The oldest known surviving film was shot in the United Kingdom as well as early colour films. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors David Lean, Michael Powell, and Carol Reed produced their most critically acclaimed works. Many British actors have accrued critical success and worldwide recognition, such as Audrey Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Vivien Leigh, Glynis Johns, Maggie Smith, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Ian Mckellen, Joan Collins, Judi Dench, Julie Andrews, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins and Kate Winslet. Some of the films with the largest ever box office returns have been made in the United Kingdom, including the fourth and fifth highest-grossing film franchises.
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American epic revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw gang on the Mexico–United States border trying to adapt to the changing modern world of 1913. The film was controversial because of its graphic violence and its portrayal of crude men attempting to survive by any available means.
The World at War is a 26-episode British documentary television series that chronicles the events of the Second World War. Produced in 1973 at a cost of £900,000, it was the most expensive factual series ever made until that time. It was produced by Jeremy Isaacs, narrated by Laurence Olivier and included music composed by Carl Davis. The book, The World at War, published the same year, was written by Mark Arnold-Forster to accompany the TV series.
"Death on the Rock" was a British television documentary, part of Thames Television's current affairs series This Week. It was broadcast in 1988. The programme examined the killing of three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members in Gibraltar in March 1988 by the British Special Air Service. "Death on the Rock" presented evidence that the IRA members were shot without warning or with their hands up. It was condemned by the British government and denounced in the press as sensationalist. After one of its witnesses retracted his statement, "Death on the Rock" became the first individual documentary to be the subject of an independent inquiry, in which it was largely vindicated.
World in Action was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its production teams often took audacious risks, and the programme gained a solid reputation for its often-unorthodox approach. The series was sold around the world and won numerous awards. In its heyday, World in Action drew audiences of up to 23 million in Britain alone, equivalent to almost half the population.
Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings was an English documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organisation. Jennings was described by film critic and director Lindsay Anderson in 1954 as "the only real poet that British cinema has yet produced".
Actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that uses footage of real events, places, and things, in a similar way to documentary film. Unlike documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger narrative or coherent whole. In practice, actuality films preceded the emergence of the documentary. During the era of early cinema, actualities—usually lasting no more than a minute or two and usually assembled together into a program by an exhibitor—were just as popular and prominent as their fictional counterparts. The line between "fact" and "fiction" was not as prominent in early cinema as it would become once documentaries became the predominant non-fiction filmmaking form. Actuality as a film genre is related to still photography.
Night Mail is a 1936 British documentary film directed and produced by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and produced by the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit. The 24-minute film documents the nightly postal train operated by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) from London to Scotland and the staff who operate it. Narrated by John Grierson and Stuart Legg, the film ends with a "verse commentary" written by W. H. Auden to a score composed by Benjamin Britten. The locomotive featured in the film is LMS Royal Scot Class 6115 Scots Guardsman.
Ian Dalrymple was a British screenwriter, film director, film editor and film producer.
A Diary for Timothy (1945) is a British documentary film directed by Humphrey Jennings. It was produced by Basil Wright for the Crown Film Unit. The narration was written by the British author E. M. Forster and is an account of the progress of the war during the first six months of the life of a baby named Timothy. The recovery of an English fighter pilot Dr. Peter Roper, who was shot down in his Typhoon fighter by anti-aircraft artillery fire on 7 June 1944, from German panzer column from the 5th Panzer Army with units from the Panzer Lehr Division and the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Division, near Monts en Bessin South of the landing beaches of the Normandy invasion of Europe. He received AAA fire while attacking a German 5th Army Group panzer column that was blocking the advance to Caen. He was wounded through the right lower leg and yet was able to parachute from his disabled fighter.
Brian Norman Winston was a British journalist who was the first holder of the Lincoln Professorship at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom. He was a Pro Vice Chancellor for 2005–2006 and the former dean of Media and Humanities. He was awarded an Emmy in 1985 for documentary script writing.
Basil Charles Wright was an English documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher.
Listen to Britain is a 1942 British propaganda short film by Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister. The film was produced during World War II by the Crown Film Unit, an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information to support the Allied war effort. The film was nominated for the inaugural Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1943, but lost against four other Allied propaganda films. It is noted for its nonlinear structure and its use of sound.
The Fire Brigade is 1926 American silent drama film directed by William Nigh. The film stars May McAvoy and Charles Ray. The Fire Brigade originally contained sequences shot in two-color Technicolor. A print of the film is preserved in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists archives.
The Silent Village is a 1943 British propaganda short film in the form of a drama documentary, made by the Crown Film Unit and directed by Humphrey Jennings. The film was named one of the top 5 documentaries of 1943 by the National Board of Review. It was inspired by the Lidice massacre in Czech Republic in June 1942.
A Defeated People is a 1946 British documentary short film made by the Crown Film Unit, directed by Humphrey Jennings and narrated by William Hartnell. The film depicts the shattered state of Germany, both physically and as a society, in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The narration explains what is being done – and what needs to be done – both by the occupying Allied forces and the German people themselves to build a better Germany from the ruins.
Words for Battle is a British propaganda film produced by the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit in 1941. It was written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, and features seven sequences, each containing images of rural and urban Britain at war overlaid with audio commentary by Laurence Olivier, reciting passages from different English literary works and speeches.
Stewart McAllister was a British documentary film editor who collaborated closely with Humphrey Jennings during the Second World War to produce films for the Crown Film Unit of the Ministry of Information. His contributions towards these films was largely neglected until Dai Vaughan's biography of him, Portrait of an Invisible Man, was published in 1983.
Britain at Bay is a 1940 British propaganda film produced by the General Post Office GPO Film Unit of the British Ministry of Information and distributed by the National Film Board of Canada. The film was written and narrated by noted author and political commentator J. B. Priestley.
Imperial Studios were the studios of the British and Dominions Film Corporation, a short-lived British film production company located at Imperial Place, Elstree Way, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The studios were active from 1929 to 1936, when they were destroyed by fire.
