20 Cult British Films You Need To See Before You Die

By Clare Simpson / March 13, 2015

When one thinks of British films, what immediately springs to mind are the gentle comedies of Richard Curtis such as Four Weddings And A Funeral or Notting Hill or the image of Harry Potter. But British cinema is not all light romance or whizz kid wizards. In fact, since the early days of the medium British film output always been incredibly diverse, producing horror (through the legendary Hammer and Amicus studios), war, comedy, kitchen sink social realism and good old exploitation movies of every flavour. It also produced Michael Winner, but the least said about that, the better. British cinema was, for decades, subject to the strictest censorship laws in the Western world (widely known as The Limp D**k Laws) which prohibited the flourishing of really interesting films for adults. Instead the intrepid cinema customer was treated to supremely unerotic 'nudist' films, followed by British sex films, which were frequently anything other than sexy. However, during the 1960s and 1970s, social progress enabled the creation of some excellent adult-oriented British films by high quality directors such as Ken Loach, Ken Russell and Derek Jarman. The BBFC also underwent several regime changes which gave British film makers more scope to manouevre with grown up themes. In short, British cinema is now pretty fantastic with lots of exotic cult movies to choose from, the twenty best of which are listed here.