WOODFALL: A REVOLUTION IN BRITISH CINEMA - BLU-RAY

Directors: Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz, Richard Lester, Desmond Davis

As the 1960s beckoned, a new mood swept through Britain. With anger mounting at an out-of-touch establishment, the era was reflected on screen by the rise of Woodfall Films. Founded in 1958 by director Tony Richardson, writer John Osbourne and producer Harry Saltzman, the company pioneered the British New Wave, defining an incendiary brand of social realism. In films like Look Back in Anger (1959) and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), working-class life was spot-lit with unheard-of honesty. The same risk-taking spirit led the company to find a new generation of brilliant young actors to star in their films, including Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Rita Tushingham. Films like Tom Jones (1963) then expanded the Woodfall slate in an irreverent, colourful direction that helped define swinging London further securing their extraordinary chapter in the history of British film. From 1958 to 1984 Woodfall produced twenty award-winning often genre defining films. Here, presented for the first time are eight of Woodfall's early ground-breaking films, many newly restored and remastered.

• Look Back in Anger (Tony Richardson, 1959)
• The Entertainer (Tony Richardson, 1960)
• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)
• A Taste of Honey (Tony Richardson, 1961)
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962)
• Tom Jones (Tony Richardson, 1963) (New 4K digital restorations of the original theatrical version of the film and the 1989 director's cut)
• Girl with Green Eyes (Desmond Davis, 1964)
• The Knack...and how to get it (Richard Lester, 1965)

Special features:

• Over 20 hours extra material
• 80-page book featuring essays on all 8 films