Billy LiarPG

Billy Liar is the most transcendent of all the British New Wave films, Tom Courtenay’s brilliant Billy not so much fighting against, but able to imagine himself out of the limitations of his humdrum life. Trapped by his family, his job, his surroundings, and two doomed engagements, his main hope is his own intelligence and Liz (Julie Christie), his idealized sometime girlfriend. Schlesinger’s direction is fantastic and fun, colliding the optimistic newness of the 1960s with a grim up north realism.

Selected and introduced by Blair Young, video director and co-founder of The Forest Of Black.