May 14, 2005
Top fifty British films?
"Perspective!" I scream before I show you the list. This is a list voted for by British customers of the shop HMV, and only 7,000 of them, so pinches of salt all round please. From The Independent, here are some highlights...no, in fact I just tried to go through the list and remove some entries and make it smaller, but everytime I went to take a couple out I saw one worth leaving in. So here's the whole list. Tell us what you think, what's your top three?
1. The Italian Job (1969, Peter Collinson)
2. Trainspotting (1995, Danny Boyle)
3. Bridget Jones' Diary (2001, Sharon Maguire)
4. Shaun of the Dead (2004, Edgar Wright)
5. Notting Hill (1999, Roger Michell)
6. Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998, Guy Ritchie) 7. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, Mike Newell)
8. Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979, Terry Jones)
9. Snatch (2000, Guy Ritchie)
10. The Full Monty (1997, Peter Cattaneo)
11. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
12. Withnail & I (1995, Bruce Robinson)
13. Love Actually (2003, Richard Curtis)
14. Zulu (1964, Cy Endfield)
15. The Great Escape (1963, John Sturges)
16. Get Carter (1971, Mike Hodges)
17. Monty Python & The Holy Grail (1975, Terry Gilliam/Terry Jones)
18. Layer Cake (2004, Matthew Vaughn)
19. The Wicker Man (1973, Robin Hardy)
20. The Ladykillers (1955, Alexander Mackendrick)
21. 28 Days Later (2002, Danny Boyle)
22. A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick)
23. The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)
24. The Long Good Friday (1980, John Mackenzie)
25. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, David Lean)
26. A Matter of Life and Death (1946, Powell/Pressburger)
27. Quadrophenia (1979, Franc Roddam)
28. Billy Elliot (2000, Stephen Daldry)
29. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949, Robert Hamer)
30. Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean)
31. Dog Soldiers (2002, Neil Marshall)
32. Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone (2001, Chris Columbus)
33. Shallow Grave (1994, Danny Boyle)
34. Chariots of Fire (1981, Hugh Hudson)
35. Kes (1969, Ken Loach)
36. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004, Beeban Kidron)
37. Gandhi (1982, Richard Attenborough)
38. The 39 Steps (1935, Alfred Hitchcock)
39. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
40. Oliver! (1968, Carol Reed)
41. Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939, Sam Wood)
42. Alfie (1966, Lewis Gilbert)
43. A Fish Called Wanda (1988, Charles Chrichton)
44. Bend It Like Beckham (2002, Gurinder Chadha)
45. Battle of Britain (1969, Guy Hamilton)
46. Doctor Zhivago (1965, David Lean)
47. Passport to Pimlico (1949, Henry Cornelius)
48. The Railway Children (1970, Lionel Jeffries)
49. A Bridge Too Far (1977, Richard Attenborough)
50. Sense & Sensibility (1995, Ang Lee)
Posted by at May 14, 2005 01:45 PM
Comments
Posted by: Matt at May 14, 2005 05:37 PM
1: Get Carter
2: Withnail and I
3: An American werewolf in London
btw. layer cake is no better than an average British cop drama and 28 days is so overrated it is beyond belief. Shaun of the dead number 4 in the chart??????? good film yes great film no
Posted by: pB at May 14, 2005 07:11 PM
1: Get Carter
2: Withnail and I
3: An American werewolf in London
btw. layer cake is no better than an average British cop drama and 28 days is so overrated it is beyond belief. Shaun of the dead number 4 in the chart??????? good film yes great film no
Posted by: pb at May 14, 2005 07:11 PM
Goodness, I have only seen 10 out of this 50 films? *shocked* I need to brush up on my British film viewing then.
Posted by: Simone at May 15, 2005 02:48 PM
Withnail and I is a really awful film. The film’s main ideas are that all middle class men are terrified of violence, working class men have a paranoid fear of homosexuals and alcoholics and druggies are fun to be with until they turn into serial killers. It has the most pathetic ending of any film I have ever seen. The guys in the house murder the landlord coinciding with the sixties coming to an end. Is that meant to be symbolic? Neil from the young ones would even yawn at that attempt at pathos! The film is very boring thing to watch. If you want to see a classic Brit film and stay awake, one with a really hard-hitting message, try Scum 1979.
Posted by: Bread head at October 29, 2005 08:45 PM
Since I have only seen 10 out of the 50, these 3 would top the list:
1. The Italian Job
2. Bridget Jones Diary
3. The Full Monty
Posted by: Simone at October 30, 2005 05:08 PM
How do you define "British Movie"? all the Bonds, Batmans, Star Wars, Aliens and Supermans were made in the UK (as well as countless others) though I believe the finance came from the US. Kubrick made his films in the UK too, and some of them made the list, yet 2001 didn't, is it not considered a great movie anymore? But for the record.
1)The Wicker man
2)Goldfinger
3)The Long Good Friday
Posted by: Jack Black at October 30, 2005 05:46 PM
Clearly this is a most popular British Films list, not a Best British Film List. (You only have to look at the films listed ahead of Lawrence Arabia to see that.)
In any case The Great Escape is not a British film, even though it is a British story as such. It was filmed in Germany by an American director and featured four famous American actors in addition to many British and German ones.
Posted by: Morbius at October 31, 2005 04:40 AM
1. Snatch
2. Trainspotting
3. A Clockwork Orange