The 100 best British movies

Director Lionel JeffriesCast Dinah Sheridan, William Mervyn, Jenny Agutter

As warm and cosy as a cup of Horlicks, Lionel Jeffries’s 1970 adaptation of E Nesbit’s Edwardian children’s novel centres on a well-to-do London family torn apart when its patriarch is arrested on suspicion of treason. With a sudden urge to start life over in the country, the remaining family members – mother Dinah Sheridan and her three children – up sticks and settle alongside a quaint Yorkshire railway line where the film slowly begins to work its very English charm. Jenny Agutter and little Sally Thomsett are the film’s cornerstones, but a special mention to Bernard Cribbins’s archetypal British stationmaster. Naturally, the film won’t play well with today’s digital generation – it’s far too fusty and polite in both tone and colour – but it still has the capacity to generate fond childhood memories. Nice to see it make the list of best British movies, albeit in the penultimate spot. DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Railway Children’