Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

Responsive image


The Long Good Friday

The Long Good Friday
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJohn Mackenzie
Screenplay byBarrie Keeffe
Produced byBarry Hanson
Starring
CinematographyPhil Meheux
Music byFrancis Monkman
Production
companies
Distributed byHandMade Films
Release dates
  • 3 November 1980 (1980-11-03) (LFF)
  • 29 March 1981 (1981-03-29) (United Kingdom)
Running time
114 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£930,000
Box office£426,308 (UK)[1]

The Long Good Friday is a 1980 British gangster film[2] directed by John Mackenzie from a screenplay by Barrie Keeffe. Starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren, the film, set in London, weaves together events and concerns of the late 1970s, including mid-level political and police corruption, and IRA fund-raising. The supporting cast features Eddie Constantine, Dave King, Bryan Marshall, Derek Thompson, Paul Freeman and Pierce Brosnan in his film debut.

The film was completed in 1979,[3] but because of delays, it did not have a general release until early 1981. It received positive reviews from critics, and Bob Hoskins was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and won an Evening Standard Film Award for his performance as gangster Harold Shand. It was voted at number 21 in the British Film Institute's Top 100 British films list and provided Hoskins with his breakthrough film role. In 2016, British film magazine Empire ranked The Long Good Friday number 19 in its list of The 100 best British films.[4]

  1. ^ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 314. Refers to distributors share of gross.
  2. ^ "The Long Good Friday review – classic Brit gangster melodrama". The Guardian. 18 June 2015. Archived from the original on 8 April 2023.
  3. ^ Mark Duguid "Long Good Friday, The (1979)", BFI Screenonline
  4. ^ "The 100 best British films". Empire. 29 November 2017.

Previous Page Next Page