Time Out in London has compiled a list of the 100 Best British films. So that’s, what, like 1/3 of all British films then? Boom! Zing! I kid, I kid, cause I love. Actually, to the contrary, I was astonished at how many films on the list I was wildly unfamiliar with. I don’t want to cheat Time Out of their page views, so I will not reprint the list here, though I’ll give you a taste. Here’s the bottom ten:
100. In This World (2002)
99. The Railway Children (1970)
98. School for Scoundrels (1960)
97. 28 Days Later… (2002)
96. Theatre of Blood (1973)
95. London to Brighton (2006)
94. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
93. Zulu (1964)
92. Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)
91. Land and Freedom (1995)
And #1? Hold onto your butts… Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 Donald Sutherland/Julie Christie psychological thriller, Don’t Look Now. Bold.
The rankings are actually pretty out there and interesting – certainly not what you’d expect. For example, I probably would have bet money that The Bridge on the River Kwai would be either in the top ten or at least near it. Nope. #86. Whereas The Wicker Man is #28, just a few slots above Lawrence of Arabia. Even Witchfinger General significantly beats Kwai. Of course, Wicker Man and Witchfinder are both fantastic films, but one certainly doesn’t expect the Christopher Lee pagan classic to be in throwing distance of Lawrence of Arabia. Or for Lawrence of Arabia to not even be in the top 20.
Lest you think the people at Time Out are just trying to be wacky, I should note that the list was chosen by a panel of 150 individuals made up of filmmakers like Wes Anderson and Sam Mendes, actors, journalists and critics, producers, writers, various industry players, and the staff of Time Out, who each had to select ten films. And frankly, I think more interesting than the 100 films themselves is looking through what various people selected as their ten films. For instance:
Wes Anderson:
- 1. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell and Pressburger, 1943)
- 2. Oliver Twist (Lean, 1948)
- 3. Sabotage (Hitchcock, 1936)
- 4. The Fallen Idol (Reed, 1948)
- 5. The Hit (Frears, 1984)
- 6. The Queen of Spades (Dickinson, 1949)
- 7. A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971)
- 8. Walkabout (Roeg, 1971)
- 9. They Made Me a Fugitive (Calvalcanti, 1947)
- 10. Melody (Hussein, 1971)
Alfonso Cuarón:
- 1. The Big Swallow (Williamson, 1901)
- 2. The 39 Steps (Hitchcock, 1935)
- 3. Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960)
- 4. If… (Anderson, 1968)
- 5. Kes (Loach, 1969)
- 6. Don’t Look Now (Roeg, 1973)
- 7. Tommy (Russell, 1975)
- 8. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Jones, 1979)
- 9. Trainspotting (Boyle, 1996)
- 10. Red Road (Arnold, 2006)
- 1. Kes (Loach, 1969)
- 2. The Man Who Would Be King (Huston, 1975)
- 3. Queen of Hearts (Amiel, 1989)
- 4. Dance with a Stranger (Newell, 1985)
- 5. Four Weddings and a Funeral (Newell, 1994)
- 6. Don’t Look Now (Roeg, 1973)
- 7. Carry On Camping (Thomas, 1969)
- 8. The Arbor (Barnard, 2010)
- 9. Black Narcissus (Powell and Pressburger, 1947)
- 10. The Day of the Jackal (Zinneman, 1973)
- 1. Withnail and I (Robinson, 1987)
- 2. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Jones, 1979)
- 3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam and Jones, 1975)
- 4. The Third Man (Reed, 1949)
- 5. Trainspotting (Boyle, 1996)
- 6. 24 Hour Party People (Winterbottom, 2002)
- 7. Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean, 1957)
- 8. Gregory’s Girl (Forsyth, 1981)
- 9. Brazil (Gilliam, 1985)
- 10. Naked (Leigh, 1993)
11 comments
dead man’s shoes at 92?! that’s an easy top ten.
I will forever love Olivia Williams for having Carry On Camping right behind Don’t Look Now in her list.
Is Alien not considered a British Film? I was expecting it to make the list.
ALIEN was banked by Fox. So I’m guessing they view it as a movie that was shot in the UK and was directed by a Brit, but isn’t itself British. But that’s just my presumption.
On the other hand, she also puts the hacky Four Weddings and Funeral ahead of both of them.
Day of the Jackal is a great film. I find myself asking, is Olivia Williams doing anything tonight?
2001: A Space Odyssey at #57!!! One of the most influential Sci-Fi movies off all time should have easily been in the top 10.
Brazil was a British film? Are they aware the Gilliam, DeNiro, and Helmond are all American? What make a film “British” or “American” or anything?
Maybe The Shining should be a great British film? Eisenstien’s Russian epics (like Battleship Potempkin) could be considered German?
Oh, and Return of the Jedi was British (made mostly there with many British cast and crew). Sorry to sound bitchy about this. But there was no criteria laid out and no guidelines. –Return of the King could be the best South African film ever made- since Tolkein lived there as a kid and was bitten by a spider, an inspiration for a major part of RotK.
So I contacted Time Out to discover what the dillio was on what constitutes a “British” film, and this is what Tom Huddleston had to say:
“We left it up to the voters to determine for themselves what constituted ‘British’: Robbie Collin from the News of the World chose Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which made absolutely no sense to anyone but himself. I voted for Brazil myself, because although its American-funded and directed, its largely a British cast, it was made here and it just has a very British feel to it. Several of the films on the list were American-funded (2001 for instance), but were made here by British crews, so we think they count. I mean, you could make the same case for ‘Alien’ or even ‘Star Wars’, but nobody voted for those…”
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