Tom Brown's Schooldays

1916
Silent
84m

The adventures of the spirited Tom Brown at Rugby School in the 1830s.

This early film adaptation of Thomas Hughes' 19th century classic, depicts selected episodes from the novel, following the young Tom as he begins his education, confronts the school bully and goes on to become an upstanding young man. If the filmmakers' intention was to stiffen spines in wartime with a wholesome message about fighting the good fight, they certainly chose the right story.

Forgotten Features

A hand-picked assortment of hard-to-see British feature films, featuring mischievous mermaids, murderous minors and military mayhem.

Thanks to decades of DVD and online publishing, not to mention archive revivals and restorations, more of Britain’s screen heritage is available today than ever before. You might even be forgiven for imagining that the whole of British cinema is now just a click away.

But much of that history - from the silent era to the relatively recent past - remains out of reach. This selection from the vaults, hand-picked by the BFI's curators, goes some way to remedying that. These fresh rediscoveries offer something for all tastes: whether futuristic fantasy, battle-of-the-sexes comedy, subversive provocation or an Indian-British rarity.