alr

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Screening on Film
Directed by Karel Reisz.
With Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field, Rachel Roberts.
UK, 1960, 35mm, black & white, 89 min.
Print source: HFA

"Don’t let the bastards grind you down" became the clarion call for a generation of angry young men who embraced this seminal work of the British New Wave. Based on a novel by Alan Sillitoe, the film stars Albert Finney as a defiant factory worker rallying against an oppressive class structure in 1950s Nottingham. When his reckless romantic pursuits get him into trouble, he must choose between his boisterous carousing and a more conventional life. Director Karel Reisz (who passed away last year) uses documentary-style realism to chronicle everyday life in industrial Britain and intimate close-ups to offer privileged access to the human sentiment beneath these harsh exteriors.

Part of film series

Read more

Cinema A–Z: Treasures from the Harvard Film Archive

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig

Read more

Rosine Mbakam, 2025 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

Read more

The Illusory Tableaux of Georges Méliès

Read more

Activism and Post-Activism. Korean Documentary Cinema, 1981-2022

Read more

Fables of the Reconstruction. Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias

Read more

Ben Rivers, Back to the Land

Read more

Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque

Read more

Make Way for Tomorrow. Carson Lund’s Eephus

Read more

Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Collective Monologue