20 Movies to Learn British English - Beginner to Advanced

hello everyone and welcome back to english with lucy recently i made a video about the best british tv series for learning english and today i'm going to do something similar but with british films however i'm not going to talk about all of the mainstream films that you might have already experienced in your own country i'm going to try and show you some lesser-known films that i think could really help you improve your english most of these are my personal favorites not all of them were necessa

rily massive when they came out although many of them were but they're films i really really enjoyed films that show british culture many aspects of british culture so we'll start off with films or genres that are suitable for a beginner level move on to pre-intermediate and then intermediate to advanced i do think that a lot of british films show a very perfect view of britain a view that isn't necessarily realistic so i've included some films that show a more realistic view of britain and film

s that show a variety of accents as well it's one of my top tips for improving listening i've said it before many times if you want to be able to understand everyone then it's important that you listen to a variety of accents so when it comes to watching films in order to improve your english it can be really hard to find the right one for you you've got to find something that you are interested in you've got to find something that's at your level and you've also got to find something that will

provide educational value a lot of you aren't based in the uk so how can you gain access to these british films especially some of the lesser known films that i'm going to recommend well there is a solution i highly recommend nordvpn who have kindly sponsored this video a vpn hides your location allowing you to improve security but also importantly allowing you to overcome geographical restrictions so by using nordvpn you can unlock access to these entertainment providers they provide double dat

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cription box okay let's start with films that are more suitable for beginners but these films are enjoyable for everyone the first one oh this film is so good it is wallace and gromit the curse of the ware rabbit i wonder if you've heard of wallace and gromit before they were absolute favorites of mine but this film was particularly fantastic it's a stop-motion film so i think the characters are made of plasticine and they take years and years to make each film the film itself is a work of art w

allace and grumman are a man and his dog and they live in a village where there is an annual giant vegetable competition it's so british i can't even tell you this does genuinely happen in our villages however there is a giant rabbit eating the giant vegetables and the villagers are not happy and wallace and gromit help them out now this film is fantastic because yes it is aimed at children so the english is quite simple not overly simple but it's quite simple however there are lots of hidden jo

kes in there so a lot of really good children's films have secret hidden jokes naughty jokes for the parents and this one is full of that i remember watching this with my grandparents um and they were roaring with laughter it is one of my happiest memories with my grandad oh wallace mr wallace this is all of them oh just one left okay let's move on to the next one i did say that i was going to recommend slightly more obscure films and this one is great for anyone who really enjoyed mary poppins

i imagine you already know about mary poppins and that is a great one to watch in english if you are at a beginner level however there is another film that is very very similar to mary poppins which is absolutely fantastic and it is called bedknobs and broomsticks and this was another childhood favorite now this is set during world war ii and some children three children are evacuated to a lady's house and it turns out that she is training to become a witch now interestingly the lady who plays m

ary poppins was originally asked to play the role of this wannabe witch but she actually turned it down because she didn't want to be typecast if an actor is typecast it means they are repeatedly assigned the same role they're always playing the same character julie andrews later changed her mind but the leading lady angela lansbury had already been cast so it was too late now this is an older film it was released in 1971 so some of the accidents are a bit dated but you've got received pronuncia

tion and cockney amongst many others like people nonetheless we must see the king on an urgent personal matter please lead the way hello future lucy here so since filming this video i've actually been doing a little bit of thinking about bed knobs and broomsticks and i don't think that this is a beginner film some of the language is quite complex actually some of the dialects they use so by all means watch this film and enjoy it because it's a fabulous film but don't feel disappointed if you don

't understand absolutely everything or if you end up with quite a few questions about the language used the last of the children's films i'm going to recommend you might know this one because this was a big box office hit it is the lion the witch and the wardrobe and again this is set in world war ii and again it's children who've been evacuated they're evacuated to the countryside into a big house and they find a wardrobe which leads to the mystical land of narnia i find the speech in this film

to be very very clear the children speak with received pronunciation but there is a wide variety of accents throughout the film look at my fur you couldn't give me 10 minutes warning i would have given you a weight if i thought it would have helped now let's move on to pre-intermediate with these films if you are struggling to understand a film if you're finding it very exhausting i would highly recommend the method of watching something twice this is what i used to do when i was learning spani

sh i used to watch a film the first time with subtitles and then the second time without subtitles it's tedious but i was really bored of not understanding the whole story pick up as much as you can the first time with those subtitles and then the second time around it's almost a big confidence boost because you remember so much and it shows you that you know you've really learned a lot by watching it once and you're learning even more by watching it again now the first genre i recommend for pre

-intermediate is romantic comedies so one kind of lesser known well i guess it's a bit older now but one rom-com that i fell deeply in love with when i was younger was bend it like beckham so this film is about football but i was never interested in football or ball games or sports or anything like that when i was younger i think one of my mum's friends said you have to watch this film so ugh i watched it and ah it's so good it's about an 18 year old girl she's the daughter of british indian sik

hs and she makes friends with keira knightley it turns out they're both really good at football but jess the main character finds it hard to prove to her very conservative parents that actually this western sort of career path is a good idea for her there are a lot of gender stereotypes in this film cultural stereotypes but it's a really good watch and i would say very wholesome it also features a very prominent british accent which is the indian british accent as well as cockney estuary which i

s what kira knightley speaks with in the film donna said she's wearing baby pink now stupid cow i had matching accessories and everything oh mom do i have to go shopping again huh my mother chose all my twins now i said i was going to talk about lesser-known films but i just can't resist just grouping a load of fantastic rom-coms into one section richard curtis films richard curtis just makes the most incredible british rom-coms so i'm quickly going to recommend them to you because i think you'l

l love them i absolutely love them they are feel good films most of them are based in london you've got notting hill love actually the three bridget jones films a really good one which i can't watch again i've just watched it once it is about time it's about a man with the ability to time travel but what he does in different times of his life impacts the future and i found it too emotional i watched it in the cinema and i had to go to the toilet crying but if you need a good sob a good cry then

i highly recommend it i mentioned the bridget jones film the woman who plays bridget renee zellweger she is actually american but she does a pretty damn good rp accent and i would say my ultimate favorite richard curtis film is four weddings and a funeral we watched that the other day it is glorious you'll love it we also have another one which is called shakespeare in love and it stars gwyneth paltrow and it's kind of an imagined version of events where shakespeare falls in love whilst writing

romeo and juliet another recommendation for sort of pre-intermediate level isn't actually a rom-com it is just a com a comedy we don't call it com it is hot fuzz and we watched this the other day it's by simon pegg i'm going to recommend him again later on in this list it is hilarious it's set in the west country so we've got a real southern british english accent the west country accent as well as simon with a london accent and it shows two policemen two very different policemen dealing with a

series of murders it's very very good i love that it's set in it well it's a town not a village i love that it's set kind of in the countryside not in london so many films are based in london and it's really refreshing to have something based outside of london i mean where george merchant secured permission to build his dubious mansion on norris avenue so maybe they were all accidents oh people have accidents every day now let's move on to historical or period dramas now these are still in pre-i

ntermediate although sometimes the vocabulary is quite niche but the actors tend to speak more slowly and clearly in these dramas one really great one is belle is quite interesting it's a very different take on your standard period drama the majority of the film is spoken with an rp accent in this film a british naval officer has an illegitimate child with an enslaved african woman he brings her back to england and it's actually inspired by the 1779 portrait of dido elizabeth bell it's a really

good film it's heartbreaking to see how belle is treated but i thought it was a really different take on just your standard period drama i remember my father's eyes they were kind gentle a little like yours another one which is also quite different and is also very relevant anyone who is lacking confidence or speaking it's the king's speech it stars colin firth as a future king who is struggling to cope with a stammer and he works with an australian speech and language therapist it really is a g

reat film and it's perhaps something that you might be able to relate with on some levels you tricked me physical exercises and tricks are important but what you're asking will only deal with the surface of the last genre in pre-intermediate is horror and i would say that horror is normally pre-intermediate because usually there is slightly less dialogue a fantastic one is 28 days later it's a danny boyle film i love danny boyle he also did slumdog millionaire and this film shows the breakdown o

f society after a virus very relevant a highly contagious virus is accidentally released it's a horror film so it is hard to watch at times but i love an apocalyptic or dystopian film omelette you've prepared a feast jones honor of i guess sir absolutely now we have a comedy horror next which is actually sort of taking the mickey making a joke of the 28 days later film but in a nice way it's another one by simon pegg who did hot fuzz it's called shawn of the dead because it's actually mimicking

dawn of the dead which was very similar in some ways in concept to 28 days later again we have flesh eating zombies but it's a funny horror film over the years philip's been quite unkind to me well you weren't always the easiest person to live with mum he chased me around the garden with a bit of wood well you did call him are you know and the last one and i would actually say that this one is intermediate or higher it's called attack the block the reason i would consider this one to be slightly

more difficult or challenging is because there's such a variety of accents the film shows a teenage street gang in south london who have to defend themselves against alien invaders but the street gang most of them speak multicultural london english this dialect is very common it's quite unique and it's quite new as well if you look into it it's really interesting to see how it's developed i've got no credit nothing don't call everybody father praise someone who's back this is too much madness t

o explain in one test let's move on to intermediate and above and for this i have just dedicated drama and for this i have picked three of my favorite british drama films they are all very different one is strictly rp one is multicultural london english and the last one is actually liverpudlian so scouse the scouse accent let's start with the rp one i would say this is one of my favorite films favorite british films it's called an education and it stars carrie mulligan and it's about a very beau

tiful young girl who is swept off her feet so she is seduced by an older gentleman she's lived a very privileged very sheltered life her parents are very overbearing very strict and he shows her a good time but there is another side to it it's a brilliant film it never got as much critical acclaim as i thought it deserved i also think it contains a really important lesson let me know what you think about that if you watch it it's set in the 60s as well so it's really lovely to see kind of 1960s

britain you know it's a jenny paris you can't buy them here you never bought them yourself no or never oh shut up you stood up carol now let's talk about my multicultural london english recommendation now this film astounded me when i was a teenager i absolutely loved it i watched it over and over again i'm sure you can imagine i lived quite a sheltered privileged life so this kind of opened my eyes it's called kidulthood it's a drama that follows the lives of several teenagers who live in west

london and it was written by noel clark who is a big favorite of mine and he stars in it as well i think he's fantastic you follow the teenagers as they engage in crime and just have a really difficult and challenging time it's really eye-opening and it shows a realistic other side to london britain and london isn't all beautiful countryside and glitz and glamour there is a very real other side to it i'll tell them too i don't want to come in hey check your cameras man nisha would you call the p

olice please this young man has taken this hat and is now causing a commotion is that what he's taken yeah the last one is a slightly older film it's one that my mum recommended to me and it is i think it was released in 1983 and it's called educating rita and it stars one of my favorite actresses julie walters she plays a working-class hairdresser from liverpool who is bored of her everyday life she feels pressured to have a baby she doesn't see her career going anywhere so she decides to enrol

l in university into an open university the open university in the uk is a distance learning university and her tutor is michael kane none other and he's a bit of a drinker he's just a bit bored with his own life as well they form a great friendship so she studies english literature and at first her technical ability for the subject is limited by her lack of education but her enthusiasm helps her overcome this i'm not going to tell you any more because there's more to the story but i think it's

a really really good one i'm coming in anna it's that stupid bleeding handle on the door you want to get it fixed uh yes yes i i meant to so that's it for my recommendations today i really really hope you enjoy some of these films as i said before i didn't just want to recommend all the films you already know about like harry potter or whatever i wanted to give you a selection of different films that will help you in different ways show you lots of different dialects and accents lots of differen

t vocabulary as well let me know what you think i would love to hear other recommendations as well and your reviews of any of these movies and films that you've seen don't forget the nordvpn offer that i mentioned in the beginning you can get 70 off nordvpn and an additional month free by using my link nordvpn.com lucy or you can just use my code lucy the link and the code are in the description box don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media i've got my facebook my instagram and m

y twitter and you can follow me on my personal channel where i do vlogs of my life on an english farm it's interesting for some people i will see you soon for another lesson [Music] [Music] you