Sure, 'if....', 'Kes', 'Look Back In Anger' and 'Brief Encounter' (and yes, 'Trainspotting') are all great movies, but I think that this is probably the best of all. There isn't a false note in performance, story, script or characterisation throughout the entire film. It's funny, moving and very powerful, the very best of its kind. 'Loneliness' is also a tremendously underrated film. It rarely features in 'Best Movies' lists, but it certainly deserves to.
shareHmm, better than Kind Hearts and Coronets? I have some inclination to agree, but many would not.
Anyway, this thread is 6-1/2 years long, had to keep it going ...
Edward
**** This contains spoilers ****
If people regard this as Britain's best film then I can only assume they have seen few British films or have a very poor opinion of the works of Hitchcock, Lean, Powell and Pressburger (and the list could go on).
I would agree that it's one of the better of a bunch of films made about this time that attempted to highlight the monotonous drudgery of the working classes (whether the working classes actually shared this view is another debate). Although I did enjoy the film, for me it was never going to be a classic, because the storyline is flawed, not something I can blame the film for, as it remains loyal to the original book - but for me, a classic film must at least be a good story well portrayed - and it fails at the first hurdle. A rebellious hero? Nope, a shiftless, unlikeable, petty criminal doing some juvenille time, given an opportunity to excel at something he has a natural aptitude for, and decides to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It wasn't only the 'establishment' he was letting down, it was quite clear in the film that his peers, the fellow borstal inmates, were also willing him to cross the line in 1st place. I've never been happy with this ending, as it leaves us with the inescapable conclusion that our 'hero' is going to return to his life of drudgery and crime, having 'cut off his own nose to spite himself'. Don't get me wrong, I don't insist that all my favourite films must have happy endings - but this ending just leaves me shaking my head in disbelief as the character surrenders the only window of opportunity open to him - makes you wonder if 'his' story was worth the telling in the first place.
It was pretty good indeed, but even without getting in this "Best british film" nonsense, I will say that, on a similar topic, "A Clockwork Orange" was in my opinion a vastly superior film.
shareWhat is the criteria for being a "British film"? I mean a film where all the main participants are brits and the filming was in the UK about Brits? I ask this because Lawrence of Arabia is a British film though it obviously never could have been filmed in the UK and the producer is from Austria but the director, lead character and screen writers are all British. It is in the general sense a British film. LOA is the best film ever made.
Using the most rigorous requirements of a film that was made and filmed in the UK about Brits i would say this film is top 10. There were a couple of dozen truly great British films made in the 1930s alone so we have to be careful in saying that this is the greatest of all of them but it is without a doubt a great film.
What definition are we using for a British film? Lawrence of Arabia was the best film ever made and it is in a general sense a British film but it is about Arabs and Arabia. Does a filming have to be in the UK about British people exclusively?
This list uses the most general definition and lists this film as only 61st.
http://www.epinions.com/content_4564361348
I've seen all these films and for me 'Get Carter' is the best of British.
share10 years after your comment.... I TOTALLY AGREE with you! :)
Life is a journey not a destination. Fear nothing.
How does "Goodbye mr Chips" fit among the finest British films. A very very English film and Donat won the 1939 oscar despite incredible competition. Most particularly Clark Gable in "Gone with the wind".
I would rate many British made film higher such as Green for Danger, This Sporting Life, The Lady Vanishes, The Entertainer, The 39 Steps, Billy Liar, Cast a Dark Shadow, Séance on a Wet Afternoon, etc.
shareI don't know about best, but it is one of the most real.
What we got here is... failure to communicate! share
Yes...nothing else comes close. Incredibly powerful, yet subtle. It's a legend.
sharethis movies is like watching paint dry...it is unrelentingly, monotonously, boring.
occasionally, this is a break in the lack of action, when something dull happens.
if you watched it with the fast-forward button held down, you might be able to say it moves at a glacial pace....
I hate that self-important mediocrity "Trainspotting." It's not even remotely near the top 100 of best "British" films. Nothing worse than a disgusting, low-life, degenerate piece of left-wing propaganda that is sold as a "hip" and "funny" film for all the suckers to lap up and where even the "poor" characters wear Doc Martens fashion boots. lol Makes me want to puke just thinking about it.
Best British Films (Note: this means a predominantly British production even if the director is American or Italian or Polish as in the cases of Kubrick, Antonioni and Polanski; I also consider any film made where the lead actors are British and the film is set in England and based on English culture, more-or-less British, regardless of where it is made):
1) The Red Shoes
2) Black Narcissus
3) The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp
4) Women In Love
5) A Clockwork Orange
6) A Matter of Life & Death aka Stairway to Heaven
7) 39 Steps
8) The Lady Vanishes
9) The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
10) Gone To Earth
11) The Four Feathers (1939)
12) Repulsion
13) Zulu
14) The Browning Version
15) Tales of Hoffmann
16) Green For Danger
17) Blow Up
18) Barry Lyndon
19) Age of Consent
20) Cul-de-Sac
21) Darling
22) The Small Back Room
23) The Saint Goes to London (1939; George Sanders)
24) Hope & Glory
25) Excalibur
26) A Hard Day's Night
Nice list. Some that I like (never like to say best ever or such) The Third Man, Kes - in fact most Loach, Space Odessy 2001, most things by Peter Greenaway, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Great Expectations, Life of Brian, Get Carter, The Wicker Man, Local Hero.....So many to choose from.
shareYou have some massive omissions on that list.
First of all, The Third Man. At least two pr three David Lean movies and O Lucky Man!.