Popular reviews

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  Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★★★★ 16

  While I was watching Saturday Night And Sunday Morning on Mubi, I came to realise that there would probably be rather a lot of people from nations other than the UK watching this film and attempting to understand what the hell people were talking about here. Which amuses me greatly, especially as they didn't provide subtitles.

  So, for those of you from outside this country struggling with some of the terminology in this film or about to watch it for the first time, here's a short glossary of some of the terms you will hear more than once in this film:-

  * bleeder: A person of ill-repute - "Some bleeder in Wal-Mart stood on my foot!"

  * summat: Another way…

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  Review by Cam ★★★★ 2

  ”What I’m out for is a good time.
  All the rest is propaganda”

  Albert Finney is absolutely spellbinding as a young rabble-rouser factory worker with the single aim to have a good time, all the time.

  As a movie, it’s a pretty basic kitchen sink drama, but it never gets overly dramatic and Finney’s great performance along with a crackling pace kept me engaged all the way through.

  ”Don’t let the bastards grind ya down
  That’s one thing I’ve learned”

  
  Cinematic Time Capsule - 1960 Ranked

  Edgar Wright’s 1,000 Favorite Movies

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★★

  class weary grinding, wandering, indulging; trying not to feel like you're dead from the neck up. "i'm me and nobody else."

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½

  Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is one of the essential movies in the British New Wave movement, and it performs terrifically as a time capsule of late 1950’s British working-class life. It's an adaptation of Alan Sillitoe’s 1958 novel which it's director Karel Reisz carries to the screen with authenticity by shooting on location in and around Nottingham production plants and public houses.

  The film outraged audiences with its directness and uncompromising disillusionment with contemporary society, and Reisz’ background in factual filmmaking serves the remarkable atmosphere of the naturally lit industrial town. It additionally contains some memorable dialogue, and Albert Finney provides an alluring performance as the angry young man stifled in a quagmire of unmerciful working-class anguish and suffering.

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  Review by Ben Hibburd ★★★★★ 2

  Karel Reisz's nihilistic melodrama is one of the best British films ever made. The film spends the totality of its ninety minute runtime focused on Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney). Arthur spends his week days working in a monotonous low wage factory, desperately hanging on until the weekend. When it does come his wage is blown on alcohol and frivolous expenditures; whilst also carrying on love affairs with various women. Arthur is trapped in a cycle of self loathing and boredom. However, all that changes when he impregnates one of his co-workers wife.

  I know this film was made first, but I like to think of this as the British version of "Five Easy Pieces" as they both carry that same…

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  Review by Willow Maclay ★★★★

  Albert Finney passed away a little more than a week ago. After news of his death broke all over the internet the eulogies started to pile in from my corner of social media with many fellow critics and cinephile's praising his work. When I checked his filmography on letterboxd I was disappointed to find I’d only ever seen him in a handful of pictures and the most significant of these movies saw him play similar roles as mob heavies. I didn’t really know Albert Finney or what he was capable of as an actor, but when these legends of the screen pass away I usually take it upon myself to find out what their main draw was or how they…

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  Review by Alice Stoehr ★★★★

  A few weeks in the life of Arthur Seaton, a Nottingham factory worker played by Albert Finney who fancies a pint, a fag, and a tumble; who's even more pathetic than the townsfolk he loathes; who's a terminally selfish and self-destructive asshole. Here are three incidents from late in the film:

  1) Arthur foolishly climbs onto a carnival ride alongside the married woman (Rachel Roberts) with whom he's been sleeping. Two soldiers in league with her mild-mannered husband are standing on the outer perimeter of the ride as it goes 'round and around, waiting for Arthur to hop off. The camera catches Arthur and Brenda in a series of tight two shots on the ride itself, with light and shadow…

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  Review by phoebe 💫 ★★★★ 7

  All angry young men know is fight, mommy issues, lie, love triangles, drink, and affairs with older women

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  Review by Sarah Jane 🔪 ★★★★ 2

  Albert Finney is on fire in this 1960 entry from the "Kitchen Sink/British New Wave" movement. Based on Alan Sillitoe's excellent novel of the same name, Finney plays Arthur Seaton, a young lad working as a machinist who loves nothing better than drinking, smoking, and fucking. He's having an affair with a co-worker's wife (Rachel Roberts) when he meets Doreen (Shirley Anne Field). He juggles both of them for a while but it isn't long before one of them in pregnant and he finds himself having to make some grown-up decisions.

  Finney is extraordinary in this. Honestly, I feel like he's severely unappreciated as an actor. He's had a fantastic career with memorable roles spanning 50 years. I'll plug one…

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  Review by Jacob ★★★

  So this is officially my first British “Kitchen sink” drama and it went fairly well for the most part. As I’m new to this genre, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. There are times I enjoyed the realistic approach and then there was moments I wanted more out of a scene. The social and political issues were shown with great realism but I feel there was not enough impact to such sensitive themes. The brightest aspect of the film has to be young Albert Finney who was absolutely born to act. Regardless if the story was a hit or miss, Albert’s performance had me locked in. I can’t really recommend this to everyone due to the pretty simple plot but it’s definitely worth checking out for Albert’s performance alone.

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  Review by JR ★★★½

  So that's where the Arctic Monkeys got that album title.

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  Review by Jay D 's Watching ★★★½ 2

  Grew up with Albert Finney as a seemingly permanently middle-aged presence, so to see him starting out as not just an angry young man, but an Angry Young Man is a little bit whiplash-inducing, but he's terrific. The film itself, maybe because of the source material, does an extremely good job of balancing the seeming refusal of the lead character to recognize or commit to anything outside his immediate impulse in the environment he's trapped in, and the social damage that the environment is causing on all the inhabitants.

  Everything else may be propaganda, but you can't lie at the bottom of the stairs forever.