British Film Institute
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BFI London IMAX by nightThe British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:

encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and the moving image generally, and their impact on society, to promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema and to establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history and heritage of the United Kingdom.





BFI activities

Cinemas

London IMAX cinemaThe BFI runs the BFI Southbank (formerly the National Film Theatre (NFT)) and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London. The IMAX shows popular recent releases and short films showcasing its technology. The NFT shows films from all over the world particularly critically-acclaimed historical & specialised films that may not otherwise get a cinema showing.


Festivals
The BFI runs the annual London Film Festival and London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.


Archive
The BFI maintains the world's largest film archive, the BFI National Archive, previously called National Film Library (1935-1955), National Film Archive (1955-1992) and National Film and Television Archive (1993-2006), containing about 500,000 works of television and film in total.


Other activities
BFI publishes the monthly Sight and Sound magazine as well as DVDs and books. It runs the BFI National Library, a reference library. BFI also maintains the SIFT (Summary of Information on Film and Television) database, which contains credits, synopses and other data on global film and TV. It also has a substantial collection of around 7 million film and TV stills.


History
The institute was founded in 1933. Despite its foundation resulting from a recommendation in a report on Film and National Life, at that time the institute was a private company, though it has received public money throughout its history - from the Privy Council and Treasury until 1965 and the various culture departments since then.


NFTThe institute was restructured following the Radcliffe Report of 1948 which recommended that the institute should concentrate on developing the appreciation of filmic art, rather than creating film itself. Thus control of educational film production passed to the National Committee for Visual Aids in Education and the British Film Academy assumed control for promoting production.

The institute received a Royal Charter in 1983. This was updated in 2000, and in the same year the newly-established UK Film Council took responsibility for providing the BFI's annual grant-in-aid (government subsidy) and acting, alongside the Charity Commission and the Privy Council, as its regulator.

In 1988 the BFI opened the London Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) on the South Bank. MOMI was acclaimed internationally and set new standards for education through entertainment, but subsequently it did not receive the high levels of continuing investment that might have enabled it to keep pace with technological developments and ever-rising audience expectations. The Museum was "temporarily" closed in 1999 when the BFI stated that it would be re-sited. This did not happen, and MOMI's closure became permanent in 2002 when it was decided to redevelop the South Bank site. This redevelopment was itself then further delayed.


Today
The BFI is currently managed on a day-to-day basis by its director, Amanda Nevill. Supreme decision-making authority rests with a chairman and a board of up to 14 governors. The current chairman is Anthony Minghella. The chairman of the board is appointed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport who receives recommendations from the UK Film Council. Other board members are co-opted by existing board members when required. These appointments are ratified by the UK Film Council.

The BFI operates with three sources of income. The largest is public money allocated through the UK Film Council from the funds given to it by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. In 2003, this funding amounted to approximately £15m. The second largest source is commercial activity such as receipts from the National Film Theatre and IMAX Theatre (2003, ~£10m). Finally grants of around £5m were obtained from various sources, primarily National Lottery funding grants, but also through donations. J. Paul Getty, Jr. donated around £1m in his will following his death in 2003.

The BFI also devotes a large amount of its time to the preservation and study of British television programming and its history. In 2000, it published a high-profile list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, as voted for by a range of industry figures.

The much-delayed redevelopment of the National Film Theatre finally took place in 2007, creating in the rebranded "BFI Southbank" new education spaces, a gallery, and a pioneering mediatheque which for the first time enabled the public to gain access, free of charge, to some of the otherwise inaccessible treasures in the National Film & Television Archive. The mediatheque has proved to be the most successful element of this redevelopment, and there are plans to roll out a network of them across the UK.

The BFI has operated with the same level of government subsidy for the last four years (a cut in real terms). Despite that, it has achieved considerable success (for example, it is easily the most effective of any comparable national institution at engaging with people other than the usual white middle class beneficiaries of state-subsidised culture). Its work at the National Film & Television Archive, though severely reduced by inadequate funding, is world-leading[citation needed]. Its innovative digital and mediatheque strategies are achieving some success in making the archive accessible to other than a tiny group of researchers, policies which are supported by its active DVD production work.

There are some signs that government is recognising this: an announcement of a £25 million capital investment in the National Archive Strategy was made by Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport at the opening night of the 2007 London Film Festival. It is expected that the bulk of this money will pay for long overdue development of the BFI's NFTA facilities in Hertfordshire and elsewhere. The BFI itself is lobbying for the award of £200 million for the creation of a brand-new Film Centre, to replace the near-life-expired facilities at the National Film Theatre.

Cinema of the United Kingdom




The United Kingdom has been influential in the technological, commercial, and artistic development of cinema and probably second only to the USA in producing the greatest quantity of world-wide film stars. Despite a history of successful productions, the industry is characterised by an ongoing debate about its identity (including economic and cultural issues) and the influences of American and European cinema, although it is fair to say a brief 'golden age' was enjoyed in the 1940s from the studios of J Arthur Rank and Alexander Korda
Overview

UK film production from 1912 to 2003Film production in the UK has experienced a number of booms and recessions. Although many factors can be used to measure the success of the industry, the number of British films produced each year ([1]) gives an overview of its development: the industry experienced a boom as it first developed in the 1910s, but during the 1920s experienced a recession caused by US competition and commercial practices. The Cinematograph Films Act 1927 introduced protective measures, leading to recovery and an all-time production high of 192 films in 1936. However, over-expansion caused a major crash, and low production continued throughout World War II.

Film production recovered after the war, with a long period of relative stability and growing American investment. But another recession hit the industry in the mid-1970s, reaching an all-time low of 24 films in 1981. Low production continued throughout the 1980s, but it increased again in the 1990s with renewed private and public investment. Although production levels give an overview, the history of British cinema is complex, with various cultural movements developing independently. Some of the most successful films were made during 'recessions', such as Chariots of Fire (1981).


[edit] History

[edit] Early British cinema
Modern cinema is generally regarded as descending from the work of the French Lumière brothers in 1892, and their show first came to London in 1896. However, the first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. The film is the first known instance of a projected moving image.

The first people to build and run a working 35 mm camera in Britain were Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres. They made the first British film Incident at Clovelly Cottage in February 1895, shortly before falling out over the camera's patent. Soon several British film companies had opened to meet the demand for new films, such as Mitchell and Kenyon in Blackburn. From 1898 American producer Charles Urban expanded the London-based Warwick Trading Company to produce British films, mostly documentary and news. He later formed his own Charles Urban Trading Company, which also produced early colour films.


[edit] The 1930s boom

The 39 Steps (1935) posterBy the mid-twenties the British film industry was losing out to heavy competition from Hollywood, the latter helped by having a much larger home market. In 1914, 25% of films shown in the UK were British — by 1926 this had fallen to 5%. The Cinematograph Films Act 1927 was passed in order to boost local production, requiring that cinemas show a certain percentage of British films. The act was technically a success, with audiences for British films becoming larger than the quota required. But it had the effect of creating a market for 'quota quickies': poor quality, low cost films, made in order to satisfy the quota. Some critics have blamed the quickies for holding back the development of the industry. However, many British film-makers learnt their craft making these films, including Michael Powell and Alfred Hitchcock.

In the silent era, audiences were receptive to films from all nations. However, with the advent of sound films, many foreign actors or those with strong regional accents soon found themselves in less demand, and more 'formal' English (received pronunciation) became the norm. Sound also increased the influence of already popular American films.

Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929) is regarded as the first British sound feature. It was a part-talkie with a synchronized score and sound effects. Later the same year, the first all-talking British feature, The Clue of the New Pin (1929) was released. It was based on a novel by Edgar Wallace, starring Donald Calthrop, Benita Home and Fred Raines, made by British Lion at their Beaconsfield Studios. The first all-colour sound feature (shot silent but with a soundtrack added) was released in the year and was entitled A Romance of Seville (1929). It was produced by British International Pictures and starred Alexander D'Arcy and Marguerite Allan. In 1930, the first all-colour all-talking British feature, Harmony Heaven (1930), was released. It was also produced by British International Pictures and starred Polly Ward and Stuart Hall. A number of all-talking films containing colour sequences, mostly musicals, were also released in the same year. The School for Scandal (1930) was the second all-talking feature to be filmed entirely in colour.

Starting with John Grierson's Drifters, the 1930s saw the emergence of a new school of realist documentary films: The Documentary Film Movement. It was Grierson who coined the term "documentary" to describe a non-fiction film, and he produced the movement's most celebrated film of the 1930s, Night Mail (1936), written and directed by Basil Wright and Harry Watt, and incorporating the poem by W.H. Auden. Other key figures in this movement were Humphrey Jennings, Paul Rotha and Alberto Cavalcanti. Many of them would go on to produce important films during World War II.

Several other new talents emerged during this period, and Alfred Hitchcock would confirm his status as one of Britain's leading young directors with his influential thrillers The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938), before moving to Hollywood.

Music hall also proved influential in comedy films of this period, and a number of popular personalities emerged, including George Formby, Gracie Fields, Jessie Matthews and Will Hay.

Many of the most important British productions of the 1930s were produced by London Films, founded by the Hungarian emigre Alexander Korda. These included Things to Come (1936), Rembrandt (1936) and Knight Without Armour (1937), as well as the early Technicolor films The Drum (1938), The Four Feathers (1939) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). These had followed closely on from Wings of the Morning (1937), Britain's first colour feature film in the new three colour process (previous colour features had used a two colour process).

After the boom years of the late 1920s and early 1930s, rising expenditure and over-optimistic expansion into the American market caused the production bubble to burst in 1937. Of the 640 British production companies registered between 1925 and 1936, 20 were still going in 1937. Moreover, the 1927 Films Act was up for renewal. The replacement Cinematograph Films Act 1938 provided incentives for UK companies to make fewer films of higher quality and, influenced by world politics, encouraged American investment and imports. One result was the creation by the American company MGM of a British studio MGM British in Hertfordshire, which produced some very successful films, including A Yank at Oxford (1938) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), before World War II intervened.


[edit] World War II

Colonel Blimp (1943) DVD CoverThe constraints imposed by World War II seemed to give new energy to the British film industry. After a faltering start, British films began to make increasing use of documentary techniques and former documentary film-makers to make more realistic films, many of which helped to shape the popular image of the nation at war. Among the best known of these films are In Which We Serve (1942), Went the Day Well? (1942), We Dive at Dawn (1943), Millions Like Us (1943) and The Way Ahead (1944). In the later war years Gainsborough Studios produced a series of critically derided but immensely popular period melodramas including The Man in Grey (1943) and The Wicked Lady (1945). These helped to create a new generation of British stars, such as Stewart Granger, Margaret Lockwood and James Mason.

Two Cities Films, an independent production company also made some important films including This Happy Breed (1944), Blithe Spirit (1945) and Sir Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944) and Hamlet (1948).

The war years also saw the flowering of the Powell and Pressburger partnership with films like Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and A Canterbury Tale (1944) which, while set in wartime, were very much about the people affected by war rather than battles.


[edit] Post-war cinema

The Red Shoes (1948) posterTowards the end of the 1940s, the Rank Organisation, founded in 1937 by J. Arthur Rank, became the dominant force behind British film-making. It acquired a number of British studios, and bank-rolled some of the great British film-makers which were emerging in this period.

Building on the success British cinema had enjoyed during World War II, the industry hit new heights of creativity in the immediate post-war years. Among the most significant films produced during this period were David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) and his Dickens adaptations Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), Carol Reed's thrillers Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949), and Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1946) and The Red Shoes (1948). British cinema's growing international reputation was enhanced by the success of The Red Shoes, the most commercially successful film of its year in the U.S., and by Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Ealing Studios (financially backed by J Arthur Rank) embarked on their series of celebrated comedies, including Whisky Galore (1948), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Man in the White Suit (1951).

In the 1950s the industry began to retreat slightly from the prestige productions which had made British films successful worldwide, and began to concentrate on popular comedies and World War II dramas aimed more squarely at the domestic audience. The war films were often based on true stories and made in a similar low-key style to their wartime predecessors. They helped to make stars of actors like John Mills, Jack Hawkins and Kenneth More, and some of the most successful included The Cruel Sea (1953), The Dam Busters (1954), The Colditz Story (1955) and Reach for the Sky (1956).

Popular comedy series included the St Trinians films and the "Doctor" series, beginning with Doctor in the House in 1954. The latter series starred Dirk Bogarde, probably the British industry's most popular star of the 1950s. Bogarde was later replaced by Michael Craig and Leslie Phillips, and the series continued until 1970. The Rank Organisation also produced some other notable comedy successes, such as Genevieve in 1953.

The writer/director/producer team of twin brothers John and Roy Boulting also produced a series of successful satires on British life and institutions, beginning with Private's Progress (1956), and continuing with Brothers in Law (1957), Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1958), I'm All Right Jack (1959) and Heavens Above! (1963). The Italian director-producer Mario Zampi also made a number of successful black comedies, including Laughter in Paradise (1951), The Naked Truth (1957) and Too Many Crooks (1958).

After a string of successful films, including the comedies The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) and The Ladykillers (1955), as well as dramas like Dead of Night, Scott of the Antarctic and The Cruel Sea, Ealing Studios finally ceased production in 1958, and the studios were taken over by the BBC for television production.

Less restrictive censorship towards the end of the 1950s encouraged B-movie producer Hammer Films to embark on their series of influential and wildly successful horror films. Beginning with black and white adaptations of Nigel Kneale's BBC science fiction serials The Quatermass Experiment (1955) and Quatermass II (1957), Hammer quickly graduated to deceptively lavish colour versions of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy. Their enormous commercial success encouraged them to turn out sequel after sequel, and led to an explosion in horror film production in Britain that would last for nearly two decades. Hammer would dominate British horror production throughout this period, but other companies were created specifically to meet the new demand, including Amicus Productions and Tigon British.


[edit] The British New Wave

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) posterSee also British New Wave
The term British New Wave, or "Kitchen Sink Realism", is used to describe a group of commercial feature films made between 1955 and 1963 which portrayed a more gritty form of social realism than had been seen in British cinema previously. The British New Wave feature films are often associated with a new openness about working class life (e.g. A Taste of Honey, 1961), and previously taboo issues such as abortion and homosexuality (e.g. The Leather Boys, 1964).

The New Wave filmmakers were influenced by the documentary film movement known as "Free Cinema". Free Cinema emerged in the mid-1950s and was named by Lindsay Anderson in 1956. They were also influenced by the Angry Young Men, who were writing plays and literature from the mid-1950s, and the documentary films of everyday life commissioned by the British Post Office, Ministry of Information, and several commercial sponsors such as Ford of Britain, during and after the Second World War.

The films were personal, poetic, imaginative in their use of sound and narration, and featured ordinary working-class people with sympathy and respect. In this respect they were the inheritors of the tradition of Mass Observation and Humphrey Jennings. The 1956 statement of the Free Cinema gives the following precepts: "No film can be too personal. The image speaks. Sounds amplifies and comments. Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude."

A group of key filmmakers was established around the film magazine Sequence which was founded by Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson who had all made documentary films such as Anderson's Every Day Except Christmas and Richardson's Momma Don't Allow.

Together with future James Bond producer Harry Saltzman, John Osborne and Tony Richardson established the company Woodfall Films to produce their early feature films. These included adaptations of Richardson's stage productions of Look Back in Anger with Richard Burton and The Entertainer with Sir Laurence Olivier. Other significant films in this movement include Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), A Kind of Loving (1962), and This Sporting Life (1963).

After Richardson's film of Tom Jones became a big hit the group broke up to pursue different interests. The films also made stars out of their leading actors Albert Finney, Alan Bates, Rita Tushingham, Richard Harris and Tom Courtenay.


[edit] The 1960s Boom

Alfie (1966) posterIn the 1960s British studios began to enjoy major success in the international market with a string of films that displayed a more liberated attitude to sex, capitalising on the "swinging London" image propagated by Time magazine. Films like Darling, Alfie, Georgy Girl, and The Knack …and How to Get It all explored this phenomenon, while Blowup, Repulsion and later Women in Love, broke taboos around the portrayal of sex and nudity on screen.

At the same time, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli combined sex with exotic locations, casual violence and self-referential humour in the phenomenally successful James Bond series. The first film Dr. No was a sleeper hit in Britain in 1962, and the second, From Russia with Love (1963), a hit worldwide. By the time of the third film, Goldfinger (1964), the series had become a global phenomenon, reaching its commercial peak with Thunderball the following year.

The series success led to a spy film boom, with The Liquidator (1965), Modesty Blaise (1966), Sebastian (1968) and the Bulldog Drummond spoofs, Deadlier Than the Male (1967) and Some Girls Do (1968) among the results. Bond co-producer Harry Saltzman had also instigated a rival series of more realistic spy films based on the novels of Len Deighton. Michael Caine starred as bespectacled spy Harry Palmer in The IPCRESS File (1965), Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967), and the success of these ushered in a cycle of downbeat espionage films in the manner of the novels of John le Carré, including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and The Deadly Affair (1966).

Overseas film makers were also attracted to Britain at this time. Polish film maker Roman Polanski made Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-Sac (1966) in London and Northumberland respectively, before attracting the attention of Hollywood. Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni filmed Blowup (1966) with David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave, and François Truffaut directed his only film made outside France, the science fiction parable Fahrenheit 451 in 1966.

American directors were regularly working in London throughout the decade, but several became permanent residents in Britain. Blacklisted in America, Joseph Losey had a significant influence on British cinema in the 60s, particularly with his collaborations with playwright Harold Pinter and leading man Dirk Bogarde, including The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967). Voluntary emigres Stanley Kubrick and Richard Lester were also influential. Lester had major hits with The Knack …and How to Get It (1965), and The Beatles films A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965), after which it became standard for each new pop group to have a verité style feature film made about them. Kubrick settled in Hertfordshire in the early 60s and would remain in England for the rest of his career. The special effects team assembled to work on his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey would add significantly to the British industry's importance in this field over the following decades.

The success of these films and others as diverse as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Tom Jones (1963), Zulu (1964) and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) encouraged American studios to invest significantly in British film production. Major films like Becket (1964), A Man for All Seasons (1966), Khartoum (1966) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) were regularly mounted, while smaller-scale films including Billy Liar (1963), Accident (1967) and Women in Love (1969) were big critical successes. Four of the decade's Academy Award winners for best picture were British productions.

Towards the end of the decade social realism was beginning to make its way back into British films again. Influenced by his work on the Wednesday Play on British television, Ken Loach directed the realistic dramas Poor Cow and Kes.


[edit] The 1970s
With the film industry in both the United Kingdom and the United States entering into recession, American studios cut back on domestic production, and in many cases withdrew from financing British films altogether. Major films were still being made at this time, including Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Battle of Britain (1969), Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970), but as the decade wore on financing became increasingly hard to come by. Large-scale productions were still being mounted, but they were more sporadic and sometimes seemed old-fashioned compared with the competition from America. Among the more successful were adaptations of the Agatha Christie stories Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978). Other notable films included the Edwardian drama The Go-Between, which won the Palme D'Or at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, Hitchcock's final British film Frenzy (1972), Nicolas Roeg's Venice-set supernatural thriller Don't Look Now (1973) and Mike Hodges' gangster drama Get Carter (1971) starring Michael Caine. Other productions like Shout at the Devil (1976) fared less well, while the entry of Lew Grade's company ITC into film production in the latter half of the decade brought only a few box office successes and an unsustainable number of failures. Other epic productions such as Richard Attenborough's Young Winston (1972) and A Bridge Too Far (1977) met with mixed commercial success.

The British horror boom of the 1960s also finally came to an end by the mid-1970s, with the leading producers Hammer and Amicus leaving the genre altogether in the face of competition from independents in the United States. Films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) made Hammer's vampire films seem increasingly tame and outdated, despite attempts to spice up the formula with added nudity and gore. Although some attempts were made to broaden the range of British horror films, such as the comic Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter or the cult favourite The Wicker Man, these films made little impact at the box office, and the horror boom was finally over by the middle of the decade.

Some British producers, including Hammer, turned to television series for inspiration, and the big screen versions of shows like Steptoe and Son and On the Buses proved successful with domestic audiences. The other major influence on British comedy films in the decade was the Monty Python group, also from television. Their two most successful films were Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), the latter a major commercial success, probably at least in part due to the considerable controversy surrounding its release.

The continued presence of the Eady levy in the 1970s, combined with a loosening of censorship rules, also brought on a minor boom of low-budget British sex comedies and softcore porn movies. Most notable among these were films starring Mary Millington such as Come Play with Me, and the Confessions of... series starring Robin Askwith, beginning with Confessions of a Window Cleaner.

More relaxed censorship in the 1970s also brought several controversial films, including Ken Russell's The Devils (1970), Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971), Quadrophenia (1979), and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971).

The late 1970s at least saw a revival of the James Bond series with The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977. However, the next film, Moonraker (1979), broke with tradition by filming at studios in France to take advantage of tax incentives there. Some American productions did return to the major British studios in 1977-79, including Star Wars at Elstree Studios, Superman at Pinewood, and Alien at Shepperton.


The 1980s: Renaissance and Recession

Chariots of Fire (1981) posterAlthough major American productions, such as The Empire Strikes Back and Superman II, continued to be filmed at British studios in the 1980s, the decade began with the worst recession the British film industry had ever seen. In 1980 only 31 British films were made, down 50% on the previous year, and the lowest output since 1914. Production was down again the following year, to 24 films. However, the 1980s soon saw a renewed optimism, led by companies such as Goldcrest (and producer David Puttnam), Channel 4, Handmade Films and Merchant Ivory Productions. Under producer Puttnam a generation of British directors emerged making popular films with international distribution, including: Bill Forsyth (Local Hero, 1983), Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire, 1981), Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields, 1984), Alan Parker (Midnight Express, 1978) and Ridley Scott (The Duellists 1977).

When the Puttnam-produced Chariots of Fire (1981) won 4 Academy Awards in 1982, including best picture, its writer Colin Welland declared "the British are coming!" (quoting Paul Revere). When in 1983 Gandhi (also produced by Goldcrest) picked up best picture it looked as if he was right. It prompted a cycle of bigger budget period films, including David Lean's final film A Passage to India (1984) and the Merchant Ivory adaptations of the works of E. M. Forster, such as A Room with a View (1986). However, further attempts to make 'big' productions for the US market ended in failure, with Goldcrest losing independence after a trio of commercial flops, including the 1986 Palm D'or winner The Mission. By this stage the rest of the new talent had moved on to Hollywood.

Handmade Films, part owned by George Harrison, produced a series of comedies and gritty dramas such as The Long Good Friday (1980) and Withnail and I (1987) that had proven popular internationally and have since achieved cult success. The company was originally formed to take over the production of Monty Python's Life of Brian, and subsequently became involved in other projects by the group's members. The Pythons' influence was still apparent in British comedy films of the 1980s, the most notable examples being Terry Gilliam's fantasy films Time Bandits (1981) and Brazil (1985), and John Cleese's hit A Fish Called Wanda (1988).

With the involvement of Channel 4 in film production a number of new talents were developed in Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette) and Mike Newell (Dance with a Stranger), while John Boorman, who had been working in the US, was encouraged back to Britain to make Hope and Glory (1987). Stephen Woolley's company Palace Pictures also enjoyed some notable successes, including Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves (1984) and Mona Lisa (1986), before collapsing amid a series of unsuccessful films. Amongst the other notable British films of the decade were Lewis Gilbert's Educating Rita (1983) and Peter Yates's The Dresser (1983).

Following the final winding up of the Rank Organisation, a series of company consolidations in British cinema distribution meant that it became ever harder for British productions. Another blow was the elimination of the Eady tax concession by the Conservative Government in 1984. The concession had made it possible for a foreign film company to write off a large amount of its production costs by filming in the UK — this was what attracted a succession of blockbuster productions to British studios in the 1970s. With Eady gone many studios closed or focused on television work.


British cinema in the 1990s

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) posterFilm production in Britain hit one of its all-time lows in 1989. While cinema audiences were climbing in the UK in the early 1990s, few British films were enjoying significant commercial success, even in the home market. Among the more notable exceptions were the Merchant Ivory productions Howards End (1992) and The Remains of the Day (1993), Richard Attenborough's Chaplin (1992) and Shadowlands (1993) and Neil Jordan's acclaimed thriller The Crying Game (1992). The latter was generally ignored on its initial release in Britain, but was a considerable success in the United States, where it was picked up by the distributor Miramax. The same company also enjoyed some success releasing the BBC period drama Enchanted April (1992). Kenneth Branagh's filmed Shakespeare adaptations were also gaining some attention, including his 1989 version of Henry V, and Much Ado About Nothing in 1993.

However, the enthusiastic reception given to The Madness of King George (1994) proved there was still a market for the traditional British costume drama, and a large number of other period films followed, including Sense and Sensibility (1995), Restoration (1995), Emma (1996), Mrs. Brown (1997), The Wings of the Dove (1997, Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Topsy-Turvy (1999). Several of these were funded by Miramax Films, who also took over Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996) when the production ran into difficulties during filming. Although technically an American production, the success of this film, including its 9 Academy Award wins would bring further prestige to British film-makers.

The surprise success of the Richard Curtis-scripted comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), which grossed $244 million worldwide, led to renewed interest and investment in British films, and set a pattern for British-set romantic comedies, including Sliding Doors (1998) and Notting Hill (1999). Working Title Films, the company behind many of these films, quickly became one of the most successful British production companies of recent years, with other box office hits including Bean (1997), Elizabeth (1998) and Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001).

The new appetite for British comedy films lead to the popular comedies Brassed Off (1996), and The Full Monty (1997). The latter film unexpectedly became a runaway success and broke British box office records. Produced for under $4 m and grossing $257 m internationally, studios were encouraged to start smaller subsidiaries dedicated to looking for other low budget productions capable of producing similar returns.

With the introduction of public funding for British films through the new National Lottery something of a production boom occurred in the late 1990s, but only a few of these films found significant commercial success, and many went unreleased. These included several gangster films attempting to imitate Guy Ritchie's black comedies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000).

After a six year hiatus for legal reasons the James Bond films returned to production with the 17th Bond film, GoldenEye. With their traditional home Pinewood Studios fully booked, a new studio was created for the film in a former Rolls-Royce aero-engine factory at Leavesden in Hertfordshire.

American productions also began to return to British studios in the mid-1990s, including Interview with the Vampire (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) and The Mummy (1999), as well as the French production The Fifth Element (1997), at the time claimed to be the most expensive film made in Britain.

Mike Leigh emerged as a significant figure in British cinema in the 1990s with a series of films financed by Channel 4 about working and middle class life in modern England, including Life Is Sweet (1991), Naked (1993) and his biggest hit Secrets and Lies, which won the Palm D'Or at Cannes.

Other new talents to emerge during the decade included the writer-director-producer team of John Hodge, Danny Boyle and Andrew Macdonald responsible for Shallow Grave (1994) and Trainspotting (1996). The latter film generated interested in other "regional" productions, including the Scottish films Ratcatcher and Young Adam.


British cinema since 2000

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) posterThe new century has so far been a relatively successful one for the British film industry. Many British films have found a wide international audience, and some of the independent production companies, such as Working Title, have secured financing and distribution deals with major American studios. Working Title scored three major international successes with the romantic comedies Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), which grossed $254 million world-wide; the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason , which earned $228 million; and Richard Curtis's directorial debut Love Actually (2003), which grossed $239 million. At the same time, critically-acclaimed films such as Gosford Park (2001), Pride and Prejudice (2005), The Constant Gardener (2005), The Queen (2006) and The Last King of Scotland (2006) also brought prestige to the British film industry.

The new decade saw a major new film series in the US-backed but British made Harry Potter films, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 2001. David Heyman's company Heyday Films has produced three sequels, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with two more films planned.

Aardman Animations' Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit and the Creature Comforts series, produced his first feature length film, Chicken Run in 2000. Co-directed with Peter Lord, the film was a major success worldwide and one of the most successful British films of its year. Park's follow up, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was another worldwide hit, despite its utterly English story, setting, conception and humour. The film grossed $56 million at the US box office and £32 million in the UK. It also won the 2005 Academy Award for best animated feature. In 2005, Vanguard Animations and Ealing Studios produced Britain's first computer animated feature film, Valiant, featuring the voices of Ewan McGregor, Ricky Gervais and Jim Broadbent.

The turn of the new century saw a revival of the British horror film. Lead by Danny Boyle's acclaimed hit 28 Days Later (2002), other examples included The Hole, 'Dog Soldiers, The Descent and the comedy Shaun of the Dead.

By the early 2000s, the popularity of British films in the home market had also grown enough to allow a spate of television spin-offs and other comedies aimed largely at the domestic audience, including Kevin and Perry Go Large and Ali G in da House.

Notable British directors emerging during this period include Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, United 93), Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, A Cock and Bull Story) and Stephen Daldry, whose debut film Billy Elliot (2000) became one of the most successful British films of its year.


Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) was an instant hitMore established directors were also busy during this period however. In 2004, Mike Leigh directed Vera Drake, an account of a housewife who leads a double life as an abortionist in 1950s London. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and three BAFTAs. Stephen Frears directed a trilogy of films about British life, beginning with Dirty Pretty Things (about illegal migrant workers in London's black economy), Mrs Henderson Presents (dealing with the Windmill Theatre in World War II) and The Queen (based on the events surrounding the death of Princess Diana). In 2006, Ken Loach won the Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival with his account of the struggle for Irish Independence in The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

Woody Allen became a convert to British filmmaking, choosing to shoot his 2005 film Matchpoint entirely in London, with a largely British cast and financing from BBC Films.

Despite increasing competition from film studios in Australia and Eastern Europe (especially the Czech Republic), British studios such as Pinewood, Shepperton and Leavesden remained successful in hosting major foreign productions such as Finding Neverland, V for Vendetta, Closer, The Mummy Returns, Troy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, United 93, The Phantom of the Opera and The Golden Compass.

The film industry remains an important earner for the British economy. According to a UK Film Council press release of January 15, 2007, £840.1 million was spent on making films in the UK during 2006.

English actor Daniel Craig became the new James Bond with Casino Royale, the 21st entry in the official Eon Productions series. The film was nominated for nine BAFTA awards, the highest recognition for a Bond film.

British actors and actresses have always been significant in international cinema. Among the current crop of younger actors are Catherine Zeta Jones, Clive Owen, Rachel Weisz, Paul Bettany, Kate Winslet, Ewan McGregor, Kate Beckinsale, Hugh Grant, Jude Law, Daniel Radcliffe, Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Orlando Bloom and Rhys Ifans.


BAFTA Award for Best British Film
At the 1993 British Academy Awards (BAFTA) the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film was introduced. The BAFTAs had included a Best British Film category since 1948, although the idea was dropped in the 1960s.

Cinema of France
The art of motion-picture making within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad is collectively known as French cinema.


France, especially, has long been a gathering spot for artists from across Europe and the world. For this reason French cinema is sometimes intertwined with the cinema of foreign nations. Directors from nations such as Poland (Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrzej Żuławski), Argentina (Gaspar Noe, Edgardo Cozarinsky), and the Soviet Union (Alexandre Alexeieff, Anatole Litvak, Gela Babluani) are equally prominent in the ranks of French cinema as the native Frenchmen.
History

Late 19th century to early 20th century
In the late 19th century, during the early years of cinema, France produced several important pioneers. Auguste and Louis Lumière invented the cinématographe and their screening of L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat in Paris in 1895 is marked by many historians as the official birth of cinematography. During the next few years, filmmakers all over the world started experimenting with this new medium, and France's Georges Méliès was influential. He invented many of the techniques now common in the cinematic language, and made the first ever science fiction film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune, 1902).

Other early individuals and organizations of this period included Gaumont Pictures and Pathé Frères. Alice Guy Blaché was one of the first pioneers in cinema. She made her first film in 1896, La Fée aux Choux, and was head of production at Gaumont 1897-1906, where she made in total about 400 films. Her career continued in the United States. Several pioneers such as Maurice Tourneur or Léonce Perret continued their career in United States after World War I.

During the period between World War I and World War II, Jacques Feyder became one of the founders of poetic realism in French cinema. He was also a dominating character within French Impressionist Cinema as well as Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac and Jean Epstein, see Cinéma Pur.

After World War I, the French film industry was weak, because of missing assets. As every European war leading country, France suffered of a strong financial lack, which was very hard for the film industry to find investors. So the French film production decreased as well as the production of the most other European countries too. This was the chance for the US film industry to enter the European cinema market with their own production, which could be sold cheaper than the European productions, because the studios had already recouped their investments in the home market. So, even more film studios in Europe, and also in France, crashed, which was the impulse for many European countries to install barriers to import. In view of the quota-rules of neighbor states such as Great Britain or Germany, France installed an import quota of 1:7, which means, that for every seven foreign films imported to France, one French film has to be produced and shown in French cinemas.[1]

Beginning in 1935, renowned playwright and actor Sacha Guitry directed his first film. He made more than 30 films that are seen as the precursor to the new wave era.

In 1937 Jean Renoir, the son of famous painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, directed what many see as his first masterpiece, La Grande Illusion (The Grand Illusion). In 1939 Renoir directed La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game). Several movie critics have cited this film as one of the greatest of all-time.

Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise) was filmed during World War II and released in 1945. The three-hour film was extremely difficult to make due to the conditions during the Nazi occupation. Set in Paris in 1828, the film was voted "Best French Film of the Century" in a poll of 600 French critics and professionals in the late 1990s.


Post-World War II: 1940s-1970s
In the critical magazine Cahiers du cinéma founded by André Bazin, critics and lovers of film would discuss film and why it worked. Modern film theory was born there. Additionally, Cahiers critics such as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, etc. went on to make films themselves, creating what was to become known as the French New Wave. Some of the first movies of this new genre was Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and - the leading movie - Truffaut's The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cent Coups, 1959) starring Jean-Pierre Léaud. From 1959 till 1979 Truffaut followed Léaud's character Antoine Doinel, who falls in love with Christine Darbon (Claude Jade from Hitchcock's Topaz) in Stolen Kisses, marries her in Bed & Board and separates from her in the last Post-New-Wave-Movie Love on the Run. Produced during this period, French comedies with Louis de Funes are a best in French box office: Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At, La Grande Vadrouille (1966) ( 17 000 000 ) from Gérard Oury with Bourvil, La Folie des grandeur with Yves Montand...
[edit] 1980s
In 1979 La Cage aux Folles is a Golden Globe Award winner with Michel Serrault.
When Jean-Jacques Beineix made Diva (1981) it sparked the beginning of the 80s wave of French cinema. Movies which followed in its wake included Betty Blue (37°2 le matin, 1986) by Beineix, The Big Blue (Le Grand bleu, 1988) by Luc Besson and The Lovers on the Bridge (Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, 1991) by Léos Carax.
1990s
In 1991, Jean-Pierre Jeunet made Delicatessen, followed by the 1995 The City of Lost Children (La Cité des enfants perdus). Both films featured a distinctly fantastic style.
In 1992, Claude Sautet wrote (with Jacques Fieschi) and directed Un Coeur en Hiver, considered by many to be a masterpiece.
In the mid-1990s, Krzysztof Kieślowski released his Three colors trilogy, Blue, White and Red.
Mathieu Kassovitz's film Hate (La Haine, 1995) made Vincent Cassel into a star.
Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997) became a cult favorite.
In 2001 after a brief stint in Hollywood with the fourth Alien film (Alien: Resurrection), Jeunet returned to France with Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) starring Audrey Tautou and Mathieu Kassovitz.
Current situation
As the advent of television threatened the life of cinema itself, countries were faced with the problem of reviving cinema-going. The French cinema market, and more generally the French-speaking market, is smaller than the English-speaking market, one reason being that some major markets such as the United States are fairly reluctant to import foreign movies. As a consequence, French movies have to be amortized on a relatively small market and thus generally have budgets far lower than their American counterparts, ruling out expensive settings and special effects. Interestingly, the once prospering filmmaking industry of countries such as Italy has now largely been eliminated. The French government has therefore implemented various measures aimed at supporting local film production and movie theaters, including:

the Canal+ TV channel has a broadcast license imposing that it should support the production of movies;
some taxes are levied on movies and TV channels for use as subsidies for movie production;
some tax breaks are given for investment in movie productions;
the sale of DVDs and videocassettes of movies shown in theaters is prohibited for six months after the showing in theaters, so as to ensure some revenue for movie theaters

Cinema of Russia
The cinema of Russia began in the Russian Empire, widely developed under the Soviet and in the years following the fall of the Soviet system, the Russian film industry would remain internationally recognized. In the 21st century, Russian cinema has become popular internationally with hits such as Dom Durakov, Nochnoi Dozor, and the exceptionally popular Brat.

Cinema of the Russian Empire
Main article: Cinema of the Russian Empire
The first films seen in the Russian Empire were brought in by the Lumière brothers, who exhibited films in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 1896. That same month, Lumière cameraman Camille Cerf made the first film in Russia, recording the coronation of Nicholas II at the Kremlin.

Aleksandr Drankov produced the first Russian narrative film, Stenka Razin, based on events told in a popular folk song and directed by Vladimir Romashkov. Ladislas Starevich made the first Russian animated film (and the first stop motion puppet film with a story) in 1910 - Lucanus Cervus. Among the notable Russian filmmakers of the era were Aleksandr Khanzhonkov and Ivan Mozzhukhin, who made Oborona Sevastopolya (The Defense of Sevastopol) in 1912. Yakov Protazanov made Ukhod Velikovo Startsa (Departure of the Grand Old Man), a biographical film about Lev Tolstoy.

During World War I, imports dropped drastically, and Russian filmmakers turned out anti-German, nationalistic films. In 1916, 499 films were made in Russian, more than three times the number of just three years earlier.

The Russian Revolution brought more change, with a number of films with anti-Tsarist themes. The last significant film of the era, made in 1917, Father Sergius (Otets Sergii) would become the first new film release of the Soviet era.


Cinema of the Soviet Union
Main article: Cinema of the Soviet Union
Although Russian was the dominant language in films during the Soviet era, the cinema of the Soviet Union encompasses more than just film made in Russia as it includes films from the republics of the Soviet Union, including the Armenian SSR, Georgian SSR, Ukrainian SSR, and, to a lesser degree, Lithuanian SSR, Byelorussian SSR and Moldavian SSR. At the same time, the Russia's film industry, which was fully nationalized throughout most of the country's history, was guided by philosophies and laws propounded by the monopoly Soviet Communist Party which introduced a new view on the cinema, which was different from the one before or after the existence of the Soviet Union.


A poster for Battleship Potemkin.Under the Soviet system, the Socialist realism movement was fostered, which carried over from painting and sculpture into filmmaking.

Notable films of the era include Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, which was released to wide acclaim in 1925. One of the most popular films released in 1930s was Circus. Notable films from 1940s include Aleksandr Nevsky and Ivan Grozny. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Soviet cinema, beginning with films such as Ballada o Soldate Ballad of a Soldier that won the 1961 BAFTA Award for Best Film and The Cranes Are Flying. Vysota (Height) is considered to be one of the best films of the 1950s (it also became the foundation of the Bard movement).

The 1970s brought many fine films, including Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris; Seventeen Instants of Spring (Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny), which created the immortal character of Standartenführer Stirlitz; White Sun of the Desert (Beloe Solntze Pustyni) (1970), a classic Ostern – the Soviet Union's own take on the Western genre
The collapse of the Soviet Union brought a virtual end to quality cinema in Russia and the other republics.

Very few films of note were created for more than a decade, and many of those that were critically-praised did not get widely released. These included Oblako-ray (Cloud-Paradise) and Burnt by the Sun (Russian: Утомлённые солнцем, Utomlyonnye solntsem). The Barber of Siberia (1998) (Russian: Сибирский цирюльник, Sibirskiy Tsiryulnik) by Nikita Mikhalkov became very famous.

The new Russian cinema is more profit-oriented, with artistic needs taking a backseat to more immediate desires.

Nevertheless, some filmmakers have emerged who take their inspiration from the old masters. Among these is Alexander Sokurov, who has been called the "New Tarkovsky" and filmed a number of highly-praised films: Mother and Son, Russian Ark (the world's first unedited feature film) and The Sun, among others.

The thematically-similar films, The Return (Vozvrashcheniye) and Roads to Koktebel, have also received critical acclaim in recent years. The Return won two prestigious awards at the Venice Film Festival.

In the early 2000s, after decades of appearing mostly on television screens and in special theatres, animated feature films began going into wide release and were quite successful among Russian audiences (eg. Dobrynya Nikitich and Zmey Gorynych, Prince Vladimir).

The Russian cinema of today serves nationalist purposes as well, one example being 1612. The movie has been created in an effort to explain to the Russian audience why the national holiday was switched from November 7 (Day of the Great October Revolution) to November 4 (National Unity Day celebrating liberating Moscow from Polish invaders in 1612).

New Russian cinema is finding audiences overseas, with examples including the horror-fantasy, Night Watch and its sequel Day Watch.

Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American romantic drama film directed, written, produced and edited by James Cameron about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. It stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson respectively, members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ill-fated 1912 maiden voyage of the ship. Bill Paxton plays Brock Lovett, the leader of a treasure hunting expedition, while Gloria Stuart has the role of the elderly Rose, who narrates the story in 1996. The film was both a critical and commercial success, winning eleven Academy Awards including Best Picture, and became the highest grossing film of all time, with a total worldwide gross of US$1.8 billion.

Plot
In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic searching for a necklace called “the Heart of the Ocean”. They discover a drawing of a young woman reclining nude, wearing the Heart of the Ocean, dated the day the Titanic sank. News of this drawing on television attracts the interest of the woman in question, Rose Dawson Calvert, now 100, who claims to be the nude woman in the drawing. She and her granddaughter Lizzy visit Lovett on his ship, and recalls her memories as 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater aboard the Titanic. In 1912, young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers, her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon Hockley. Distraught and frustrated with her engagement to Cal and controlled life, Rose attempts to commit suicide, but a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson intervenes. They strike up a tentative friendship as he shares stories of his adventures traveling and sketching, and their bond deepens when they leave the first-class formal dinner for a much livelier gathering in third-class.

Cal is informed of her partying in the steerage and forbids Rose to meet Jack again. Eventually, Jack confronts Rose alone, but she is inclined to ignore their growing affection because of her engagement and responsibilities. However, Rose later changes her mind and decides to offer her heart to Jack in a forbidden romance. As a sign of her affection, she asks him to sketch her nude wearing only the "Heart of the Ocean". Afterwards, the two run away from Hockley's manservant, Spicer Lovejoy, and they go below decks to the cargo hold. They enter William Carter's Renault traveling car and have sex, before escaping up to the ship's forward well deck. Rose decides that she will leave the ship with Jack. They then witness the ship's collision with an iceberg, which critically damages it. Meanwhile, Cal discovers Rose's nude drawing and her taunting note in his safe. He plots revenge, deciding to frame Jack for stealing the "Heart of the Ocean", and bribes the master-at-arms to handcuff and lock Jack in his office. Although Rose is at first indecisive, she later runs away from Cal, risking her chances of getting on a lifeboat with her mother, in order to find and rescue Jack.


The Titanic's bow end plunges underwater.Rose manages to free Jack with a fire axe, and finds that the third-class passengers are trapped below decks. Frustrated, Jack breaks through a gate, allowing Rose and others to make their way to the boat deck. Cal and Jack manage to persuade Rose to board a lifeboat, but after realizing that she cannot leave Jack, Rose jumps back on the ship and reunites with Jack in the ship's first class staircase. Infuriated, Cal takes Lovejoy's pistol and chases Jack and Rose down the decks and into the first class dining saloon. After running out of ammunition, he angrily shouts at them to die and realizes that he unintentionally gave Rose the diamond. Hockley returns to the boat deck and gets aboard Collapsible A by pretending to look after an abandoned child. This is one of only two lifeboats remaining on the ship. Although Jack and Rose manage to avoid Cal's fury, they find that the lifeboats are gone. With no other options, they decide to head aft and stay on the ship for as long as possible before it sinks completely. Eventually, the ship breaks in half and begins its final descent; washing everyone into the freezing, Atlantic waters.

Jack and Rose are separated under the water but shortly reunite. Around them, well over a thousand people are dying painfully from hypothermia. Meanwhile, in Lifeboat 6, Margaret "Molly" Brown tries to convince Quartermaster Robert Hichens to go back and rescue people, as there is plenty of room, but he refuses, thinking the boat will be swamped. Jack manages to grab hold of a wall paneling, and gets Rose to lie on it. While lying on the wall paneling, Jack makes Rose promise that, whatever happens, she must get out alive. When Fifth Officer Harold Lowe returns with an empty Lifeboat 14 to rescue several people from the water, Rose tries to wake Jack, but then realizes that he has died in the freezing water. Upon this realization, she begins to lose hope and wants to stay there to die with Jack, but remembers her promise. She does her best to call out to Lowe, but she is hoarse and he does not hear her and rows away, unknowingly leaving her to die. Still remembering her promise to "never to let go," Rose manages to unclasp Jack's frozen hand from her own, letting his body disappear into the sea. Throwing herself into the water, Rose takes a whistle from a dead Chief Officer Henry Wilde and blows it, and is heard. She is pulled to safety, joining the five other survivors from the water, and is taken on board the rescue ship RMS Carpathia. On the Carpathia's deck, Rose notices Cal looking for her desperately. When he turns in her direction, she covers her head and turns away, not letting him see her face. This is the last time she ever sees Hockley. Upon arrival in New York City, Rose registers her name as "Rose Dawson" and presumably starts life on her own.

After completing her story, the elderly Rose alone travels to the stern of Lovett's ship. After she steps onto the railing, it is revealed she had the "Heart of the Ocean" all along, as Cal had slipped it into his coat that he gave to her. She then drops the diamond into the water, sending it to join the remains of the single most important event of her life. Rose lies in her bed, next to photographs of her life's achievements, as the shot pans across her into darkness. The film ends with a vision of young Rose reuniting with Jack at the Grand Staircase, surrounded by those who perished with Jack on the ship. They kiss and embrace, and all the people on the staircase start to applaud with open arms. It is left up to the viewer to dictate the meaning of the ending, specifically whether it is truly a vision or Rose reuniting with her love in the afterlife.
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