COMEDY DRAMA HORROR MUSICALS MYSTERY  BRIT TV

During the 1990’s It would seem that the British movies were almost terminally down during the 1990’s.  In the later years it would gradually pull itself out of the slumber.  After the lows of the 80’s the British audience was climbing but few British movies were successful,  they did have some success with American audiences with movies such as The Crying Game picked up by Miramax who funded some UK movies along with The English Patient.
 
During the 1990's there were films that captured the heart of many audiences. The American Dream which was a documentary won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Other movies that gained success are Hear My Song, Where Angels Fear to Tread, Howard's End, Shadowlands, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet, Shakespeare in Love, and Notting Hill.

The only films that reached the top twenty box office ranking are Alan Parker's The Commitments and Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing which were both funded by Americans. However, the overall gross earning of this films were not promising, prompting producers of other films to keep the budgets to a minimal level.

Later though young British directors started to emerge to make films that are noteworthy of a mainstream audience and great financial backing.

The surprising success of 4 weddings and a Funeral, which led to renewed interest in British Films, the company behind this movie (Working Title Films) quickly became one of the most successful UK Production companies.   Working Title Films, which is a London, based British Film Production Company. Founded in the 1980's by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe, they produce films and certain television productions.

The production of this company includes Cohen Brothers' films and Richard Curtis scripted romantic comedies but they now fund other types of movies. Now, its films are distributed by Universal Pictures.  This new appetite lead to comedies such as Full Monty breaking British Box Office Records, the rebirth of James Bond with Golden Eye, and the return of American productions returning to UK Studios revived the glamour of U.K. funded films.

With the resurgence of British films in the 1990’s, it paved the way for more successful productions in the year 2000 up to the present such as Chicken Run which is an animated comedy flick, Snatch, Bridget Jones Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, If Only, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Descent, Pride and Prejudice, Casino Royale, 28 Weeks Later, Becoming Jane, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. 

There have been ups and downs in the British movie industry, but it has weathered the storms and British movies of the 1990’s have paved the way for the millennium allowing the British movie industry to continue to compete with the American market.