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

61. Meantime (1984)

Meantime marks Gary Oldman's acting debut but is also packed with British talent, including Tim Roth and Phil Daniels. The film is a bleak experience, though there are moments of humour punctuating the darkness. Oldman, Roth and Daniels are phenomenal in their respective roles, presenting the kind of characters British viewers could relate to and recognise - in a way they had rarely been seen on screen. More than anything Meantime makes you continually grateful that we don't live in Thatcher's Britain any more. Let's hope she doesn't come back Futurama-Head-in-a-Jar-Nixon-style to persecute future generations.

60. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Excluding Terry Gilliam's directorial back catalogue A Fish Called Wanda represents the comedy highlight of the post-Python film output. The crime-caper homage sees Pythons John Cleese and Michael Palin joined by Americans Jamie-Lee-Curtis and Kevin Kline, and was directed by Ealing Comedy veteran Charles Crichton. Kline's Oscar winning performance as sadistic Otto and Michael Palin's hapless, animal loving, crook-with-a-stutter are the stand outs, most memorably when Plain is accidentally assassinating poodles or when Kline is torturing Palin with fish and chips (not in the way you expect).

59. Pink Floyd: The Wall (1980)

Alan Parker's 1980 adaptation of Pink Floyd's concept album: The Wall is an hallucinogenic descent into the mental collapse of a burnt out Rock Star. In his only significant film role, Bob Geldof portrays an almost Alien-like rock star named Pink - who acts as an analogue for Floyd's Roger Waters. The film not only brings together the talents of Parker, Floyd and Geldof, it is also noted for Gerald Scarfe's incredible animation segments, combining nightmarish surrealism, World War II fascistic imagery and hammers.