi concentration camp, stole the uniform and papers from a dead British soldier named Captain Mitchell. The other soldiers grow suspicious of Hasek because of his ability to speak German fluently but the Czech wins them around and convinces them that if his true identity is discovered he will be executed by the Nazis... [More...]

Damage (1992)

Louis Malle

At a social engagement, a rising member of Parliament, Stephen Fleming, meets a mysterious but stunningly attractive art expert, Anna Barton. Immediately, Stephen becomes obsessed with an uncontrollable passion for the strange young woman, even after he has learnt that she is the girlfriend of his own son, Martyn... [More...]

The Edge of the World (1937)

Michael Powell

Two tourists holidaying in the Hebrides land on the deserted island of Hirta. Their guide Andrew Gray explains that until a decade ago there was a thriving community on the island. Encountering a gravestone with the name Peter Manson at the top of a sharp drop into the sea, Gray reveals that he was one of the islanders, once engaged to a girl named Ruth, Manson’s daughter... [More...]

The End of the Affair (1955)

Edward Dmytryk

During the darkest days of WWII, writer Maurice Bendrix is gathering material for a book on Britain’s civil servants. One of his subjects is Henry Miles, a senior government official whose wife Sarah holds an immediate fascination for Bendrix. Within no time, Sarah and Maurice are pursuing a passionate love affair... [More...]

Fanny by Gaslight (1944)

Anthony Asquith

In the 1880s, Fanny Hopwood returns to her home in London after spending ten years at a boarding school. Her reunion with her parents and sister is shortlived, however. Through an altercation with Lord Manderstoke, Fanny’s father is knocked down and killed by a horse-drawn carriage. It becomes public knowledge that the Hopwoods’ income derived from a brothel which they ran on their premises, and the disgrace that ensues drives Fanny’s mother into an early grave... [More...]

Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)

John Schlesinger

Rural England, in the early 1800s. Gabriel Oak, a humble sheep farmer in the county of Wessex, is in love with Bathsheba Everdene, a proud, independently minded young woman who lives with her aunt. After Bathsheba rejects his offer of marriage, Gabriel suffers a second blow when one of his sheepdogs drives his flock of sheep over the edge of a cliff... [More...]

Fire Down Below (1957)

Robert Parrish

After the Korean War, Tony and Felix earn a crust by smuggling tobacco and alcohol around the Caribbean on their tramp boat. One day, they agree to transport an illegal European immigrant, Irena, in return for an irresistible 1200 dollar fee. It isn’t long before both Tony and Felix are head over heels in love with Irena and their friendship turns to deadly rivalry..... [More...]

Frankenstein (1994)

Kenneth Branagh

In 1794, Captain Robert Walton is leading an expedition to the North Pole when his ship becomes trapped in the ice. As Walton and his crew attempt to free their craft, they are met by a stranger, who entreats them to help him. The stranger, Victor Frankenstein, recounts his tragic tale. Whilst studying anatomy at university, the young Frankenstein became interested in the creation of artificial life through electrical stimulation... [More...]

The Go-Between (1970)

Joseph Losey

In the long hot summer of 1900, 12-year-old Leo Colston spends his holiday as a guest of his school friend Marcus Maudsley at the latter’s sprawling Norfolk estate. Leo comes from a comparatively modest background and so he finds it hard to fit into the Maudsleys’ privileged way of life. When Marcus is struck down with measles, Leo begins to take an interest in his older sister, Marian, and is coerced into delivering secret letters between her and a local farmer, Ted Burgess... [More...]

Hell Below Zero (1954)

Mark Robson

On a trip to Cape Town to settle a few scores with a business partner, Duncan Craig meets and is bewitched by a young woman named Judie Nordhal. The latter is on her way to Antarctica, to look into the death of her father whom, she is convinced, was murdered. Duncan manages to wheedle his way onto Judie’s ship, by getting himself hired as First Mate, but is dismayed when he learns that the woman he loves is already engaged... [More...]

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

Michael Powell

London, 1943. Humiliated in a Home Guard training exercise by an impulsive young army officer, General Clive Wynne-Candy casts his mind back forty years to the time when he too was a dashing man of action. In 1902, just after serving in the Boer War, Clive Candy defies his superiors by going off to Germany to single-handedly deal with an agent who is spreading anti-British propaganda... [More...]

The Lodger (1927)

Alfred Hitchcock

A killer stalks the foggy streets of London. The victims are all young women with fair hair, on whose bodies there is a card signed: The Avenger. A police investigation is underway, but no one yet knows the identity of the mysterious killer. On the night of the seventh murder, Mr and Mrs Bunting take in a new lodger, a quiet young man who values his privacy... [More...]

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