Our Favourite British Films 2010-2015

What comes to your mind we you think 'British Cinema'? Do you picture a dour room with characters indulging in bittersweet conversations while drinking tea (the Mike Leigh mode), or some unemployed ne'er-do-well getting beat up and trodden into the dirt by our corrupt social hierarchy (the Ken Loach mode), or perhaps you imagine a country manor/boarding school/royal palace/well-off London borough with beautiful rich people trying to overcome easily surmountable odds (all the rest)? If so, you're not alone. But you'd also be wrong. The recently published film book New British Cinema from Submarine to 12 Years a Slave, by Jason Wood (director of film at HOME, Manchester) and Ian Haydn Smith (editor of Curzon Magazine), is a vital reminder that British cinema has been blossoming over the last decade. The book takes the form of 24 in-depth interviews with a diverse range of UK filmmakers who have been active over the last five years or so, from internationally-renowned heavyweights like Steve McQueen, Joanna Hogg and Jonathan Glazer, to less well-known but no-less exciting talents like Sally El Hosaini (My Brother The Devil), Ben Rivers (Two Years at Sea), and filmmaking duo Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy (Helen), and explores their working methods.

We took the book's release as an opportunity to poll our own writers to find The Skinny's favourite British films of the same period (2010-2015). Are we living through a golden age of British cinema? We'll let the quality and diversity of the films below speak for themselves.

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1. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

It begins with a pinprick of light amidst the darkness of the unfeeling void. The coronas of some astral flare converge in an orchestra of motion and sound. Under the Skin launches into a Roegian orbit from there; a haunting, deeply affecting work of resonant, exposition-free science fiction. The inscrutable Scarlett Johansson is iconic, Jonathan Glazer's vision peerless. [Ben Nicholson]

2. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2012)

The opening scenes of a milling, red-covered crowd are both a foreboding nod to the event that will shatter Eva's world into an irreparable mound of broken pieces and a yearning glance at the happy life it stole from her forever. Chronology collapses into itself as the story of a high school massacre is told from the frayed perspective of the shooter's mother, weaving past and future together as her fractured mind strives to understand how things went so horrifically wrong. [Ross McIndoe]

3. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)

12 Years a Slave is the crowning opus to date of Steve McQueen, one of British cinema’s most exciting new visionaries of the last decade. A film where even the sound design is drenched with palpable, haunting sorrow and horror, it offers not just an essential look at man’s mistreatment of man and the rawest cinematic depiction of the tyrannies of slavery to date, but also a continuation of McQueen’s keen interest in themes of suffering and spiritual transcendence (see Hunger and Shame). [Josh Slater-Wiliams]

4. Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)

In Peter Strickland’s tenebrous investigation into the roots of fear Toby Jones plays Gilderoy, a British sound technician working on an Italian giallo. As production progresses, he becomes increasingly troubled by the on-screen horror, with Strickland using sound to punctuate the darkest recesses of the viewers subconscious. An examination into relationship between a filmmaker’s desire to scare and an audience’s appetite to be frightened, Berberian Sound Studio is a audible rorschach test for the viewer’s own fears and anxieties. [Patrick Gamble]

5. Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)

Ben Wheatley’s arthouse-realist horror is The Wicker Man for the post-Iraq war world. Much of the action in this nasty ‘one last job’ hit-man film takes place in a mundane modern Britain, shot beautifully but laced with such a suffocating threat of violence that it echoes in your subconscious long after the surreal ending. It's a lasting resonance that Kill List is expressing something dark about modern life we could all do with listening to. [Danny Scott]

6. The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013)

Social realism fans; be assured that while Ken Loach’s star has waned over recent years, his work breathed life into a worthy successor. Clio Barnard frames both image and emotion to perfection in her full feature debut. From mist shrouded Bradford moors, dominated by an impending power station as conflicting as Kennard’s cruise missiles in Constable’s Haywain, to the touching relationship between two underprivileged boys, played by untrained actors unencumbered by anything as vulgar as technique. [Alan Bett]

7. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies, 2011)

Terence Davies built his reputation through openly autobiographical films like Distant Voices, Still Lives, but 2011’s The Deep Blue Sea proves he can be just as personal, probing and poignant when adapting the work of others. “Beware of passion,” warns one character to the sad, tormented Hester (played with heart-rending vulnerability by a never-better Rachel Weisz), on the grounds that “it always leads to something ugly”. Not always: here, in the hands of Davies, it leads to indelible, melancholic beauty. [Chris Buckle]

8. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Thomas Alfredson, 2011)

A film about being a spy, more than about spying itself. Amid a cadre of British acting talent, Gary Oldman is exceptional as the appositely unexceptional George Smiley in Thomas Alfredson’s slick Le Carré adaptation. Subtlety trumps bombast and the labyrinthine plot is parcelled out with immaculate precision and exquisitely balanced tension – falsehood turns the screw at every moment. [BN]

9. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)

If John Carpenter made a youths-meet-aliens film for Amblin and set it in Brixton, it might look something like Attack the Block. Joe Cornish’s sole directorial effort to date is a superb blend of well-choreographed action, pointed social conscience, memorable set-pieces and creature design, terrific performances, and biting wit. With this, Dredd and The Raid, the tower block action movie has had a significant presence this half-decade, but in gang leader protagonist Moses (future Star Wars lead John Boyega), Cornish offers up a new B-movie icon that sets his film apart from the pack. [JS-W]

10. The World’s End (Edgar Wright, 2013)

Five old friends attempt to reclaim their youth on a 12-pub crawl in their sleepy hometown, but the reunion is hampered by the fact their pitiful leader (Simon Pegg), once the charismatic party prince at high school, is currently on AA’s 12-step programme. Oh, and the town’s residents have been replaced by blue-blooded alien robots. Wright creates a looney comedy that has more to say about depression and Britain's creeping totalitarianism than any gritty issues movie. Rarely has a filmmaker pulled off pairing existential dread with laugh-a-minute ebullience. [Jamie Dunn]

The Next Ten

The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland)
Weekend (Andrew Haigh)
Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek)
Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
Submarine (Richard Ayoade)
Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold)
Another Year (Mike Leigh)
Senna (Asif Kapadia)
Shame (Steve McQueen)

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New British Cinema from Submarine to 12 Years a Slave by Jason Wood and Ian Haydn Smith is out now, published by Faber & Faber, paperback £17.99, ebook £14.99

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Film writers' individual picks:

Alan Bett

1. The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013)
2. Under the Skin (Under the Skin, 2013)
3. Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)
4. Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Thomas Alfredson, 2011)
6. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2012)
7. Mr John (Joe Lawlor, Christine Molloy; 2013)
8. Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015)
9. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
10. Starred Up (David Mackenzie, 2013)

Chris Buckle

1. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
2. Another Year (Mike Leigh, 2010)
3. Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)
4. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010)
5. The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013)
6. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
7. Four Lions (Chris Morris, 2010)
8. Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
9. Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy (Thomas Alfredson, 2011)
10. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies, 2011)

Michelle Devereaux

1. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
2. The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)
3. Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, 2010)
4. Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)
5. Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
6. Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011)
7. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010)
8. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
9. Another Year (Mike Leigh, 2010)
10. Frank (Lenny Abrahamson, 2014)

Jamie Dunn

1. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
2. The World's End (Edgar Wright, 2013)
3. Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011)
4. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies, 2011)
5. The Arbor (Clio Barnard, 2010)
6. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)
7. Archipelago (Joanna Hogg, 2010)
8. Mr John (Joe Lawlor, Christine Molloy; 2013)
9. Monsters (Gareth Edwards, 2010)
10. What Richard Did (Lenny Abrahamson, 2013)

Patrick Gamble

1. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
2. Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
3. Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011)
4. Catch Me Daddy (Daniel Wolfe, 2015)
5. Exhibition (Joanna Hogg, 2013)
6. Shell (Scott Graham, 2013)
7. Archipelago (Joanna Hogg, 2010)
8. Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)
9. The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013)
10. Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, 2013)

David McGinty

1. Paddington (Paul King, 2014)
2. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)
3. Submarine (Richard Ayoade, 2010)
4. Alpha Papa (Declan Lowney, 2013)
5. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2012)
6. Frank (Lenny Abrahamson, 2014
7. Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015)
8. Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010)
9. The Falling (Carol Morley, 2014)
10. Four Lions (Chris Morris, 2010)

Ross McIndoe

1. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
2. Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015)
3. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2012)
4. Anna Karenina (Joe Wright, 2013)
5. Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)
6. Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes, 2011)
7. Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012)
8. Mr Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)
9. Seven Psychopaths (Martin McDonagh, 2012)
10. Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn, 2010)

Ben Nicholson

1. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
2. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2012)
3. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
4. Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)
5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Thomas Alfredson, 2011)
6. Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)
7. Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, 2010)
8. Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
9. The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013)
10. Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012)

Danny Scott

1. Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn, 2010)
2. Calvary (John Michael McDonagh, 2014)
3. Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010)
4. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2012)
5. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
6. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
7. Submarine (Richard Ayoade, 2010)
8. 71 (Yann Demange, 2014)
9. Slow West (John Maclean, 2015)
10. Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011)br />

Josh Slater-Williams

1. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
2. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
3. The World's End (Edgar Wright, 2013)
4. The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014)
5. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2012)
6. Dredd (Pete Travis, 2012)
7. Paddington (Paul King, 2014)
8. Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, 2011)
9. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies, 2011)
10. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)