The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025
83. 1943 - The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp
Honourable Mentions: Five Graves to Cairo,The Ox-Bow Incident, Sahara
There is no more formidable a filmmaking partnership in the history of British cinema than Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, a duo whose legacy was once forgotten, but which has been steadily brought back to the spotlight thanks to the efforts of Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker, the latter of whom went on to marry Powell in 1984.
Powell and Pressburger - whose works were signposted with their production label, The Archers - first rose to prominence during the Second World War, with their fifth collaboration, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, their most masterful contribution from this era.
The story of two friends - one English (Roger Livesey), one German (Anton Walbrook) - and their diverging paths as military men from the early 20th century through to the Second World War, Colonel Blimp is as epic as it is tragically romantic, but perhaps its most important quality is its honesty. Powell and Pressburger render a bittersweet and at-times brutal picture of the British stiff-upper-lip through the tragic figure of Livesey's Clive Candy, whilst also confronting the impact of Versailles on the creation of the Nazi state - a frankness which proved remarkably prescient, but that also bristled against wartime convention.
Thematically, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a seminal piece of World War II cinema. Add the dreamlike visuals of The Archers to the mix, and you're left with one of the greatest British films ever made.