Joanna Scanlan earned her Bafta for leading actress for playing Mary Hussain, a Dover housewife who’s newly widowed and now baffled by the discovery of her late husband’s secret connection across the Channel, in Calais. Armed with just a bag and his mobile phone, she sets off to uncover the truth...

Richard Attenborough is unforgettable as ‘Pinkie’, the brutal gangster who seduces and grooms a simple waitress, Rose (Carol Marsh) in the belief that she could incriminate him in a murder.

One of the greatest British films, Carol Reed's classic very consciously emphasises its time and place - post-war Vienna - yet its resonant themes around loss of innocence and a fall from grace render it timeless. Joseph Cotten plays the writer searching the Austrian capital for his missing frien...

The eldest daughter of a bullish shoemaker decides to set up a rival business with her father's best boot-hand, whom she also intends to marry. Charles Laughton and John Mills play off each other brilliantly as the bullish shop owner and gentle but confident boot-hand in this clever romantic come...

Dennis Price plays Louis, a young man snubbed by his aristocratic family as a result of his mother's marriage. When she's killed, Louis becomes determined to inherit the family title, and won't let anything or anyone stop him. With an unforgettable performance by Alec Guinness as all eight remain...

Despite Harold Pinter's fear that Joseph Losey would turn his play into 'a completely homosexual picture', The Servant stands as one of the great critiques of British social and sexual mores. As power relationships between the classes fuel a sexual subtext about dominance and submission which goe...

"The longest unsponsored advertisement ever to reach cinema screens", reckoned producer Monja Danischewski. Maybe so, but Alexander Mackendrick's debut feature is much more than that. This comic account of a real-life event pitches a priggish English army captain against the remorseless guile of ...

In the middle of World War II Cavalcanti provocatively imagined a postwar England in which the failure of the threatened German invasion could be safely seen in flashback, thanks to the resourceful villagers of Bramley End. Once the ostensibly British troops in their village are revealed as Nazis...

A young scientist invents an unbreakable fabric that dispels dirt. Soon, he finds himself being hunted by both textile moguls and trade unionists, both determined to keep his invention from reaching the public. Alec Guinness shines in this inspired Ealing comedy, one of the most cherished entries...

Asked by director David Lean to write a script about the development of new high speed jet aircraft, esteemed playwright Terence Rattigan (The Browning Version) was reluctant. But a visit to Farnborough Air Display and meeting test pilots fired his imagination. The result, about the troubled rela...

Peter Ustinov stars as Agatha Christie's immortal detective, Hercule Poirot, in this star-studded murder-mystery. Poirot is tying up some loose ends on a shimmeringly beautiful Adriatic island when he's dragged into the case of an actress' strangling. In typical Christie style, everyone on the be...

Christmas 1183. An elderly King Henry the Second (Peter O'Toole) is torn over naming his successor. He wants the young Prince John (Nigel Terry), one of his three sons, to take over, however, his wife Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katherine Hepburn) wants another of his sons, Prince Richard the Lio...

After receiving an anonymous tip, a policeman ( Edward Woodward ) travels to the Scottish island of Summerisle to search for a missing girl. When he arrives, the Islanders, most of whom seem to be practising pagans, claim to have never seen or heard of the young girl. The mystery leads to our pro...

Captain Anson (John Mills), a fledgeling alcoholic, and Tom Pugh (Harry Andrews) are ordered to escort two nurses across the North African desert. Encountering German troops, treacherous terrain, as well as an enigmatic man, Ice Cold in Alex is a British war film packed with adventure.

It is 1912, and the shadow of war looms over a wealthy family. As they celebrate their eldest daughter's engagement in their lavish Yorkshire manor, they're interrupted by an ominous police detective who is investigating a young woman's suicide, and what role each of them played in her death.

Affable bank worker Henry Holland plots to steal £1million from the Bank of England. He enlists the help of his friend, a small businessman, as the two scheme to smuggle the money out of the country. This light-hearted Ealing comedy sees Alec Guinness and Stan Holloway star as the charming pair o...

With a colonel constantly causing annoyance, a bumbling nurse, a budding romance between a patient and nurse, and a man obsessed with having his bunion removed, Haven Hospital's new Matron (Hattie Jacques) has a lot of hard work ahead. As she goes on ruling with an iron fist, Oliver Reckitt (Kenn...