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

55. Bronson (2008)

Bronson is the film that pretty much announced Tom Hardy and Nicholas Winding-Refn to the world and its fair to say they got everybody's attention. Hardy is unrecognisable from the fresh-out-of-drama-school lad who was thrust into the spotlight as a young Picard Clone in Star Trek: Insurrection. He plays Britain's most notorious prisoner with a psychotic verve and charm, wrapped up in Wending-Refn's stylised art-movie visuals.

54. Sweet Sixteen (2002)

Sweet Sixteeen continued the cycle of Ken Loach exploring social problems encountered by poverty and deprivation in modern day Scotland. Martin Compston makes a strong debut as Liam, a young lad who after leaving school finds himself almost immediately drawn into a rapidly escalating life of petty (and eventually organised) crime. Sweet Sixteen is a much blacker vision of Scottish society than Trainspotting and no less powerful for it.

53. Prick Up Your Ears (1987)

Gary Oldman's performance as playwrite Joe Orton came a year after his first real-life portrayal of Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy. The role gave an early hint at the chameleonic versatility that would later become Oldman's trademark. Directed by Stephen Frears from a script by Alan Bennett and starring the equally impressive Alfred Molina (as Orton's lover and eventual murderer Kenneth Halliwell) Prick Up Your Ears is a "Who's Who?" of British talent, as well as being a superbly crafted biopic. The film captures the decadence of Orton's swinging sixties lifestyle, juxtaposed with the self-inflicted, kitchen-sink misery of the depressive, self-loathing Halliwell.