This film is part of Rentals

A Canterbury Tale
Powell and Pressburger's most personal film combines a Chaucer-inspired pilgrimage with a war-time celebration of English landscape and values to create a gem of British cinema.
War 1944 125 mins
Director: Michael Powell
Overview
Powell and Pressburger's most personal and unusual film remains one of the remarkable films in British cinema, delighting and surprising at every turn. Evoking Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the film charts the progress of a select band of modern pilgrims during World War Two – a land girl, an American officer and a British soldier.
With its glorification of the Kent countryside and attempts to define a spiritual - even pre-Christian -vision of English identity, the film can be seen as a very sophisticated form of war-time reassurance, presenting a beguiling moral alternative to the harsh material objectives of fascism.

Related
War

The Painted Bird The Painted Bird
Drama 2019 169 mins Director: Vaclav Marhoul
Based on Jerzy Kosiński’s 1965 novel and a long time in the making, Václav Marhoul’s extraordinary The Painted Bird finds a lone Jewish boy on a dark odyssey towards home during wartime.

Summerland Summerland
Drama 2019 100 mins Director: Jessica Swale
Gemma Arterton stars in acclaimed theatre director Jessica Swale’s moving Second World War drama, as a woman rediscovering her ability to love.

Kanarie Kanarie
Drama 2018 124 mins Director: Christiaan Olwagen
A Boy George-obsessed smalltown boy joins the South African Defence Force army choir, in this quirky Apartheid-era musical drama.

Casablanca Casablanca
Romance 1942 103 mins Director: Michael Curtiz
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman star in the eternal story of love, loss and redemption; the ultimate testament to the brilliance of Golden Age Hollywood.

Full Metal Jacket Full Metal Jacket
War 1987 117 mins Director: Stanley Kubrick
Recruits move from the brutal US Marine training bootcamp – into the nightmare of war.

Journey's End Journey's End
Drama 2017 108 mins Director: Saul Dibb
Sam Claflin, Paul Bettany and Asa Butterfield bring R C Sherriff’s acclaimed First World War play to the screen, in this new adaptation from director Saul Dibb.
John Oliver's BFI Player+ Playlist

The 39 Steps The 39 Steps
Thriller 1935 83 mins Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Sublime and suspenseful version of the popular John Buchan spy thriller from the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.

The Man Who Changed His Mind The Man Who Changed His Mind
Horror 1936 63 mins Director: Robert Stevenson
Boris Karloff stars as Dr. Laurence, a scientist who has devised a way to put one person’s mind into another’s body.

Things to Come Things to Come
Science Fiction 1936 97 mins Director: William Cameron Menzies
H.G. Wells' chilling vision of the future, which imagines the 20th Century as a near-endless war and struggle against tyranny, remains a key milestone in British science fiction.

The Lady Vanishes The Lady Vanishes
Thriller 1938 96 mins Director: Alfred Hitchcock
An old woman disappears mysteriously on a busy train in Hitchcock’s delightful classic.

Q Planes Q Planes
Comedy 1939 79 mins Director: Tim Whelan
Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier star in a spy drama about the disappearence of prototype military aircraft.

Oliver Twist Oliver Twist
Period drama 1948 116 mins Director: David Lean
Arguably the essential Dickens adaptation, David Lean’s evocative portrayal of Victorian London in sooty black and white features Alec Guinness as a memorably sinister Fagin.
Featuring Eric Portman

Millions Like Us Millions Like Us
War 1943 103 mins Director: Frank Launder
The finest example of British wartime fictional propaganda follows a group of women who take on factory work to support the war effort.
Directed by Michael Powell

Peeping Tom Peeping Tom
Drama 1960 101 mins Director: Michael Powell
Michael Powell’s dark, disturbing, once controversial tale of a shy camera technician who films women as he kills them is now rightly deemed a classic

Red Ensign Red Ensign
Drama 1934 69 mins Director: Michael Powell
Passionate shipbuilding tale from an on-the-up Michael Powell.

The Phantom Light The Phantom Light
Comedy 1935 72 mins Director: Michael Powell
Michael Powell’s gothic mystery of a haunted lighthouse where insanity thrives.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
War 1943 164 mins Director: Michael Powell
Powell and Pressburger’s masterpiece follows the rise and fall of a career soldier, from dashing and brave young officer in the Boer War to a pompous and old-fashioned Colonel by the time of World War Two.

The Boy Who Turned Yellow The Boy Who Turned Yellow
Children's 1972 54 mins Director: Michael Powell
A London schoolboy’s surprise transformation marks the final collaboration of great British director Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
New

Sisters with Transistors Sisters with Transistors
Documentary 2020 86 mins Director: Lisa Rovner
The remarkable untold story of electronic music’s female pioneers, who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to transform how we produce and listen to music today.

Henry Glassie: Field Work Henry Glassie: Field Work
Documentary 2019 105 mins Director: Pat Collins
Director Pat Collins’ sublime portrait of the renowned American folklorist and ethnologist, Henry Glassie, who has spent a half century documenting the artistic processes of traditional craftspeople.

A Common Crime [Un crimen común] A Common Crime [Un crimen común]
Drama 2020 96 mins Director: Francisco Márquez
There are echoes of Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman in this gripping tale of class divisions and ethical responsibility in contemporary Argentina.

Sequin in a Blue Room Sequin in a Blue Room
Drama 2019 80 mins Director: Samuel Van Grinsven
Sexual obsessions spiral dangerously out of control in this altogether different coming-of-age tale.

T11 Incomplete T11 Incomplete
Drama 2020 104 mins Director: Suzanne Guacci
Past mistakes haunt the present and threaten a new love affair between an older woman and her patient in this compelling melodrama.

Minari Minari
Drama 2020 116 mins Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Lee Isaac Chung's sweeping story of a Korean-American family in search of the American Dream, winner of two Sundance prizes and now nominated for six Academy Awards.