Everyone knows Get Carter. Everyone's seen Snatch. But British cinema has produced dozens of thrillers that somehow slipped through the cracks, films that are every bit as gripping as the famous ones but never got the audience they deserved. These ten films should be mandatory viewing for anyone who claims to love British cinema.

10. The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009)

Three actors. One location. A kidnapping that gets more complicated with every scene. J Blakeson made this for almost nothing, using a single flat as the setting for a thriller that twists and twists until you're dizzy. Gemma Arterton is magnificent as the victim who turns out to be anything but passive, and the film's refusal to leave that flat creates a claustrophobia that big-budget thrillers can't match. You'll think you've worked out where it's going. You haven't.

9. '71 (2014)

Jack O'Connell plays a young British soldier accidentally left behind in Belfast during the Troubles. What follows is essentially a chase movie - him running through hostile streets with every faction trying to kill him - but director Yann Demange turns it into something far more complex. The political layers are there without being preachy, and O'Connell's physical performance is extraordinary. He barely speaks. He doesn't need to. The terror is in his eyes for the entire runtime.

8. The Selfish Giant (2013)

Clio Barnard's film about two boys in Bradford who fall into the world of scrap metal theft. It's based loosely on Oscar Wilde's story, but there's nothing whimsical about it. The world Barnard depicts - poverty, exploitation, the casual cruelty of adults who should know better - is heartbreaking. Conner Chapman and Shaun Thomas are extraordinary as the two leads, both non-professional actors who bring an authenticity that would be impossible to fake.

7. Dead Man's Shoes (2004)

We've included this on our best British gangster films list, but it deserves a spot here too because not enough people have seen it. Paddy Considine plays a soldier who returns to his Midlands hometown to systematically terrorise and destroy the men who bullied his mentally disabled brother. Shane Meadows directed it for less than the cost of a decent car, and it's more frightening than any horror film. Considine's performance is the most unsettling thing in British cinema this century.

6. Tyrannosaur (2011)

Paddy Considine again, this time as director. Peter Mullan plays Joseph, a violent, alcoholic widower who forms an unlikely connection with Hannah (Olivia Colman), a charity shop worker whose life is far worse than it appears. This is not a comfortable watch. The domestic violence is depicted with a rawness that makes you want to look away, and Colman's performance - years before she became a household name - is devastating. The title refers to a memory that the film deploys like a gut punch.

5. Starred Up (2013)

Jack O'Connell as a violent young offender transferred to adult prison, where his father (Ben Mendelsohn) is already an inmate. David Mackenzie directed this with a visceral intensity that makes most prison films look like holiday brochures. The therapy sessions led by Rupert Friend are the film's secret weapon - watching O'Connell's character slowly, painfully, reluctantly start to open up is extraordinary. The violence is sudden and shocking, but it's the quiet moments that hit hardest.

4. Kill List (2011)

We've given this its own deep dive because it deserves one. Ben Wheatley's film starts as a kitchen-sink drama about a hitman's marriage, becomes a brutally violent thriller, and ends as something completely different that you will not see coming. The less you know going in, the better. Just know that it will get under your skin and stay there for days.

Tracking your film journey? Our 100 Movies Bucket List Poster is the perfect way to scratch off the classics.

3. Calibre (2018)

Two friends go on a hunting trip in the Scottish Highlands. Something goes horribly wrong. That's all you should know before watching this Netflix film that most people scrolled right past. Matt Palmer's debut feature is a slow-burn nightmare about guilt, consequences, and the suffocating pressure of a small community that knows exactly what you did. Jack Lowden and Martin McCann are both excellent, and the Scottish landscape - usually so beautiful in films - becomes actively threatening.

2. Red Riding Trilogy (2009)

Three films covering the Yorkshire Ripper era - 1974, 1980, and 1983 - each directed by a different filmmaker. Andrew Garfield, Paddy Considine (again), and Mark Addy lead the respective entries, and together they create a portrait of institutional corruption in Northern England that's genuinely chilling. Based on David Peace's novels, the trilogy is dense, complex, and deeply unsettling. It was made for Channel 4 and given a limited theatrical run, which means most people never saw it. That's a crime in itself.

1. A Field in England (2013)

Ben Wheatley's black-and-white English Civil War psychedelic horror-thriller. That description alone should tell you this isn't for everyone, but if you're on its wavelength, it's extraordinary. Reece Shearsmith leads a group of deserters into a field where they're enslaved by an alchemist searching for buried treasure. What follows is a descent into madness that's genuinely unlike anything else in British cinema. The "tent scene" will live in your head rent-free.

Honourable Mentions

London to Brighton (2006) - a prostitute and a young girl on the run from a gangster. Made for 23 grand. Hush (2008) - not the American horror film, the British motorway thriller. Down Terrace (2009) - Wheatley's debut, a family crime film that plays like a Mike Leigh drama directed by someone with violent tendencies. Blue Ruin is American but feels so British in its approach to revenge that it deserves a mention.

If this list has whetted your appetite, check out our best British horror films for more underseen brilliance.