The British film industry has always been able to entertain the world with a classic movie - the Ealing comedies, Bond films, Get Carter, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi and so on. But the successes were intermittent and much of the exceptional British talent in writing, directing and filmmaking was drawn to Hollywood. Then, during the 1990s, the industry reinvented itself. Whether the subjects were inner city deprivation & stylish violence or convincing period piece classics, diverse and extremely successful films were released, illustrated by the release on the same day in 1995 of Trainspotting and Sense & Sensibility.
From Four Weddings and a Funeral, via The Full Monty to Shakespeare in Love, British films continued to break box office records at home and abroad. Some successes were made on ultra-low budgets, including British Film Institute-assisted Stella Does Tricks, Love is the Devil and Under the Skin.
London in the 1990s became the world's leading centre outside Hollywood for digital post-production, special effects and sound recording. Excellence in animation adds to the range of skills including the work of companies such as Aardman Animations, with Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run, while film festivals such as onedotzero and mirrorball celebrate the burgeoning field of digital shorts, music videos, commercials & motion graphics by some of the UK's top creators.
Today, the UK not only breeds talents such as Lynne Ramsey, Guy Ritchie, Jonathan Glazer, Chris Cunningham and Udayan Prasad but provides the industry worldwide with cinematographers, costume and production designers, stylists, technical specialists, as well as producers, accountants and legal experts. The new British Film Council has an annual budget of £55 million to invest in new writing, training and in promising new films. But the engine behind the industry is the private sector including producers such as FilmFour and Working Title.
The 21st century British film industry continues strong with East is East, Billy Elliott, Bridget Jones's Diary, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and plenty in the pipeline.
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