I don't see a lot of films. I'm quite choosy, but there's certain films that stick out. — Christopher Eccleston
The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend. — Katharine Hepburn
The success of the film is down to the crew. — Dougray Scott
Film is a dramatised reality and it is the director's job to make it appear real... an audience should not be conscious of technique. — David Lean
The thing about film-making is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own cheques, be responsible. — Tom Cruise
Any film I see at two o'clock in afternoon with my mother seems to cast a strange spell that means we both come out sobbing. — Jane Birkin
The film drama is the opium of the people…down with bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios…long live life as it is! — Dziga Vertov
Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. — Ingmar Bergman
You shouldn't dream your film, you should make it! — Steven Spielberg
To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script. — Alfred Hitchcock
Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills. — David Mamet
A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later. — Stanley Kubrick
A movie isn't a political movement, a party or even an article. It's just a film. At best it can add its voice to public outrage. — Ken Loach
A film is a director's vision... there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have. — Natasha Richardson
Short British Film Quotes
Film provides an opportunity to marry the power of ideas with the power of images. — Steven Bochco
Cinematography, a military art. Prepare a film like a battle. — Robert Bresson
Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami. — Jean-Luc Godard
I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten. — Spike Lee
I thought The Visitation was good fun. We did some of that filming at Ealing on the big set. — Sarah Sutton
It's not a movie, no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living — Conor Oberst
Film is simply the most complex way you can express yourself — Michael Haneke
There are no rules in filmmaking — Frank Capra
If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed. — Stanley Kubrick
British Film Image Quotes
I'm not interested in a realistic look - not at all, not ever. Every film should look the way I feel.
British Culture Quotes
In my view the European culture carries a very heavy responsibility for the creation of Israel... it is a product of both British and Stalin's anti- Semitism, but the British never faced their own complicity in its construction. — Tom Paulin
A genial and cultured Arab, Ameen Rihani, whose English is perfect and whose eloquence is astounding. He will discuss with equal eagerness and knowledge the merits of Picasso or Van Gogh, or the Zionist question, or the British achievements in Arabia. — Kenneth Williams
Even modern English people are imperious, superior, ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true. — Pete Townshend
Great moments are born from great opportunities.
They [some countries] borrowed money to go acquire things, Indian power plants and Danish newspapers and British soccer teams. And they did it willy-nilly, and they themselves a story, that Icelandic history and culture and DNA leaves us very well-suited to being investment bankers. — Michael Lewis
I respect the British a lot - their history, their past, their culture. I think it's beautiful, what they have with the monarchy. — Jean-Marc Vallee
The Irish and British, they love satire, it's a large part of the culture. — Ben Nicholson
To make a great film need three things - the script, the script and the script.
The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture, British institutions, were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture. — Nelson Mandela
One of the things which separates British and American culture is the reverence for the flag in American culture. — Mark Lawson
American culture is kind of an international culture, isn't it? British culture is a bit more unique. I think funny things are sort of funny around the world, really. — David Walliams
Even though we were influenced by American culture and music, we like the rest of Europe have been colonized with that in the post-war period. At the same time there's a sense of dirty earthiness and Europeanness and Britishness in it as well. — Stephen Mallinder
British Television Quotes
The trouble with the British is that they are not interested in ideas. If Jesus came back today and offered to speak for an hour on British television, they would say, "What! Another talking head? — John Cleese
Is it a particularly British trait to so utterly adore truly appalling men, from Tony Hancock through to Steptoe and Alf Garnett, Captain Mainwaring, Rigsby, Del Boy, Victor Meldrew and on to David Brent from The Office. The most deeply adored characters are all simply vile. — A. A. Gill
Much of what passes for quality on British television is no more than a reflection of the narrow elite which controls it and has always thought that its tastes were synonymous with quality. — Rupert Murdoch
You can say "ass," but you can't say "asshole." That's why I always cringe when a character in a TV show refers to someone as an "ass." Unless you're British, calling someone an ass really doesn't work. But those are the rules of television. You can be a dirtbag, but not a scumbag. — Gilbert Gottfried
I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy. — Michael Fassbender
And I grew up watching all the British ones so when you hear that from an early age, it makes it much easier than you guys who don't grow up with Australian television or British television. — Rachel Griffiths
I grew up watching British television because I lived so close to Canada. — Keegan-Michael Key
I was in Britain that year [1963] and some music publishing people in Denmark Street in London suggested me to the BBC. So I found myself in front of a British television show, which was a nice surprise. — Gordon Lightfoot
After college I funded my short films with acting roles in film and TV. I learned my craft through the great opportunities British television gave me as a director. — Justin Chadwick
To this day it cracks me up to think that my debut on national British television as a reporter ends with me turning a trick. — RuPaul
British Quotes
His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. — Idi Amin
On the British Royal Divorce (Charles and Dianna). She is such a sad soul. It is good that it is over. Nobody was happy anyhow. I know I should preach family love and unity, but in their case. . . . — Mother Teresa
The shots that hit me are the last nails to the coffin of british rule in India. — Lala Lajpat Rai
The British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland. — James Connolly
There's something whimsical, satirical, and silly about British humor, which Americans have always enjoyed, and lots of us come over here because we have an audience of people who enjoy it. — Milo Yiannopoulos
The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen's lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire. — Winston Churchill
We always said that our struggle was not only against the British as representatives of colonialism, it was against all the evil that existed in India. The evil of the feudal system, the evil of the system based on caste, the evil of economic injustice. — Indira Gandhi
I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race... If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible... — Cecil Rhodes
Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art with great Irish fools to practice on. — James Connolly
British Comedy Quotes
British scientists have demonstrated that cigarettes can harm your children. Fair enough. Use an ashtray! — Jimmy Carr
I feel that a lot of British comedy is often too bombastic, too obvious, dressing up and shouting and pulling funny faces. — Ricky Gervais
My jokes are in my head and I have a duplicate copy of my jokes in a lot of British comics' heads, where they are safe. — Emo Philips
You ever mix two different groups of friends? That can be stressful. You always feel like you have to prep 'em. You're like, "These people over here, uh, they don't think I drink. And don't be thrown by my British accent." — Jim Gaffigan
My oldest brother used to take me to the theater. The first play he took me to see was 'Black Comedy,' then he took me to see 'Butley.' We'd see all these British plays. And 'Hello, Dolly,' with Pearl Bailey. I was unconsciously thinking, 'Gee, I would love to be able to do that.' — Sayings
'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' is a British comedy-drama directed by John Madden. The film is based on the 2004 novel, 'These Foolish Things', by Deborah Moggach. — Tena Desae
Class has always been a staple of British comedy. We've always been able to laugh at it. When British shows are translated to America, the absence of the equivalent class structure there often causes them to fail. But over here we've always got comic mileage out of it. — Dick Clement
Comedy has always been something I love, but for some reason - probably because of the British accent - I've always been pushed toward more period work. — Toks Olagundoye
I'm just an enormous British comedy fan. — Paul Feig
It always interested me that 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'The Kumars,' when shown around the world, were referred to as British comedy. It was only here that they were referred to as Asian comedy, even though I always felt it was very British in its humour and structure. — Sanjeev Bhaskar
British Music Quotes
When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland. — Terri Windling
I was born in the '60s and grew up in the '70s - not exactly the best decade for food in British history. It was horrendous. It was a time when, as a nation, we excelled in art and music and acting and photography and fashion - all creative skills... all apart from cooking. — Heston Blumenthal
[Being in the States] is almost like being on a holiday. It's kind of annoying because everyone's like "Oh, you're so obsessed with America," but it's not really that. I just really enjoy being here - I'm not the first British artist to make music here and be inspired by the country. — Marina and the Diamonds
Before Cliff (Richard) and The Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music. — John Lennon
I don't think the Bonzo Dog could have evolved in America, nor could the old Nice: because of their musical discipline. This is one thing that British groups do have, a sort of discipline. Sometimes it can get a bit soulless, but on the whole I think it's preferable to the American alternative. — Jon Lord
I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs. — Freddie Mercury
Back in those days, all us skinny white British kids were trying to look cool and sound black. And there was Hendrix, the ultimate in black cool. Everything he did was natural and perfect. — Ronnie Wood
The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species. — Alan Lomax
Being British, I don't really have a way of expressing myself in conversation. Music transcends language. — James Blunt
I'm English and I am British. I don't know if I feel part of a music scene. Musically, I have as many feelings and affinity with Americans or Canadians, or all sorts of people as I do with English people. — David Gilmour
Great British Quotes
That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. — Richard Henry Lee
The Ottoman Empire, Persians, Alexander the Great, and the Umayyad dynasty all divided Iraq into three administrative regions based on religion and ethnicity. The British looked at the same area and combined the three into one, resulting in a mess. — Tim Marshall
It came as a great shock to me when I heard that England and Soviet Russia had become allies. So much so that I thought that the people responsible in London were acting in a manner that no longer coincided with British imperial interests. — John Amery
As many as three million people are expected to attend the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. The security concerns and economic opportunities are great for both Canada and Washington state. — Rick Larsen
I love playing in China. The crowds here value success more than British people seem to. — Stephen Hendry
What a privilege and honour it has been to be part of seven years of magic in a tent – ‘The Great British Bake Off.’ — Mary Berry
If we don't stop behaving like the British Empire, we will end up like the British Empire. — Pat Buchanan
Just as the British subject loves England despite her faults, so we must insist that all Germans who were part of the old Germany and helped shape her, recognize the greatness and worthiness of present-day Germany. — Gustav Stresemann
Set we forward; let
A Roman and a British ensign wave
Friendly together. So through Lud's town march,
And in the temple of the great Jupiter
Our peace we'll ratify, seal it with feasts.
Set on there! Never was a war did cease,
Ere bloody hands were washed, with such a peace. — William Shakespeare
I studied in Britain and spent great moments of my life there as a student living in Belsize Park. I admire the British trait of the stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. My wife studied in Britain too and both of us have many friends there. — Asif Ali Zardari
British History Quotes
My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep. — Neville Chamberlain
While we remember that we are contending against brothers and fellow subjects, we must also remember that we are contending in this crisis for the fate of the British Empire. — John Burgoyne
We fight to exist. Personally, I am not ashamed of fighting to exist. We are doing no very extraordinary thing to fight simply because we do not wish to be enslaved or exterminated. — Donald Woods Winnicott
Most of our people have never had it so good. — Harold MacMillan
I went back in British history. Some 204 people died there after a mine collapsed in 1838. In 1866, 361 miners died in Britain. In an explosion in 1894, 290 people died there. — Sayings
The long-established and noble rule of Law, one of the greatest products of the character and tradition of British history, has suffered a deadly blow. Blackmail has become respectable. — Robert Menzies
It is the clash of two different worlds that makes British-ness unique - we have an aristocratic, noble history, but it is always contrasted with something rebellious. — Christopher Bailey
Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. — Gerald Kaufman
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. — Mahatma Gandhi
As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man. — William E. Gladstone
I don't care to analyze acting. On the other hand there is a fascination because distributors are putting out British films. You get films here with great performances you'll never see again. Why compare. We should go after the businessmen. — Tim Roth
I'm not at all fed up with British films, but I am fed up with playing upper-class people. — Kristin Scott Thomas
It's weathered many a storm, but the British film industry is, thankfully, still afloat. — Peter Capaldi
Racing cars which have been converted for road use never really work. It's like making a hard core adult film, and then editing it so that it can be shown in British hotels. You'd just end up with a sort of half hour close up of some bloke's sweaty face. — Jeremy Clarkson
There just seems to be more acceptance now of... other kinds of British films, than the picture-postcard ones. — Tim Roth
I'm somebody who is very, very proud to have been a part of the British film industry all my life and to have kind of been involved with a very important piece of British film history. — Daniel Radcliffe
In England "The Day After," though unpopular with viewers, seems to have confirmed the average Englishman's mindless prejudice against Kansas. Shortly after the film portrayed that state being turned into an overused barbecue pit by nuclear weapons, support for British nuclear weapons rose a full percentage point. — Emmett Tyrrell
Youre only supposed to blow the bloody doors off! — Michael Caine
My father in the film - which we probably haven't seen in previous movies, and in British Asian movies you could probably count on one hand - he says exactly why, actually why he's frightened for his daughter. He came to this country, England, and had a bit of a crappy time. — Parminder Nagra
Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity. — Mike Leigh
British films are all "room with a view and a staircase and a pond." — Ben Dreyfuss
To her British lover about to climb in bed with 80-something Mae: She said that she hoped soon to be able to say what Paul Revere said - 'The British are coming'. This was the last one-liner Mae ever uttered on film. — Mae West
I'd rather do theatre and British films than move to L.A. in hopes of getting small roles in American films. — Kate Winslet
When I became the chair of the British Film Institute, I didn't understand how much of my time would be taken up with trying to make a case for the British Film Institute: what it's for, why it exists, why it needs its money. — Anthony Minghella
You know, the blond guy plays the good guy and I play the bad part, the bad guys. Which is a lot of fun. Playing the bad guy is great. And it's the whole British thing. You know, in so many films the bad guy is British. Gary Oldman makes a living doing that. — Matt Robinson
I had been in a film, playing a young British aristocrat. My wife told me that she was invited to a dinner and she invited me to dinner and the hostess had seen me and said, 'You cannot bring him.' but I think that I've done enough to shatter the image. — Michael York
I think now you see a lot more British films from the perspective of, I guess what would be considered "new" British people - people of color, Asian people. I think that's what's happening now, whereas 20 years ago it couldn't happen because it was still predominantly, "British film is about middle-class white families and what they do." — Noel Clarke
The problem with the British film industry is that it's really the American film industry, or a small branch of in lots of ways because of the common language. But it's great to see some individual voices still there. I think I probably gravitate towards a slightly more European, auteur model rather than the studio thing. I think it would be great if British films were a little bit more auteur driven. — David Mackenzie
I enjoy playing villains - I'm very proud that I belong to a very honorable tradition of British actors who come to Hollywood to play the bad guys. At some point in American film, I think there was the idea that the British accent had a tone to it that's a little bit naughty. — Alfred Molina
If I'm ever working on a set and anyone talks about a master shot, I say there is no master shot. Before I even went to film school, I learned about movies by being in a British feature film, where everything was shot master shot, mid-shot, close-up. But I reject the idea of a master shot. You don't shoot everything mechanically; you find imaginative ways that serve the action. — Mike Leigh
I think on both sides of the pond, there are pros and cons to TV and film, and I think that there are things the British people can learn from the Americans and things the Americans can probably learn from us when it comes to the acting industry. But the main thing here in the USA is everything is just a hell of a lot bigger. The sets are bigger, the casts are bigger, the crews are bigger. — Cush Jumbo
People say, "How do you get into the British film industry?" There is no British film industry, there are just people making films and finding their own way. It's not like in the States where there are studios and there's an actual infrastructure to it; there's just nothing here. You make it from scratch a lot of the time. — Ben Wheatley
I mean Filth is the best British film since Trainspotting. It might even be better. I keep watching it back to back with Trainspotting to try and work out which is the best. I can't split them. — Irvine Welsh
I can't imagine anyone ever again being able to make a film like, say, Summer Holiday, for instance, to give a British example, actually. And there will never be another Annette Funicello. I suppose it's the slight starchiness of the innocence that makes it unrepeatable. — Quentin S. Crisp
To be honest, I would like to have worked with Peter Sellers, because when people talk about classic British actors, you talk about Lawrence Olivier, and Peter Sellers was just in the most amazing films. — Daniel Radcliffe
It wasn't just British gangster films that really did for me as a kid, personally, it was British films in general. — William Monahan
London exists normally in a state of bleach bypass. There's the artistic context of "Blow Up" and "Performance" and all the Sixties and Seventies British films that I grew up on, because I did very much grow up on British films. — William Monahan
I think the British industry is set up to support British film, if we make films that enable them to support it. If you don't make a commercial film, distributors can't get behind it. If they don't get behind it, the film doesn't do well. — Noel Clarke
I think it's important that we have a new batch of British film-makers that aren't doing the same old stuff. And that includes me. — Noel Clarke
British actors come at acting from a slightly different angle. Because a lot of the films are cast out there, they are so used to the angle from which the Americans, and certainly the young guys from LA, are coming at it, that I think it's interesting for them to find these English actors who maybe approach acting from a different place. — Jim Sturgess
In the late 1930s, both the British and American movie industries made a succession of films celebrating the decency of the British Empire in order to challenge the threatening tide of Nazism and fascism and also to provide employment for actors from Los Angeles's British colony. The best two were Hollywood's Gunga Din and Britain's The Four Feathers... — Philip French
The problem with the British film industry is the nervousness and insecurity about - and genuflection toward - Los Angeles. — Mike Leigh
A lot of the reasons that I'm resistant to making films in the U.S. have nothing to do with not doing a film in Hollywood, but rather to do with what I'm committed to working on in the U.K. I feel very committed to the British film industry and infrastructure. — Mike Leigh
I grew up looking at... going to the movies a lot, as much as they'd let you. I grew up in Manchester in the north of England in the '40s and '50s. I saw a lot of movies. They were all Hollywood and British movies. I didn't see a film that wasn't in English until I was 17 when I went to London to be a student. — Mike Leigh
I can't always be making "British films". Why should we be making films about corsets and horses and girls learning to drive when Americans send over an event movie and make five or 10 million? — Noel Clarke
I'm a big fan of British cinema; I think we make some unbelievably brilliant films, but they can quite often have a dark feel. — Ed Speleers
Id love to work in the States; Id love to work anywhere where you get a good script and a good part to play. But I do love British film as well. — Laura Carmichael
I'm so excited to be working on Doctor Who as it's such a big and important part of British Culture. I can't wait to meet the cast and crew and start filming, especially as we'll be shooting not too far from my home town. — Maisie Williams
My first job was a film called 'Storm Damage' for the BBC. I was 16 and working with really respected British actors. I didn't have an agent at the time, and it kind of threw me into real acting. — Ashley Madekwe
As a black actress, all I was offered in British film was the best friend role, whereas in television, I was offered a whole spectrum of parts. — Sophie Okonedo
Many things have changed in our culture here in England as a direct result of the Pistols: the whole street-fashion thing in London, for example, or the coverage of popular culture in the national press, or the fact that the film industry is now about young people making films about young British issues. — Julien Temple
Pop managers are fixed in the dramatic stock character repertoire too, ever since the first British pop film musical, Wolf Mankowitz's 'Expresso Bongo' of 1959, with Cliff Richard as Bongo Herbert and Laurence Harvey as his manager. The key components were cast as X parts gay, X parts Jewish and triple X opportunistic. — Peter York
I built up a knowledge of 1960s and '70s British films because my dad used to work nights, and I'd sit up with my mum and watch films - 'How I Won the War' and the films of Richard Lester, Karel Reisz and John Schlesinger. — Nick Moran
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