Kitchen sink realism: working-class lives filmed with documentary directness. Then Free Cinema, then the British New Wave. Richardson, Reisz, Schlesinger — angry young men films that took seriously what cinema had always ignored.
British cinema has significantly influenced the global film industry since the 19th century. The oldest known surviving film in the world, Roundhay Garden Scene (1888), was shot in England by French inventor Louis Le Prince. Early colour films were also pioneered in the UK. Film production reached an all-time high in 1936, but the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, which saw the release of the most critically acclaimed works by filmmakers such as David Lean, Michael Powell, and Carol Reed.