This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to London
Landmarks are only ever part of the story. That much is true of every city but none more so than London, too mammoth and chaotic to be summed up in a postcard. Witness Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, the city introduced in sly comic style with a gonzo montage of a Pearly King and Queen frolicking through Trafalgar Square.
Another director, Sam Mendes, wondered while making his London-centric Bond movie Skyfall if any film could capture “London” at all, so vast were the differences from area to area. (He ended up shooting in the Tube under Charing Cross, which was one way around the problem.)
Full disclosure: if the other movies in this series were chosen for how they conjured up a place in my mind, London I can stare at through the window. But of course I can’t see the whole thing. For that, you need a trip up The Shard on a clear day. Or — for my money more fun — the aerial view afforded by the most evocative London films. They don’t just give you a physical panorama. As I hope is true of the movies here, they add up to a snapshot of the soul of the city.
The Long Good Friday (1980)
Where to watch: available to stream on Amazon Prime, Apple TV and YouTube
London’s Docklands are on the cusp of massive change in ‘The Long Good Friday’, with Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins © Ronald Grant Archive
“I’m a businessman,” declared underworld boss Harold Shand, “but I’m also a Londoner.” From one angle, the story of an old-school villain — brilliantly played by Bob Hoskins — making plans to go legit (ish) while menaced by enemies unknown is simply a great thriller. From another, The Long Good Friday also captured a critical moment in the story of the capital, made at the dawn of Thatcherism. Backdropped by an old east London on the cusp of transforming into modern Docklands, it was an omen — of the changes both physical and economic about to sweep the city.
Performance (1970)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV and YouTube
Anita Pallenberg and Mick Jagger in Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell’s ‘Performance’ © Pictorial Press/Alamy
Another tale of an East End bad guy out of his depth. Performance was a product of the last days of Swinging London, made in 1968 but left on a shelf for two years by freaked-out backers Warner Bros. Finally released, it brought together a reclusive rock star holed up in Notting Hill — played by Mick Jagger — and a gangster on the run (James Fox). What followed was a kinky, heady crisis of identity. In London, all manner of mayhem is forever going on behind closed doors.
Paddington (2014)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Netflix and YouTube
Ursine of the times: Paddington Bear at Buckingham Palace © Allstar Picture Library/Alamy
Long after Mick Jagger shimmied through Performance, another legendary figure entered the pantheon of movie London. The huge success of Paddington owed much to the intrinsic charm of the bear named after the west London railway station; a lot to the gifts of the film-makers; and plenty to the inspired use of London as co-star. Maida Vale, Primrose Hill and Gruber’s antique shop on Portobello Road made up a city at once picture-book sweet and oddly authentic.
Attack the Block (2011)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Netflix and YouTube
In ‘Attack the Block’, John Boyega leads a group of local teenagers fending off extraterrestrials in south London © TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy
A sci-fi comic romp from south of the river, director Joe Cornish’s cult favourite found unfriendly aliens arrived on earth and targeting a Stockwell tower block. The deadpan fightback felt like it could only have happened in London — a well-mannered trainee nurse moved in among the hard-faced local teenagers charged with saving the world.
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime and Apple TV
Anthony Newley on the run in ‘The Small World of Sammy Lee’, which captured the sleazy Soho of the early 1960s © AF archive/Alamy
21st-century Soho is all cleaned up. In 1963, it was still the gamey home of jazz dives and peep shows, the province of hustlers like the strip-club MC of the title, played by the raffish Anthony Newley. With Sammy’s gambling debt overdue, the clock counts down on him in the hubbub around Frith Street. For London too, time was ticking — the Beat era about to give way to a different kind of Soho, a stone’s throw away among the dedicated followers of fashion on Carnaby Street.
The Elephant Man (1980)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV and YouTube
‘The sound alone is a time machine, the clamour of a Victorian London both grand and brutish’: David Lynch’s ‘The Elephant Man’, starring John Hurt © Pictorial Press/Alamy
The grim, leviathan London of the 1880s has always drawn the eye of film-makers. But cinema’s most haunting portrait came with a director from Missoula, Montana — David Lynch’s account of the tragic life of Joseph Merrick is also a vivid conjuring of the Victorian city. Close your eyes and the sound alone is a time machine, the clamour of a London both grand and brutish.
Rocks (2020)
Where to watch: Netflix
High life: a group of teenage friends hang out on the top of an east London tower block in ‘Rocks’ © TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy
The sound of Rocks is unmistakable — the gleeful din of being young. And the London it takes place in have the mark of the real thing, the sense of different versions of the city being forever cheek-by-jowl. While the lives of the teenage heroine and her friendship group unfold in Hackney, the towers of the City glint in plain sight from the rooftop of the block where they spend their evenings.
The London Nobody Knows (1967)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime and Apple TV
In ‘The London Nobody Knows’, James Mason (right) explored the lesser-seen sides of the city © Ronald Grant Archive
For Londoners, a particular pleasure of the city is stumbling on a hidden curiosity in a familiar part of town. The London Nobody Knows is that feeling in cinematic form, a one-of-a-kind documentary from 1967 with James Mason wandering the lesser-seen side of the capital — from Manze’s pie-and-mash shop and long-gone music halls to areas like Hoxton and Spitalfields still 30 years from gentrification.
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime and Apple TV
Daniel Day-Lewis and friends take to the streets of 1980s south London in ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ © Ronald Grant Archive
The humble home of the fictional Powders Laundrette has become a neighbour to the US Embassy. The Vauxhall street at the heart of Stephen Frears’ groundbreaking 1985 romance now sits on the edge of the infamous Nine Elms development. Back then, it was just a humdrum spot in south London. The film, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a charismatic punk, is anything but.
Phantom Thread (2017)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV and YouTube
High society and the world of haute couture in 1950s London are re-created in ‘Phantom Thread’, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps © Laurie Sparham/Focus Features
Daniel Day-Lewis returns to the city where he spent his childhood in Paul Thomas Anderson’s story of a haute-couture dressmaker, his sister (Lesley Manville) and his muse (Vicky Krieps). The evocation of a certain kind of 1950s London is as precise as the clothes: a working base in Fitzroy Square, New Year seen in at the Chelsea Arts Club Ball.
The Servant (1963)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV and YouTube
Dirk Bogarde and James Fox in Joseph Losey’s ‘The Servant’ © Collection Christophel/Alamy
A Chelsea story again, and another American film-maker with an outsider’s perspective. This time the director was Joseph Losey, working from a script by Harold Pinter. The film they made together was a masterpiece of class friction, Dirk Bogarde’s wily valet attending to the creaking pile on Royal Avenue — and the master of the house, played by James Fox. (The latter’s other great London film, Performance, was still to come.)
Withnail and I (1987)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV and YouTube
Adrift in 1960s London bedsit-land: Paul McGann and Richard E Grant in ‘Withnail and I’ © Pictorial Press/Alamy
Many of the best-loved scenes of Withnail and I take place in a sodden Lake District. (“Are you the farmer?” asks Richard E Grant in one of cinema’s most deathless lines.) So consider it a tribute to how unforgettable the film made the city that it still stands as one of the finest of all London movies, set in a fag-end-of-the-’60s Camden of damp bedsits, drink and deeply suspect characters.
Lovers Rock (2020)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Apple TV and BBC iPlayer
Micheal Ward and Amarah-Jae St Aubyn in ‘Lovers Rock’, from Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ series of London-set films © BBC/McQueen Limited/Parisa Taghizadeh
Everything is in motion in Lovers Rock, the highpoint of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series celebrating the West Indian community of 1970s and ’80s London. The public face of the city is on screen — a Tube rattles along the above-ground tracks of night-time Ladbroke Grove. But the drama takes place indoors, in the course of the all-night reggae party that gives the film its stage — an electric portrait of the London whose musical pulse has so often defined it.
London (1994)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime
The London Troops War Memorial as seen from the Royal Exchange in Patrick Keiller’s ‘London’ © BFI
For all its scale, London is a city that has to be walked to be appreciated. Shot in 1992, Patrick Keiller’s documentary had the feeling of a rainy day meander on foot. The camera never moved once it was in position, but between shots it roved about the byways of the capital. The place it mapped was at once tourist trap and scuffed metropolis — with a City then as now caught in interesting times.
What are your favourite films set in London? Tell us in the comments
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