Best London movies: 18 films nominated by LondonWorld readers - Paddington to Quadrophenia to 28 Days Later

From Paddington to 28 Days Later, London has provided an unforgettable playground for filmmakers over the decades.

Last weekend we asked readers on LondonWorld’s Facebook page: “What’s the greatest London move?”

One answer was: “Any that doesn’t have them going south over one bridge/pan to another shot and they’re two miles away/pan to another shot and they’re in a different borough. All in one little drive.”

Well, quite. There’s a prime culprit here, but even James Bond directors have been known to mess with our precious geography on occasion.

Here are all the films that were nominated as getting London right (in spirit, at least). Obviously, there are omissions, including Withnail and I and A Hard Day’s Night, which we’ll put down to their being featured in the post’s image.

Prepare to agree and disagree vehemently.

Paddington

Few would have predicted that a reimagining of Paddington on the silver screen would be a box office smash and critically lauded. Fewer still would have expected a sequel to match. Paddington was by far the most backed by readers.

Mary Poppins

“Er…Mary Poppins - hello?” As one reader puts it. Quite so.

Layer Cake

Matthew Vaughn’s acclaimed 2004 crime thriller has future Bond Daniel Craig as a drug dealer getting in deeper and deeper.

Eastern Promises

The visionary David Cronenberg put Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings) into a London Russian mafia underworld and made him fight in a bathhouse. Brutal stuff.

Long Good Friday

Bob Hoskins rightly gets a lot of love for this 1980 crime film. It’s an absolute British classic tale of greed, gangsters and violence.

London Has Fallen

A jarring nomination after the three thrillers above. The sequel to Olympus Has Fallen saw accusations of Islamophobia and complaints of insensitivity by families of 7/7 bombing victims - and that’s even before we get to its treatment of London geography. But if you like Gerard Butler and exploding landmarks in your movies, well, this has both.

Attack the Block

“I love Attack the Block. Alien invasion meets realism!” says one reader. Joe Cornish’s brilliant monster movie, set on a south London estate, is lots of fun and launched the career of John Boyega.

Kidulthood/Adulthood

The Hood Trilogy (completed with Brotherhood) shone a light on the lives of young characters living around Ladbroke Grove - heavy on drugs, sex and crime, and shocking to many.

Shaun of the Dead

For my money, one of the greatest depictions of everyday life in London. With Zombies. “You know, I don’t think I’ve got it in me to shoot my flatmate, my mum, and my girlfriend all in the same night.”

The Krays

Islington and Spandau Ballet’s Gary and Martin Kemp don suits to play the city’s most famous criminal siblings to critical acclaim.

Quadrophenia

Phil Daniels, Leslie Ash, Toyah, Philip Davis, Mark Wingett, Sting and Ray Winstone all line up in this loose adaptation of The Who’s rock opera. The definitive mod film?

An American Werewolf in London

John Landis’s comedy horror was packed with gore and humour, and proved massively influential on directors who followed. Still well worth a watch today.

28 Days Later

Danny Boyle’s haunting 2002 zombie film (yes, it is) has Jim (Cillian Murphy) waking from a coma at St Thomas’ Hospital to find the world around him has changed, à la The Day Of The Triffids. He crosses the Thames and walks the deserted central London streets to the soundtrack of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s East Hasting. One of the most stunning London scenes ever filmed.

Rye Lane

The most current nomination - released this year and available now on Disney+ - sees two south Londoners meeting while dealing with bad break ups, in a romcom boasting a 98% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Harry Brown

Michael Caine steps out for a late-career bit of screen violence as a former Royal Marine who turns council estate vigilante.

Up the Junction

This acclaimed, Battersea-set 1960s classic has wealthy heiress Polly (Suzy Kendall) leaving her life behind to discover how the other 99% live.

Passport to Pimlico

The oldest film on our list is an Ealing comedy from 1949, in which a small corner of Westminster does a ‘Brexit’ from the post-war UK at a time when rationing was still in place.

Blow-Up

Antonioni’s first English language feature is widely seen as a masterpiece, following a fashion photographer who thinks he has captured a murder on film in swinging-sixties London.