British Cinema

Merchant Ivory’s landmark adaptation of E M Forster’s classic LGBTQ+ novel and a precursor to the James Ivory-scripted Call Me By Your Name, starring Hugh Grant, James Wilby and Rupert Graves.

Simmering tensions between locals and newcomers in a modern-day Cornish fishing village reach boiling point in this hugely acclaimed British independent film.

Derek Jarman’s unique biopic of the 17th century Italian artist Michelangelo da Caravaggio is a powerful meditation on sexuality, criminality and art.

On a Tuscan break a fortysomething woman finds herself drawn to the company of a group of partying teens, including a young Tom Hiddleston (in one of his earliest roles).

Derek Jacobi and Daniel Craig star as artist Francis Bacon and his muse George Dyer in John Maybury’s darkly exquisite biopic.

Clio Barnard's film about Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar mixes reconstruction, interviews (performed by actors) and scenes from the plays.

Hannah Murray (Game of Thrones) and Josh O'Connor (God's Own Country), star in this haunting mystery drama inspired by true events.

In this stylish, dark crime thriller, a policeman’s complex web of underworld relationships is threatened by an internal affairs investigator.

The Beatles’ freewheeling film debut remains the pinnacle of rock-n-roll cinema; still deliriously entertaining 50 years on.

The Queen's Silver Jubilee beats to the sounds of Funkadelic, Sylvester and the O'Jays in Isaac Julien’s feature debut.

Anna Friel and Michelle Williams star as two troubled girls whose tumultuous friendship takes many twists and turns.

An Iranian exile in London, who is haunted by his past, gets involved in the conflicts of a total stranger and has to see it through until the end, in this mesmerising slow-burn thriller.

A folk horror wrapped up in an archive film, set to a soundtrack by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp).

The inspiring journey towards freedom of Raghda and Amer, a couple brought together by the turmoil of the Syrian Civil War.

What if an immaculate conception took place in a South London household? Idris Elba stars in a subtle, thought-provoking and original family drama.

Celebratory yet reflective documentary charting the LGBTQ+ movement's momentous journey towards equality.

Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's legendary, independently produced speculative fiction, imagining the Nazi occupation of Britain.

Peter Greenaway became a director of international status with this witty, stylised, erotic country house murder mystery.

Peter Greenaway's epic first feature, constructed as an excerpt from an imagined, filmic directory listing everyone affected by VUE – the Violent Unknown Event

Following a fatal car crash involving a swan outside a zoo, twin-brother zoologists Oliver and Oswald become fascinated by the processes of decay.

The Terence Davies Trilogy reaches its astonishing climax as tortured Liverpool clerk Robert Tucker prepares to meet his maker.

The first part of Terence Davies' formidable Trilogy explores the effects of violence on a Liverpool schoolboy, told in a series of flashbacks.

Autobiography as art: the centrepiece of Terence Davies' devastating Liverpool-set Trilogy focuses on his fictional alter-ego in middle age.

Andrew Kötting's tragic tale of passion and survival, following the existence of two sisters amidst a landscape of rural hardship and a community consumed with superstition

Sean Lock is a criminal 'Smart Alek' in this apparently true story of a family holiday turned bloody nightmare.

23-year-old Eden is shown drawing and painting still lifes in her Pyrenean family home.

The first part of Bill Douglas’ poetic and profoundly stirring autobiographical trilogy, about an eight-year-old boy growing up in a Scottish mining village in 1945.

The second part of the revered Bill Douglas Trilogy follows Jamie as he ends up in a children’s home.

Concluding his acclaimed Trilogy, Bill Douglas’ autobiographical film follows young Jamie as he’s conscripted in the RAF and finally feels at home.

Mark Cousins’ dreamlike evocation of his home city discovers a capital of rich history and startling beauty.

Brilliantly mixing archive film and music, Liverpool-born director Terence Davies reflects with wit and wisdom on a times of change, for good or ill

The story of London told through a century of popular music and film archive treasures.

John Hurt stars in Richard Kwietniowski’s comedy of fame and obsession about an older man (Hurt) who becomes infatuated with a young Hollywood actor (Jason Priestley), and proceeds to track him down.

A schoolteacher juggles everyday life with nights spent cruising for Mr Right in this fascinating landmark in British gay cinema.

Ron Peck’s experimental follow up to the groundbreaking Nighthawks is both a making-of documentary and a deeply personal film memoir.

Carine Adler’s sexy and dark debut, starring Samantha Morton in her first major feature film role.

A lesbian couple arouse the interest of their new neighbour in this erotic tale of voyeurism, power dressing and fantasy.

A man with a history of gay-bashing enters a smoky bar and strikes up a conversation with a drag queen in this dark short.

Tilda Swinton stars in a playful and ingenious cine-essay on the art of storytelling, from art critic John Berger and filmmaker Timothy Neat.

Hailed as Britain's first black feature film, Pressure is a hard-hitting, honest document of the plight of disenchanted black youths in 1970s London.

Menelik Shabazz’s pioneering first feature traces the emotional and political growth of a young black couple in Thatcher’s London.

Ken Loach’s passionate war drama follows an idealistic young Liverpudlian (Ian Hart) who fights for the international brigade during the Spanish Civil War.

Before Gregory's Girl, Bill Forsyth mate this equally hilarious caper about a group of unemployed teenagers who hatch a plan to steal a job lot of stainless steel sinks.

The official British Palme d'Or entry at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, Symptoms is a sophisticated modern gothic horror film exploring the themes of sexual repression and psychosis.

Terence Davies' debut feature is a remarkable evocation of working-class family life in the 40s and 50s and a visionary exploration of memory.

An inventive and acclaimed British feature following the transformation of a teenager who agrees to portray her missing college friend in a highly detailed crime reconstruction.

Josh Appignanesi's art-world psycho-thriller blends reality and fiction to delirious effect, in its tale of an exhibition curator pursued by a mysterious figure.

A compelling tale about the struggle for personal freedom, starring Bruce Robinson (Withnail and I).

The Moon Over the Alley is a bizarre and compelling musical exploring the problems of multicultural Notting Hill residents in the early 1970s.

A fascinating record of 1960s suedehead youth culture which is largely improvised by a non-professional cast of teenagers from east London

An imaginative, experimental and playful look at myth, storytelling and female identity.

Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone are members of a criminal gang that tears itself apart after a heist goes wrong, in Antonia Bird’s stylish thriller.

The gentrification of London’s Brixton is examined in this probing and stylistically ambitious debut feature.

Sally El Hosaini's feature debut tells of the love and disenchantment of two British-Egyptian brothers. Gangs, drugs and sexuality come between them

In a remote part of Scotland, teenager Shell develops an intense relationship with her reclusive father.

A fun tale of hippies and rock and roll directed by the legendary Stanley Long and featuring cult British rock bands Juicy Lucy and Crazy Mabel.

Five strangers explore their fantasies over a period of five days in Stephen Dwoskin's remarkable experimental film.

An authentic historical drama about the visionary Gerrard Winstanley who led a group of impoverished 'Diggers' to assert their common rights.

A therapist helps traumatised refugees detained on a remote island where powerful natural and tribal rituals prevail, in this extraordinary mix of fact and fiction.

Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s visually accomplished and intellectually rigorous film is one of the most important avant-garde films of the 1970s.

In modern Liverpool, a couple meet and begin a transgressive, sexually charged affair set against a background of crime and encroaching danger.

Andrea Arnold’s highly acclaimed film, winner of top prizes at Cannes and the BFI London Film Festival, is a haunting drama about a woman confronting past demons.

Explicit and controversial drama. An ambitious working girl moves to London hoping to securing wealthier patrons, while her social worker friend fights to change antiquated prostitution laws.

From Utopian dreams to concrete realities; charting the challenging, funny, and sometimes tragic story of the British new town of Basildon, Essex.

Maxine Peake narrates this forthright polemic on the consequences of the 1980s Right-to-Buy scheme on the nation's affordable housing.

This fascinating and moving film by award-winning director Penny Woolcock is a lyrical portrait of Britain's coastline which features a score by British Sea Power.

Filmmaker Andrew Kötting and writer Iain Sinclair embark on a quest from Hastings to East London by pedalo.

Andrew Kötting returns with an emotionally affecting and politically resonant multi-genre adaptation of Hattie Naylor’s play.

Andrew Kötting undertakes a pilgrimage in honour of Edith Swan Neck, first wife of King Harold, in this eccentric odyssey in search of English identity.

Ashley Walters impresses in the hard-hitting Hackney drama that’s still one of the best of Britain’s black urban crime films.

Jane Linfoot's clinically constructed study of guilt, betrayal, responsibility concerns a comfortable family whose seemingly perfect lives are suddenly thrown into turmoil.

The idyllic, pastoral past of a Suffolk village is reborn through memory in this extraordinary, little-known film from director David Gladwell.

An unforgettable, compelling account of the production and subsequent restoration of a withheld film recording the liberation of Nazi concentration camps in 1945.

An ingenious gay homage to Brief Encounter.

A gay man awaits the results of an HIV test, drifting into moments of fantasy as he copes with his fears and memories.

Tilda Swinton narrates the extraordinary journey of Gertrude Bell, a singular woman who played a significant – often unrecognised – role in British imperial policy making in Iraq.

Delphinium is a stylized and lyrical coming-of-age portrait of Derek Jarman’s artistic, sexual, and political awakening in post-War England.

A gay man studying in New York develops a crush on his male roommate in this cute and breezy short.

A teen seeks meaning as an East Anglian summer and a violent outsider threaten to overwhelm.

Ron Peck tests the thin line between pornography and art with his amusing rumination on the difficulties of showing the naked male form.

The first in Patrick Keiller’s highly imaginative trilogy of films is a photographic trip through London, recounted by our unseen narrator.

Chris Petit's cult classic is one of the most striking feature debuts in British cinema – a haunting blend of edgy mystery story and existential road movie.