Working Class Heroes

Under the Skin

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

Melodrama
1997
83 mins
Carine Adler

The Ipcress File

The coolest spy of all – Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer – makes his brilliant big screen debut in this landmark British spy thriller.

Crime
Thriller
1965
108 mins
Sidney J. Furie

Prick Up Your Ears

A celebration of outrageous British playwright Joe Orton’s irreverent and charismatic talent, starring Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina.

Biopic
Historical drama
1987
110 mins
Stephen Frears

Second Coming

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

Drama
2015
105 mins
debbie tucker green

Red Road

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.

Thriller
2006
110 mins
Andrea Arnold

The Arbor

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

Biopic
2010
90 mins
Clio Barnard

Bassam Tariq’s visceral directorial debut, co-written with Riz Ahmed, finds a British-Pakistani rapper’s life spiralling out of control when, on the cusp of success, he succumbs to a debilitating illness.

Drama
2020
89 mins
Bassam Tariq

This Sporting Life

Lindsay Anderson’s fantastic first feature masterfully dissects the brutal life struggles of a rough-edged rugby footballer on and off the field.

Sport
1963
129 mins
Lindsay Anderson

Electricity

Agyness Deyn stars in a powerful story seen through the eyes of a young woman whose epilepsy brings extraordinary hallucinations.

Drama
2014
96 mins
Bryn Higgins

Better Things

Duane Hopkins’ stunning debut tells a sombre story with startling beauty, as it follows the stories of various addicts in a West Midlands town.

Drama
2009
90 mins
Duane Hopkins

Bypass

Duane Hopkins’ follow up to Better Things is a striking, poetic drama about a young man on the edge.

Drama
2015
105 mins
Duane Hopkins

Kelly + Victor

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

Drama
2013
90 mins
Kieran Evans

Brand: A Second Coming

Russell Brand ponders his political awakening and messianic tendencies in Ondi Timoner’s perceptive and very funny documentary.

Documentary
2015
105 mins
Ondi Timoner

Shell

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

Drama
2013
87 mins
Scott Graham

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Shinya Tsukamoto's wild cyberpunk tale of a businessman's agonising transformation into a walking scrap heap is a jaggedly dehumanised vision of the future.

Fantasy
Science Fiction
1988
67 mins
Shinya Tsukamoto

Bullet Boy

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

Drama
2005
86 mins
Saul Dibb

My Brother the Devil

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

Drama
2012
107 mins
Sally El Hosaini

Pressure

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; now available in its new restoration.

Drama
1978
121 mins
Horace Ové

The Moon over the Alley

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

Musical
1977
108 mins
Joseph Despins

Duffer

A bizarre study of obsession focusing on a teenage boy who is torn between the charms of a fleshly female prostitute and the sadism of an older man.

Drama
1971
75 mins
Joseph Despins and William Dumaresq

Bronco Bullfrog

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

Drama
1970
87 mins
Barney Platts-Mills

Theorem

Pasolini’s classic about a handsome, enigmatic stranger (Terence Stamp) who arrives at a bourgeois household and seduces an entire family.

Drama
1968
98 mins
Pier Paolo Pasolini

Deep End

Jerzy Skolimowski’s darkly comic and utterly compelling story of teenage infatuation in a run-down swimming pool.

Drama
1970
92 mins
Jerzy Skolimowski

Distant Voices, Still Lives

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

Biopic
Historical drama
1988
84 mins
Terence Davies

Children

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

Drama
1976
46 mins
Terence Davies

Madonna and Child

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

Drama
1980
28 mins
Terence Davies

Death and Transfiguration

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

Drama
1983
26 mins
Terence Davies

My Childhood

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.