9. John Schlesinger (1926 - 2003)
One of the most versatile voices of British cinema, Schlesinger is one of those directors whose name might not readily come to mind but whose movies, once seen, remain ingrained in your memory for quite some time, and in some cases, forever. His topsy-turvy career spans both the UK and the US, both places marking some of his greatest work but his beginning is found in the fruitful 60s, where with his second feature A Kind Of Loving he won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival and made one of the most successful British films of its time. Mostly known for urban classics Midnight Cowboy with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, and Sunday, Bloody Sunday which explores the taboo subject of sexual identity in 1960's London, Schlesinger is one of Great Britain's greatest filmmakers, with four films appearing in
BFI's 100 Greatest British Films. Must See: Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971)
8. Lindsay Anderson (1923 - 1994)
Rounding off the British New Wave (no more after this, we promise) is perhaps the face of British realism, Lindsay Anderson. Making a name for himself in the documentary world, even winning an Oscar for Thursday's Children - a story about teaching deaf children to communicate - Anderson truly stepped into infamy with his first full length feature, This Sporting Life, which portrays material of such raw power in its kitchen sink roots that the genre has rarely been sharper since. Though most directors would be happy to just have This Sporting Life in their filmography Anderson's crowning achievement ended up being a film he made 5 years later, which introduced Malcolm McDowell into the world before he was Stanley Kubrick's Alex DeLarge. Taking an anachronistic look at British society through an allegorical tale of a boarding school, If... is one of those cultural phenoms that only come once in a while and will go down in history forever. Anderson belongs in the top 10 of any list celebrating British cinema.
Must See: If... (1968)
7. Michael Powell (1905 - 1990)
Now we should be getting into the section where everyone know's everyone's name just like walking into a Cheers episode, except this is a pub deep in the urban confines of London. Michael Powell was the British half of the powerhouse filmmaking team Powell & Pressburger who made very successful films in the 40s and 50s, most notably of those being The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus, but you can look over Criterion's wonderful collection of their films to get yourself acquainted with their intrinsically cinematic style. Influencing directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese (Powell was married to Scorsese's number one collaborator editor Thelma Schoonmaker), there is no denying that Powell is one of the great British filmmakers of the 20th century. To top it all off, Powell made Peeping Tom in 1960 all by himself and it's become classic horror story appearing on all kinds of all-time great lists. You can only imagine how many times his movies appear with
BFI and Time Out's
lists.
Must See: The Red Shoes (1948)