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Some cities were just made for the cinema.
The likes of Scorsese, Spike Lee and Woody Allen have explored every inch of the bad and beautiful city of New York, making people thousands of miles away feel like they know the city as if it were their own. Paris is also synonymous with the movies, thanks to the cool bravado of French New Wave and later Mathieu Kassovitz’s masterpiece, La Haine, which delved headfirst into the issues that plague most big cities: police brutality, poverty, racism and crime.
Possibly because of the lack of a strong British film industry, London isn’t quite the cinematic juggernaut it should be but that’s not to say there’s a shortage of great London films (it’s been a favourite of visual artists before even 1900). The capital is one of the most diverse cities in the world, in terms of race and nationality, and is beset by problems including inequality, housing and racism and many filmmakers have used these factors to create remarkable works of art that tell us so much about our society and London itself.
The films on this list reflect the face that London is a culturally vibrant, historically fascinating and deeply complex city that is home to millions of people, each with their own unique story. Dive in below.
Blowup (1966)
Inspired by the life of iconic photographer David Bailey (whose work infamously helped turn Reggie and Ronnie Kray into celebrities), the Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni’s venture into London explored the very idea of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and the media fascination with celebrity. As is often the case, it took an outsider to dig into the seediness of the whole scene that was otherwise being glamourised by the British press. Filming on location in the city, residents will be able to identify numerous locations such as The Spike, Heddon Street and Maryon Park, where the movie’s famous murder takes place. Long before tabloid culture in the UK really took off to become the beast it is now, Blowup examines the idea of privacy, the idea of celebrity and voyeurism. The film also features cameos from 1960s rock band The Yardbirds, where Jeff Beck famously smashes his guitar in anger in the manner of The Who’s Pete Townsend because Antonioni was fascinated by Townsend’s actions on stage.
Performance (1970)
Donald Cammell, who was a prominent member of the ‘60s London scene, and Nicolas Roeg’s film starring Mick Jagger analyses the relationship between crime and the entertainment industry. Performance portrays clear parallels between Frank Sinatra and the mob and the Kray Twins being very friendly with a number of famous faces. Originally planned as a more light-hearted film starring Marlon Brando, Performance evolved into something inherently sinister that featured graphic sex, violence and hard drug use. The style of the film has had a dramatic impact on other British directors, specifically Guy Ritchie and Jonathan Glazer, especially in terms of the look of London and the depiction of criminals in the city. Principally about identity and how there is very little difference between a rock star and a gangster, it was mostly reviled on release but time has been the film’s friend, now seen as a landmark in British cinema and one of the best portrayals of London in the movies.
Pressure (1975)
While none of the central characters in Pressure are criminals, Horace Ove’s masterpiece realises how foolish it would be to make film about the Caribbean immigrant communities in London without having criminalisation at the centre of it. The real villains in Pressure are the police, who routinely racially abuse, harass and attack the young men of Notting Hill, simply because they are black. Pressure demonstrates the experience of being a black immigrant in England in the ‘70s and indeed the conflicts within those communities. In the film, the main character, Tony, has a brother who is an active member of the Black Power movement and frequently chastises his younger sibling for not “thinking black”. Tony’s life mirrors that of millions of West Indian immigrants that came to Britain after the Second World War. They’re denied jobs they’re more than qualified for because of the institutional racism that still exists in this country to today, become completely isolated from society through economic segregation, and eventually fall into petty crime as it’s the only way to make a pound. Sadly, Pressure is as relevant and poignant now as it was the day it was released.
The Long Good Friday (1980)
The quintessential British crime film, The Long Good Friday is so good because it so understood the world it was depicting. On the surface, it’s a fairly routine gangster revenge story but what it really is, is a state of the nation film portraying Thatcher’s Britain just as the ball started rolling. The ruthlessness of capitalism, political and police corruption, the IRA, the destruction of industry and growing globalisation are all themes central to the brilliance of The Long Good Friday. Bob Hoskins does his best Freddie Foreman impression and chews the scenery with line after line of hard-boiled, over-the-top dialogue as his plans to turn the then-derelict Docklands into a venue for a future Olympics implode before his eyes. Years before the gentrification that led to criminally overpriced housing, an all-powerful Canary Wharf and soaring poverty levels, The Long Good Friday predicted it all – from the never-ending misery of Thatcherism to the selling of the city to the multinational venture capitalists who don’t care for its inhabitants.
Burning An Illusion (1981)
Only the second British film ever made by a black director (after the aforementioned Pressure) and the very first movie made in Britain to give a black woman a central voice, Burning An Illusion helped break down barriers that meant only stories about white people could be told as it depicted a community that was otherwise completely ignored on screen. Like Pressure, this too was mostly set in Ladbroke Grove and is a personal, deeply intimate portrayal of a young black British woman, perhaps the most marginalised figure in the entire industry.
Directed by Menelik Shabazz, who is still making films to this day as well as working as a uni lecturer, Burning An Illusion is very much the template he followed his entire career—shoestring budget dramas on a very small scale focussed on interpersonal relationships—but he’s never been able to top his assured and smart debut. Throughout the film, the main character—a young girl named Cassie—undergoes her political awakening as she becomes aware of her blackness and what it means to the society that surrounds her. Like many of her peers, she gravitates towards the teachings of Malcolm X as she makes her choice to become politically engaged in a time of great hostility towards the black communities in London.
Snatch (2000)
With a new millennium came Guy Ritchie’s London: cockney caricatures, prizefighting gypsies, Jack the Lad chancers and murderous gangsters who feed their enemies to pigs. With interlocking storylines that involve a diamond heist, a gypsy boxer who refuses to fight, a Russian arms dealer who can’t die and a hitman played by ex-footballer Vinnie Jones, Ritchie injected the murky backstreets of London with a lot of energy, gusto and Tarantino-esque style. Whilst very similar stylistically and thematically to Ritchie’s debut Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch better represents the mad and wonderful of London. There’s Jewish diamond dealers, underground boxing and incompetent, wannabe gangsters looking for a big score that ultimately proves disastrous in this hard to dislike film that paints a better picture of London than many give it credit for. Plus, drum and bass legend Goldie turns up in a small role.
Dirty Pretty Things (2002)
Never has a British film explored the exploitation, danger and oppression immigrants face on these shores than in Stephen Frears’ quietly powerful Dirty Pretty Things. Whilst Frears is better known for his fluffy, granny-friendly dramas such as The Queen and Philomena, his work detailing those living outside of mainstream British society are where he excels as a filmmaker. The Chiwetel Ejiofor-led film about a Nigerian doctor who is forced to work as a cab driver and hotel clerk in London is a nuanced portrait of immigrant life that is affecting and ultimately devastating. Particularly in this time of a catastrophic refugee crisis and widespread fear of asylum seekers and Muslims, Dirty Pretty Things feels doubly important as it confronts prejudice and exploitation that immigrant workers face all over Britain, but particularly in London where much of the population is foreign-born and stuck working in menial labour with no way out. Dirty Pretty Things also explores the organ trade in all its grisly reality and is a film of the upmost importance.
Bullet Boy (2004)
Before Kidulthood and its countless rip-offs, there was Bullet Boy, documentarian Saul Dibb’s exploration of life in a Hackney housing project that is riddled with crime and deprived of opportunity. Starring the former So Solid Crew member and underrated actor Ashley Walters (who later appeared in the similarly themed Top Boy for Channel 4), Bullet Boy deals with the circular nature of violence, gang culture and machismo in a considered manner that many later movies depicting gang life in London couldn’t manage. Accompanied by a magnificent soundtrack by Massive Attack, Bullet Boy bucks clichés, has sympathy for its characters and understands the harsh reality of being young, black and poor in London. Featuring the infamous Murder Mile, Bullet Boy is distinctively less optimistic than the black British films of the '70s and '80s as community has been torn apart, destroyed of hope and stripped of choice through the escalating violence and poverty. It’s an honest film and Britain’s equal to Boyz N the Hood or Menace II Society.
Eastern Promises (2007)
Since the end of the USSR in 1991, London has increasingly played host to Russians wishing to expand their business portfolio through property deals in England’s capital. And with that came the Russian Mafia. Eastern Promises tells the story of the Russian mob in London with extraordinary detail. Legendary Canadian director David Cronenberg pays a great deal of attention to Russian Mafia customs, especially the tattoos mob members acquire after committing a certain act. He also explores the intricacies of sex trafficking, power and for the first time offers a realistic depiction of Russian gangsters in an English language film. Boasting a formidable cast that includes Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel, Eastern Promises uses plenty of authentic London locations such as Broadway Market, St. John Street and Brompton Cemetery. The famous Turkish Baths are also portrayed in the film during the classic fight scene that involved a naked Viggo Mortensen and linoleum knives. Eastern Promises is far away from being an ordinary gangster thriller; it is a deeply moving trip through the darkest depths of London and a section of society not much acknowledged.
My Brother The Devil (2012)
Sally El Hosaini’s debut feature about two brothers of Egyptian parents who fall in and out of gang life as they struggle to find a way out of the streets in a story that tackles sexuality, machismo and religion in a way similar to My Beautiful Laundrette, My Brother The Devil is bold in its depiction of brotherhood and hero worship as baby brother is desperate to follow big brother into the seemingly glamorous world of sex, guns and drugs to disastrous effect. One of the best-looking British films of recent years, My Brother The Devil has something new to say just when you think coming-of-age dramas set in the mean streets of London have ran out of steam. With very strong performances from the intensely charismatic James Floyd and newcomer Fady Elsayed, this film isn’t afraid to explore the idea of manhood within a conservative Muslim home and a street gang that refuses to allow weakness or anything that could be seen as ‘feminine’.