Britannia Hospital

A film for our times? Mark E. Smith’s favourite film sees Lindsay Anderson providing a sharp, wild, gallows-humour riposte to the contemporaneous transatlantic jingoism of Chariots of Fire and all the rest.

  • Director

    Lindsay Anderson

  • With

    Malcolm McDowell, Leonard Rossiter, Graham Crowden, Joan Playwright

  • UK 1982. 116min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    15

With its sights set on Thatcher’s deathbed Britain, the third in Anderson and Sherwin’s trilogy sees McDowell’s Mick Travis infiltrate the ‘Britannia Hospital’, a place plagued by striking workers, private and NHS patients and even a royal visit. Increasingly absurd and littered with rip-roaring British character actors, it’s little surprise that The Fall’s Mark E. Smith called it his favourite film. Screening with a revealingly contrasting extract from a documentary by one of Anderson’s key influences.

Screening with:

A Diary for Timothy

  • Director

    Humphrey Jennings

  • UK 1945. 7min (extract)

Britannia Hospital contains scenes of racism.

Total running time 123min

Film on Film