page_title: Cinema of the United Kingdom
section_title: The 1960s
hierarchical_section_title: Cinema of the United Kingdom / History / The 1960s
caption_attribution_description: English: Cropped screenshot of en:Peter O'Toole from the trailer for the film en:Lawrence of Arabia (film)
context_page_description: The United Kingdom has had a significant film industry for over a century. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors David Lean, Michael Powell, and Carol Reed produced their most critically acclaimed works. Many British actors have accrued critical success and worldwide recognition, such as Maggie Smith, Roger Moore, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson, and Kate Winslet. Some of the films with the largest ever box office returns have been made in the United Kingdom, including the third and fourth highest-grossing film franchises.
  The identity of the British film industry, particularly as it relates to Hollywood, has often been the subject of debate. Its history has often been affected by attempts to compete with the American industry. The career of the producer Alexander Korda was marked by this objective, the Rank Organisation attempted to do so in the 1940s, and Goldcrest in the 1980s.
context_section_description: As the 1960s progressed, American studios returned to financially supporting British films, especially those that capitalised on the "swinging London" image propagated by Time magazine in 1966. Films like Darling, The Knack ...and How to Get It (both 1965), Alfie and Georgy Girl (both 1966), all explored this phenomenon. Blowup (also 1966), and later Women in Love (1969), showed female and then male full-frontal nudity on screen in mainstream British films for the first time.
  At the same time, film producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli combined sex with exotic locations, casual violence and self-referential humour in the phenomenally successful James Bond series with Sean Connery in the leading role. The first film Dr. No (1962) was a sleeper hit in the UK and the second, From Russia with Love (1963), a hit worldwide. By the time of the third film, Goldfinger (1964), the series had become a global phenomenon, reaching its commercial peak with Thunderball the following year. The series' success led to a spy film boom with many Bond imitations. Bond co-producer Saltzman also instigated a rival series of more realistic spy films based on the novels of Len Deighton. Michael Caine starred as bespectacled spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965), and two sequels in the next few years. Other more downbeat espionage films were adapted from John le Carré novels, such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and The Deadly Affair (1966).
  American directors were regularly working in London throughout the decade, but several became permanent residents in the UK. Blacklisted in America, Joseph Losey had a significant influence on British cinema in the 1960s, particularly with his collaborations with playwright Harold Pinter and leading man Dirk Bogarde, including The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967). Voluntary exiles Richard Lester and Stanley Kubrick were also active in the UK. Lester had major hits with The Beatles film A Hard Day's Night (1964) and The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965) while Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1963) and  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). While Kubrick settled in Hertfordshire in the early 1960s and would remain in England for the rest of his career, these two films retained a strong American influence. Other films of this era involved prominent filmmakers from elsewhere in Europe, Repulsion (1965) and Blowup (1966) were the first English language films of the Polish director Roman Polanski and the Italian Michelangelo Antonioni respectively.
  Historical films as diverse as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Tom Jones (1963), and A Man for All Seasons (1966) benefited from the investment of American studios. Major films like Becket (1964), Khartoum (1966) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) were regularly mounted, while smaller-scale films, including Accident (1967), were big critical successes. Four of the decade's Academy Award winners for best picture were British productions, including six Oscars for the film musical Oliver! (1968), based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist.
  After directing several contributions to the BBC's Wednesday Play anthology series, Ken Loach began his feature film career with the social realist Poor Cow (1967) and Kes (1969). Meanwhile, the controversy around Peter Watkins The War Game (1965), which won the Best Documentary Film Oscar in 1967, but had been suppressed by the BBC who had commissioned it, would ultimately lead Watkins to work exclusively outside Britain.
caption: Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
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