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From Angry Young Men to Swinging London
"As the 1950s ended, British cinema exploded with new energy, as directors like Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz, Lindsay Anderson and John Schlesinger tackled groundbreaking material from young new writers (among them John Osborne, Shelagh Delaney, and Harold Pinter – fresh from revolutionizing the stage), creating a socially conscious, aggressively working class cinema, trampling taboos by depicting England’s angry and alienated youth, and treating sexual content frankly. And they had the interpreters they needed in a tidal wave of powerful young actors like Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Rita Tushingham, Julie Christie, Alan Bates, et al. As the 60s progressed, social realism gave way to more escapist fare, Britain’s angry young men evolving into the fashionably disillusioned hedonists of Swinging London." - Film Forum