Looking Back at the British New Wave

September 21–November 30, 2019

Look back at 1950s and ’60s British cinema and rediscover the England of Angry Young Men and working-class heroes, boundary-crossing writing and innovative direction, and electrifying acting by the likes of Richard Burton, Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, and Julie Christie.

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  • Darling

  • The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

  • Look Back in Anger

  • Billy Liar

  • If . . .

  • Alfie

  • The Servant

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Blow-Up

    • Saturday, November 30 7 PM
    Michelangelo Antonioni
    United Kingdom, 1966

    Digital Restoration

    Michelangelo Antonioni chose Swinging London as the setting for “a cryptic murder mystery . . . a landmark of the decade’s observational outrage and Pop disposability” (Time Out).

  • Alfie

    • Sunday, November 24 7 PM
    Lewis Gilbert
    United Kingdom, 1966

    Archival Print

    Before Alfie, Michael Caine was just some great British actor. In its offhand candor on all things sexual, Alfie was what it was all about.

  • The Servant

    • Saturday, November 23 5 PM
    Joseph Losey
    United Kingdom, 1963

    Let’s play master and servant! Dirk Bogarde and James Fox do it in this striking parable on class conflict, Joseph Losey’s first collaboration with Harold Pinter.

  • If . . .

    • Sunday, November 17 7 PM
    Lindsay Anderson
    United Kingdom, 1968

    Digital Restoration

    In 1968, the boarding school as metaphor for social control was a shot heard ’round the world. “A modern classic” (Time Out).

  • Room at the Top

    • Friday, November 15 4 PM
    Jack Clayton
    United Kingdom, 1958

    Imported Print

    With the marvelous Simone Signoret, this classic about a Machiavellian social climber (Laurence Harvey) endures as a love story, set against the fraught class relations in the North Country in the 1950s.

  • Séance on a Wet Afternoon

    • Thursday, October 31 7 PM
    Bryan Forbes
    United Kingdom, 1964

    BAMPFA Collection

    Decades later this tale of a London kidnapping remains suspenseful; creepy, too, since ransom is not the reason. Kim Stanley as a medium and Richard Attenborough as her milquetoast mate are “utterly superb” (Time Out).

  • CANCELED—Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

    • Saturday, October 26 5:30 PM
    Karel Reisz
    United Kingdom, 1960

    Canceled
    This screening has been canceled due to the UC Berkeley campus power shutdown. Please watch this page for updates on rescheduling and ticket refund information.

    Albert Finney’s star-making turn as a young Nottingham factory worker to the manner born, a consummate boozer, lover, gambler, and philosopher.

  • Billy Liar

    • Thursday, October 24 7 PM
    John Schlesinger
    United Kingdom, 1963

    ’Scope Print

    John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar broke with kitchen-sink realism to provide star-making roles for Tom Courtenay as a daydreaming undertaker’s assistant and Julie Christie as a wistful beatnik.

  • Darling

    • Saturday, October 19 5 PM
    John Schlesinger
    United Kingdom, 1965

    Film to Table dinner follows

    Homecoming Weekend: Plan ahead
    With the Cal Football game at 11:30 AM, expect increased traffic and limited parking.

    Schlesinger’s time capsule of Swinging London, with Julie Christie as a model on the make, Dirk Bogarde, and Laurence Harvey. “Diamond-hard, diamond-bright” (New Yorker).

  • This Sporting Life

    • Sunday, October 13 7 PM
    Lindsay Anderson
    United Kingdom, 1963

    Richard Harris as the essential working-class antihero, a bruised and bruising rugby player in England’s North Country, in Lindsay Anderson’s forceful, psychologically complex first feature, noted for introducing a truly modern sensibility to British cinema.

  • The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

    • Sunday, September 29 7 PM
    Tony Richardson
    United Kingdom, 1962

    Imported Print

    Tom Courtenay in Tony Richardson’s famously experimental narrative recounting the events in the life of a Borstal lad as he runs track—running for his life.

  • The Entertainer

    • Saturday, September 28 5:30 PM
    Tony Richardson
    United Kingdom, 1960

    Film to Table dinner follows

    Laurence Olivier stars as a has-been music-hall performer—with Alan Bates and Albert Finney in their screen debuts—in John Osborne’s play-turned-film. Olivier’s “greatest contemporary role” (Pauline Kael).

  • A Taste of Honey

    • Sunday, September 22 7 PM
    Tony Richardson
    United Kingdom, 1961

    Interracial sex, homosexuality, and unwed pregnancy had the shock of the new in 1961, when Rita Tushingham worked her way into viewers’ hearts.

  • Look Back in Anger

    • Saturday, September 21 5:30 PM
    Tony Richardson
    United Kingdom, 1959

    Richard Burton is truly, madly angry—also eloquent, and unforgettable—as the jazz-playing misfit Jimmy Porter in the film based on John Osborne’s bombshell play, adapted by Tony Richardson.