Beneath the iconic American style of Martin Scorsese lies a surprising devotion to British cinema, a love affair that began with a black-and-white TV in the 1940s.
When British filmmaker Edgar Wright reached out to Scorsese during the pandemic, [he asked] for a list of lesser-known British films worth watching, he wasn’t expecting to receive over 50 of his personal favourites – spanning from silent-era curiosities to cult horror to the haunting minimalism of ‘60s ghost stories.
Here, we have a look at the 50 British films Martin Scorsese considers among his personal favourites:
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- Station Six Sahara (Seth Holt, 1963)
- Brief Ecstasy (Edmond Gréville, 1937)
- The Halfway House (Basil Dearden, 1944)
- Went the Day Well? (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942)
- Nowhere To Go (Seth Holt, 1958)
- The Nanny (Seth Holt, 1965)
- Madonna of the Seven Moons (Arthur Crabtree, 1945)
- The Man in Grey (Leslie Arliss, 1943)
- So Long at the Fair (Terence Fisher, 1950)
- Stolen Face (Terence Fisher, 1952)
- Four Sided Triangle (Terence Fisher, 1953)
- The Sound Barrier (David Lean, 1952)
- This Happy Breed (David Lean, 1944)
- Guns at Batasi (John Guillermin, 1964)
- Green for Danger (Sidney Gilliat, 1946)
- The Mind Benders (Basil Dearden, 1963)
- To the Public Danger (Terence Fisher, 1948)
- It Always Rains on Sunday (Robert Hamer, 1947)
- A High Wind in Jamaica (Alexander Mackendrick, 1965)
• The Queen of Spades (Thorold Dickinson, 1949)• Hue and Cry (Charles Crichton, 1947)• Pink String and Sealing Wax (Robert Hamer, 1945)
• The Blue Lamp (Basil Dearden, 1950)
• The Good Die Young (Lewis Gilbert, 1954)
• Mandy (Alexander Mackendrick, 1952)
• Vampyres (José Ramón Larraz, 1974)
• Uncle Silas (Charles Frank, 1947)
• The Legend of Hell House (John Hough, 1973)
• Burn, Witch, Burn (Sidney Hayers, 1962)
• Flesh of the Fiends (John Gilling, 1969)
• The Snorkel (Guy Green, 1957)
• Scream of Fear (Seth Holt, 1960)
• These Are The Damned (Joseph Losey, 1963)
• Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling, 1966)
• Quatermass and the Pit (Roy Ward Baker, 1967)
• Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (Roy Ward Baker, 1971)
• The Devil Rides Out (Terence Fisher, 1968)
• The Asphyx (Peter Newbrook, 1972)
• Underground (Anthony Asquith, 1928)
• Shooting Stars (Anthony Asquith, 1927)
• Sapphire (Basil Dearden, 1959)
• Whistle and I’ll Come To You (Jonathan Miller, 1968)
• Dead of Night (Cavalcanti, Crichton, Hamer, Dearden, 145)
• The Enfield Haunting (Kristoffer Nyholm, 2015)
• The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (Jack Clayton, 1987)
• The Pumpkin Eater (Jack Clayton, 1964)
• The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961)
• The Seventh Veil (Compton Bennett, 1945)
• Yield To The Night (J. Lee Thompson, 1956).