Yesterday evening I stumbled across the British Film Institute’s list of 100 Best British Films. I was delighted to see that my all-time favorite movie, Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, is #4 on the list. Hitchcock only has two films on the list, The 39 Steps and the delightful 1938 film The Lady Vanishes but I attribute that to all of his movies from 1940 on being considered American movies.
The director with the most films on the list is David Lean with six (seven if you include In Which We Serve)but another of my favorite directors, Michael Powell, is in second place with five including the movie that basically destroyed his career—1960’s Peeping Tom. It’s odd that two movies so similar and produced right around the same time should have such different effects. Hitchcock’s Psycho bolstered Hitchcock’s career; Peeping Tom very nearly ruined Powell’s.
John Schlesinger has four on the list; Andrew Mackendrick and Tony Richardson each three;
To my eye the list is quite different from the AFI’s list of 100 Best American movies. For one thing is has lots more genre movies. And one Carry On picture! Maybe the Brits aren’t as pretentious as we are.
Hitchcock moved to Hollywood, giving a clear demarcation point btw/ his British and American movies, but some of the movies listed seem contested:
BFI has Third Man as the #1 British movie, while AFI has it as the #57 American movie.
Kubrick seems to be more appreciated as an American director, though I think was essentially an American director living in Britain obtaining American financing. Clockwork Orange, #81; BFI; #46 AFI. AFI also ranked Dr. Strangelove and 2001.
Similarly, both list three David Lean movies: Bridge, Lawrence and Zhivago.
Watching the latest Star Wars movies, I was reminded by how much of English vibe the original had.
Yeah, I’m not sure what their criteria were. They must have been a bit fuzzy. Clearly, there’s a fine line between American movies and British ones. I think we can safely classify Carry On Up the Khyber and Passport to Pimlico as British films.
I know that lots of people like The Third Man. I’ve never been nuts about it. IMO all of the Lean, Powell, and Hitchcock movies in the list are better pictures.
The Third Man is not all that great, if you discount Welles, Cotton, and the Graham Greene plot.
They have Antonioni’s Blow-Up on the list, so it must be England as the place of filming by foreigners. Leaving me puzzled as to why Barry Lyndon wasn’t on the list.
Also, Don’t Look Now is highly overrated. Roeg’s Walkabout isn’t on the list and that’s better than Performance, which is a great movie.
And no mention of The Ruling Class. Sad!