For this month’s DVD review column I want to highlight four films that, for some reason or other, seem to have lost their luster over the years. Nobody is disputing that these are all great films, yet each has lost much of the status it claimed in its day. Usually I like to focus on fun movies for DVD consideration, but this time I’ve selected a cluster of distinctly British, very heavy films. While none of these movies is exactly a hoot, they are all very deserving of another look.

John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins in Elephant Man. (Courtesy photo)

Elephant Man (1980)
Director: David Lynch
Starring: John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins
Though made by an American director, Elephant Man is essentially a British production. When speaking of the essential David Lynch films, few mention this one. With apologies to Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, I think Elephant Man is Lynch’s greatest film. Suffering from a horribly disfiguring disease in Victorian England, John Merrick (John Hurt) is helped to reclaim his humanity by a courageous doctor (Anthony Hopkins). From its disturbing opening images to its stirring conclusion, Elephant Man is also Lynch’s most emotionally fulfilling movie. Sure, it’s acknowledged as a classic, but when was the last time anyone saw it?

The Crying Game (1992)
Director: Neil Jordan
Starring: Steven Rea and Miranda Richardson

When this atmospheric, off-key thriller came out in 1992, it became an immediate sensation. Yes, much of the notoriety arose from its third act twist, but part of the validation of the film is that the twist is hardly essential. A reluctant IRA soldier (Steven Rea) tries to protect the girlfriend (Jaye Davidson) of a captured British soldier (Forest Whitaker), with disastrous results. Rea had critics comparing him to Humphrey Bogart, and was supported by a searing turn from Miranda Richardson. It’s odd to remember that back then The Crying Game challenged Unforgiven as the most prominent film of the year. I suppose its loss of stature is due in part to director Neil Jordan’s follow-up, a spectacular mess called Interview with the Vampire. In fact, Jordan could fill this column with good, solid films, including Michael Collins (1996) and The Butcher Boy (1997). They, along with the murky, complex Crying Game, make a very strong body of work for the often overlooked Jordan.

A scene from Howards End. (Courtesy photo)

Howard’s End (1992)
Director: James Ivory
Starring: Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, and Anthony Hopkins

This film marked the creative apogee for the team of director James Ivory, producer Ismael Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. When a dying Ruth Wilcox (a haunting Vanessa Redgrave) bequeaths her estate to the sympathetic young Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson), her widower Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) courts Margaret with the sole intent of retaining his fortune. Ivory and Jhabvala found rich, cruel emotions within the refined manor houses and country estates of E.M. Forster. Both the higher-billed Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter were gracefully out-performed by little-known Emma Thompson, in her first in a series of astonishing performances. Hopkins would make sure to keep pace with Thompson when the two were reunited the following year in Ivory’s film The Remains of the Day. Howard’s End broke records in England and, along with The Crying Game, helped revitalize a dying British film industry.

In the Name of the Father (1993)
Director: Jim Sheridan
Starring: Daniel Day Lewis and Emma Thompson

This was one of the great years for cinema, with Schindler’s List leading a pack that included The Piano, Farewell My Concubine, The Fugitive, Sleepless In Seattle, Jurassic Park, and What’s Love Got to Do With It. In the Name of the Father tells the gut-wrenching story of Gerry Conlon, a man falsely imprisoned as an IRA bomber. Somehow this powerhouse of a film was deemed only as good as expected thanks to the high standards set by director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot) and his cast. Daniel Day Lewis had been too good in My Left Foot four years earlier to win for Conlon. Emma Thompson was plucky as his crusading lawyer, but it wasn’t even her best performance that year. Pete Postlethwaite was inspiring as Gerry’s father, but was too unknown to compete with Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive. Such circumstances should not keep this film from the lofty place it deserves. Like the movies listed above, In the Name of the Father came out at a time the British film industry was surging back to life. The country hasn’t experienced so fertile a period since.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, California, and works for the Cartoon Network. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard residents for many years.