British Movies of the 1980’s

The British movie industry in the 1980’s suffered its worst recession in history, even though American blockbuster m

ovies such as The Empire Strikes Back and Superman II were filmed at British studios.

Movie production was down 50% in 1980 from the year prior to only 31 new movie releases. Of the few releases in the early 1980’s there were some success stories. Chariots of Fire was a very successful British movie of the 1980’s, it won an Oscars Award for best music and best picture. The scenes and backgrounds were wonderfully photographed and shot in period settings. It received many nominations, winning 4 of them. A few years later Ghandi was released also won and Oscar for best picture, directed by Richard Attenborough, and released in 1982 it’s a highly acclaimed bio epic of Mohandas Gandhi. These movies began an attempt at big budget movies such as A Passage to India and A Room with a View. When this was attempted again later to compete with American movies it failed, with companies such as Goldcrest experiencing a string of flops many new talented actors turned their attention to Hollywood.

Lower budget movies experienced some success. George Harrison produced some comedies and dramas such as The Long Good Friday (1980) and the Withnail and I (1987). These experienced more of a cult success. This is the same for many comedies in the 1980’s that had huge influence of Monty Python type humor, the most popular were movies such as A Fish Called Wander (1988) and Time Bandits (1981). During the 1980’s a few movies were produced by Channel 4 productions, a relative new comer they had limited success with My beautiful launderette and Dance with a stranger. One of the most notable British successful movies of the 1980’s was Educating Rita starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters. It was during the 1980’s that the Rank Organization closed its doors, British cinema companies experienced consolidations and this along with the elimination of the Eady tax which had made it possible for foreign film companies to write off production costs if they filmed in the UK made it harder on British movie productions. With this change in the Eady tax many British studios ended up closing making the 1980’s and British movies few and far between.