66 Essential British Films To Take Your Mind Off The World Cup

64. Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

Guy Ritchie's energetic debut hasn't aged well but still manages to be an entertaining romp through London's cartoon-ish underworld. The film is most notable for launching Ritchie on the road to becoming Mr Madonna but also for giving Vinnie Jones his acting debut, and for spawning an ill-conceived spin-off series. Perhaps the greatest thing to emerge from Lock Stock in retrospect is producer Matthew Vaughn's career, who has barely put a foot wrong in his four directorial offerings so far.

63. A Field In England (2013)

Ben Wheatley's fourth film is a murky, oppressive trudge through the eponymous field in England after a battle during the 17th century English Civil War. There is a genuinely unsettling sense of suspicion, anxiety and betrayal pervading Wheatley's film, cut through with a swathe of pagan magic and shroom induced psychedelia. Shot in stark monochrome on a micro-budget of £30,000, A Field in England relies upon performance and atmosphere to create an hallucinogenic vision of England little seen in cinema since the seventies.

62. Control (2007)

Anton Corbijn's elegiac film is a moving tribute to his friend and collaborator Ian Curtis. There is always a danger with biographies overseen by friends and family that some of the more challenging aspects of the subject will be whitewashed over. There is no such historical revisionism here, Corbijn's film is unflinching and newcomer Sam Riley gives a convincing portrayal of the troubled Joy Division singer.