Skip to main content

British Top Twenty

I started this post a few years ago and left it mouldering away until Empire Magazine's 100 Best British films turned up recently, which triggered my memory. I'm not about to claim 'best' but these are certainly my 20 favourite British films, and if any of you haven't seen them, I suggest you give yourself a quick rub down and do something about it.

So here they are from 20 to 1 (and except for the top 2, the order was mecha-difficult)....

20. Welcome to Sarajevo (Michael Winterbottom - 1997)

A real no-frills, even miserable, look at the war in the Balkans and the international journos who covered it. Typically earthy treatment from Winterbottom and Stannis Baratheon himself, Dillane.







19. Oliver! (Carol Reed - 1968)

Not massively into musicals but this is up with the best of them, with great performances from Ron Moody (left) as Fagin and Oliver Reed as Sykes. Top notch sing-alongs too - "In this life, one thing counts. In the bank, large amounts. I'm afraid these don't grow on trees. You've got to pick a pocket or two".







18. The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie - 1980)

"The mafia?! I shit 'em!" Hoskins looking almost as confused as in his other masterpiece performance, Mona Lisa, wondering what the fuck is going on and why. Until that fantastic final shot, where the penny drops.






17. Trainspotting (Danny Boyle - 1996)

Nothing more to be said really. One of the films that defined the 1990s. Hope the forthcoming sequel doesn't plop all over this.







16. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick -1971)

Hard to find a screening back in the day. I remember seeing it at a late show at the Lumiere in the old Perth Entertainment Centre (kids, ask your folks) and was suitably blown away.








15. The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo - 1997)

The most fun of a set of Thatcher-fucked, northern-England films made in the 90s, which also included Billy Elliot and Brassed Off (also very good).









14. Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle -1994)

A more concise narrative film than Boyle's career-maker to come and, I reckon, a slightly better film.









13. The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston -1975)

Ripping yarn. Connery and Caine didn't work together all that much, certainly not as a pair of leads, and that's one of the great shames of cinema.







12. Local Hero (Bill Forsyth - 1983)

 Sweet and unsentimental. You can imagine the kind of potion this would turn into if it were remade today. Like vomiting a cocktail of Red Bull and skittles.






11. The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean -1957) 

 Mint performances from Guiness and Holden and the pace picks up slowly to the storming finale. Bloody epic.








10. Get Carter (Mike Hodges - 1971)

Hard Caine. Cracking story with some great dialogue and a really grimy 70s feel to it. And one of the best anti-endings on film.










9. Educating Rita (Lewis Gilbert - 1983)

Softer Caine. Perhaps his best performance, though. A lovely double act with Julie Walters.











8. Casino Royale (Martin Campbell - 2006)

The best Bond film with perhaps the best bond. Chuck in Mads Mikkelsen (left) - 'scratching' Bond's netherlands with a massive rope - and the majestic Eva Green. Wipes the floor with Craig's later efforts.






7. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Tomas Alfredson - 2011)

A more subtle spy world than Bond's. Winners all round - Oldman, Firth, Strong, Cumberbatch, Hardy, Jones, Burke - from Le Carre's great writing and a 'foreign' director's eye. Just get a whiff of those walls.








6. Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh -1996)

Brenda Blethyn is irritatingly brilliant in this, my favourite Mike Leigh film. The scene (left) where she meets Marianne Jean-Baptiste's character for the first time is a peach. Timothy Spall nails it as well.







5. Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright - 2004)

Can't quite top Spaced for high comic art but this comes extremely close. Pegg and Frost are spot-on.








4. Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer - 2000)

As has been said many times before, from Gandhi to Don Logan!?! Kingsley is frighteningly watchable as an unhinged hard man trying to encourage Winstone to "do the job". Ace.







3. Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg - 1973)

One of the creepiest, saddest films I've had the pleasure of seeing. I think I once found the church Sutherland renovates in Venice. Also creepy.








2. Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson - 1987)

"Come on lads, let's get home, the sky's beginning to bruise. Night must fall and we shall be forced to camp". The way Uncle Monty says 'bruise' is one of about a thousand joys of this film.







1. The Third Man (Carol Reed - 1949)

As near to perfect as film can get. It merged the talents of Graham Greene, Carol Reed, Orson Welles, Robert Krasker and Anton Karas into a rare gem, never to be repeated.









Well, this was fun. I might have a crack at some other countries one day. But not 20. What the hell was I thinking?

Comments

  1. Anonymous9 October 2016 at 21:40

    Nice picks. Haven't seen 'em all...shame on me. Saw Clockwork Orange at Lumiere cinema also. (and Eraserhead...not on the same night though - think I was wearing a priests cassock to those late sessions. Creepy)
    Crappers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shady10 October 2016 at 20:50

      Hi Benjamin. Yeah, I suspect you may have come along with me, Shayne and Danny to one of those screenings. I miss that cinema...

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost Cat Anzu (Me & Kid)

Here's a nice surprise. I find Japanese anime to be hit and miss, and the first look at this boof-headed feline didn't promise too much, but Ghost Cat Anzu knocked the bails off. It riffs on the Ghibli theme of children being forced to grow up quicker than they should, with 11 year-old Karin (Noa Gotô) as our focus. Her dad's a bit of a scally and he does a runner while visiting his father at his temple home in a sleepy town, leaving Karin alone with kindly grandad and huge, anthropomorphic cat, Anzu, voiced by Mirai Moriyama. Karin wanders the town, waiting for dad to return and meeting various locals, while being casually monitored by Anzu. The pace is a little pedestrian but the shenanigans make up for this. Anzu is pulled over by the police and told he needs a license to ride a scooter, though he protests that he's not actually a human, so surely these rules don't apply. He works as a masseur but also takes a gig to scare birds away from the river, roping Karin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bird

This is such a fine film and going in blind might just be the best way to see it. It's not that it's a twisty, spoilery mystery, just that sometimes knowing nowt about a film is the best way to appreciate it. Zero expectations and all. So if you want the same groundwork that I had, read no more. . . . . Ok. If you're still reading, let's kick off. This is Andrea Arnold's sixth feature and I really have to see more of her work. It's set in the Kent town of Gravesend, and boy, is that a suitable name for this place. Not far from London, on the river Thames, seems like it's wall to wall chavs out there.  Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives with her dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), and half-brother, Hunter (Jason Buda) in a graffiti covered squat. Pissed off that Bug wants to get married to newish girlfriend, Kayleigh (Frankie Box), Bailey rebels and follows her brother and his mates on a small-time vigilante mission. Things get messy, she does a runner and ends up sleeping in...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Wolves Always Come at Night

My first taste of the Perth Festival schedule for the coming season was a 'hybrid' film called The Wolves Always Come at Night , directed by Gabrielle Brady. The term 'hybrid' really just seems to mean tweaking the traditional methods of documentary production, in this case, adding some clearly set-up shots and situations, but also, calling on the subjects to help in the writing process. This film is about a family of goat farmers in Mongolia whose difficult existence is made even harder by an unforeseen event that forces them to relocate to the city. The family are led by mother, Zaya Dashzeveg and father, Davaa Dagvasuren, and Brady made the film with their input in mind. She says; Our intention was that Davaa and Zaya have agency within the making of their own story. So, in working together as co-writers, we were able to shape the story together. They would share ideas for what could be filmed and I would translate this into the cinematic language for the film. It...
Post a Comment
Read more

Audrey

This Perth Fest entry is a very black comedy with a large splosh of Muriel's Wedding about it. Ronnie Lipsick (Jackie Van Beek) has high hopes for her daughter Audrey (Josephine Blazier) to succeed as an actress. Ronnie had some of her own fame years before in Australian TV and is now stage-mothering Audrey to within an inch of her life. But Audrey is a proper arsehole to everyone, including her sister with cerebral palsy, Norah (Hannah Diviney), and her romantically conflicted father, Cormack (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor), so when Audrey's melodramatic antics see her slide off the roof of the house and into a coma, the family have mixed feelings about the situation. Ronnie incongruously decides to pose as Audrey in order to be accepted onto the acting course she had her signed up for. Nobody seems to notice, Norah begins to be more accepted by Audrey's friends (and boyfriend), and Cormack turns his meekness around, reinvigorating his sex life with Ronnie. The family feel guilty...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Monk and the Gun

This Bhutanese comedy drama is part of the Perth Festival and it follows the country's attempts to move from a monarchy to a democracy in 2006. In the small town of Ura, a novice monk, Tashi (Tandin Wangchuk) is tasked with finding two guns for his Lama, played by real life monk Kelsang Choejay. He's not told why but he gets on with the job. At the same time, a 'fixer/tour guide' from Thimphu, Benji (Tandim Sonam) gets a gig driving a newly arrived American, Ronald (Harry Einhorn) around the country in search of a particularly valuable US Civil War rifle. You might be able to see where this is going... This is satire in deep cover. It might even be satire adjacent, such is its mildness. This is not a bad thing. At times I felt like I was experiencing an old Ealing comedy, or maybe a low-key Ken Loach. The government sends officers around the country to run a mock election to show people how to vote, and one of them, Tshering Yangden (Pema Zangmo Sherpa) wanders through...
Post a Comment
Read more

Timestalker

Here's an odd little number about reincarnation and love across the ages, or more to the point, dawning self-determination. Alice Lowe writes, directs and stars as Agnes, a woman besotted with Aneurin Barnard's Alex. Always. In many different time periods. We kick off in 1688, where Alex is about to be executed before Agnes steps (trips) in, and saves him. We zip forward to 1793, Alice this time bored of her pampered lifestyle in a manor house with pets, wigs and servants. Oh, and a disgustingly oafish Nick Frost for a hubby, George. But who's the stalker in time? Is it Agnes? She's the clear favourite. Or the object of her desires, Alex, who for the most part, isn't too keen on reciprocating? Is it the boorish George, who does physically stalk in one of the episodes. It may even refer to the peripheral figures of servant, friend & potential lover, Meg (Tanya Reynolds) or wily Scipio (Jacob Anderson - Grey Worm from Game of Thrones ). To be fair, it's hintin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Merchant Ivory

Here's the first of a few films I'm planning to catch at the British Film Festival so I'll attempt to keep the reviews relatively brief. This a documentary directed by Stephen Soucy about the legendary filmmaking team, Merchant Ivory Productions. The formidable ensemble consisted of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins. After meeting in 1961, Ivory and Merchant started a fruitful partnership, both professionally and romantically.  The film shows us their somewhat ramshackle early films, made in India, moving on to marginally more assured productions in the US, and finally to the English period dramas they became known for in the 80s and onwards. Together, they made over 40 films, some absolute gems among them. A Room with a View , Howard's End , and The Remains of the Day are probably their best, though you could throw in Heat and Dust , Maurice , and The Golden Bowl as very strong examples of their...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lee

Biopics are tough to get right. For every Lawrence of Arabia , there's a Diana , for every Raging Bull , there's an Ali . The film Lee shines some natural light of the life of renowned war photographer Lee Miller, played by Kate Winslet. She gives it full welly in this - physically and emotionally nude, with camouflage painted boobs, close-ups with no make-up, moles, wrinkles, rage and tears. It's very much the kind of 'brave' performance that the Academy loves to reward. The film starts with Miller crustily answering questions to a young man in 1977, and as she remembers things from her past, we head to flashback territory. It seems a fairly cack-handed framing device until we realise why it's happening. A modicum of research reveals that the film is a pretty accurate retelling of Miller's life - first her carefree bohemian days in pre-WW2 France (including her intro to future hubby, Roland Penrose, played by Alexander Skarsgård), then how she started with...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gladiator II

There's a lot to enjoy in this sequel to Sir Ridders' original from 2000. The film picks up about 16 years after the end of the first one, where we find Rome ruled by a pair of foppish twats, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). Tasked to expand the empire, General Acacias (Pedro Pascal) leads an attack on Numidia in North Africa, coming up against Paul Mescal's Verus.  Once this speccy set piece is over, now-widower Verus finds himself on route to the fighting stadia, where he catches the eye of Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a kind of antiquity Don King. Verus is driven by rage, hungry for revenge on those who killed his wife, but there seems to be more to his story. And those familiar with the original (or anyone who's read anything online about this film) will probably know what, but I'm not about to drop the cat bag. It's beautifully shot by lenser supremo, John Mathieson, especially one silvery sequence near the start where Deaths arrive on a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sand Land (Me) (Kids)

Popped down to Palace cinema in the city for a packed screening of Sand Land , part of the Japanese Film Festival Australia . Created by Akira Toriyama (of Dragon Ball fame), this started as a manga book series in 2000. It seems this film was made slightly before, or at the same time as a TV series covering similar ground. That ground being a Mad Max style wasteland where the water supply is controlled and sold by a rotund King (Chafûrin). An old, local sherriff, Rao (Kazuhiro Yamaji), suspects there's a source of water in the desert a few days drive away and so decides to investigate. Knowing he'll need help, he approaches the gang of demons who live nearby. The demons chosen to accompany Rao are the keen Beelzebub (Mutsumi Tamura) and the less enthused Thief (Chô). The trio head off but are soon beset by issues, including enormous sand snakes, marauding punks and the King's military units. As their vehicles tyres were punctured by said punks, Rao commandeers a tank, set...
Post a Comment
Read more