Watch Order
0 / 10 watchedTen core Ealing comedies in release order.
About Ealing Comedies
Ealing Studios under Michael Balcon turned postwar frustration into comedy. Ordinary Londoners declare independence in Passport to Pimlico, islanders loot a whisky ship in Whisky Galore, and a murderous heir charms his way up the peerage in Kind Hearts and Coronets. Guinness, Stanley Holloway and Joan Greenwood recur, directed by Hamer, Crichton and Mackendrick.
The later run aims at fresh targets with the same gentle bite. A mild bank clerk steals gold in The Lavender Hill Mob, a chemist invents a fabric that never wears out in The Man in the White Suit, villagers save their railway in The Titfield Thunderbolt, and a sweet old landlady outlasts a gang of killers in The Ladykillers. Watch the ten in release order to see postwar Britain laugh at rationing, bosses and red tape.
Good to know
These ten are the remembered core of a larger comic output, since Ealing made around thirty comic features in total. The films are standalone stories with a shared repertory company, so there is no chronological order to untangle and release order is the intended path. The classic run closed with Barnacle Bill in 1957 and Davy in 1958, and the studio brand was later absorbed into Rank. No new entries are expected.
