10 Films That Made You Sad To Be British

4. This Is England

Much like Jim Sheridan (pre Get Rich or Die Tryin') and Mike Leigh, Shane Meadows has a knack of showing the darker side of British life. Sure, we have the cricket grounds, rich history and a once regal Empire, but the flip side is full of council houses, the shameless working class who are damaged and destroyed by Thatcherism (see previous entries for more details on her) and those who are of the attitude that blaming the other races who supposedly leech of our fair society, is the way forward. This is England is a powerful film that holds no punches when painting a picture of 80's skin heads and the sprawling racism that came with some of them. Straight out jail Combo (played by the HUGELY underrated Stephen Graham) attempts to disrupt the status quo of a group of 'normal' skinheads who don't go in for the aforementioned extremist views. Housing one of the most unsettling final scenes from any British film, This is England is a white knuckle ride shown through impromptu, natural ad-hoc chats between kids and adults just looking to fill the void of everyday working class life. Set in the 80's yet reminiscent of today€™s EDL society, This is England is based on the early life of Director Shane Meadows, and it is a film that you just couldn't make up.