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Writing, by its nature, is a solitary endeavour.
Writing is a lonely business. You shut the door, you set the hourglass, and for two hours nobody else exists. Film and television could not be more different — twenty trades, three hundred people, half of them shouting, the other half asleep on a sound stage at four in the morning. And yet, when it works, the result has a richness no novel can quite match: a face, a score, a silence, a single perfectly held shot.
These fifteen are the films and TV shows I keep returning to. Some are masterpieces of writing — The West Wing, Succession, The Apartment.
Some are masterpieces of performance — A Man for All Seasons, House of Cards, The Lives of Others.
Two are French, because nobody on earth does ensemble like the French. One is Italian. One is a sting comedy, one is a Cold War tragedy, and one is the show I have watched so often that I now use it to fall asleep. And then there is my ode to Rowan Atkinson.
A storyteller’s list, with a storyteller’s bias. I have rewatched them all, some multiple times. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Fred Zinneman’s direction is wonderful, but what he also did was pick the most brilliant cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Shaw, Orson Welles, the superlative Paul Scofield. Even the lesser names like John Hurt – who gives a staggering performance as Baron Rich – went on to be giants.
Do they make films like this anymore? I was asked exactly the same question about politics and politicians, recently. Do they make politicians like Margaret Thatcher, Douglas Hurd and Richard Crossman anymore? I’m a former MP and I couldn’t even name the current Cabinet. That says it all, really.
Mention this film and people always think about Redford and Newman. Yes, they are an untouchable double act – the director, George Roy Hill, had put them together a few years earlier in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – but the man who really makes the whole thing work is Robert Shaw, playing the mob boss, Lonnegan.
I remember going to see this at the cinema and thinking how much fun it was to just sit back and enjoy the humour and the performances. Justifiably, it got nominated for 10 Oscars and won seven of them. There have been a lot of ‘sting’ films made since this came out, but few of them have even come close to this masterpiece.
If I had to turn to the best mini-series I’ve ever seen, I’m prejudiced — I’m a politician by nature, I’m a lover of the United States. So when The West Wing appeared on the screen, written by the incomparable Aaron Sorkin, I was glued in (I hear Tony Blair never missed an episode, same as the rest of us).
Aaron Sorkin is one of the most talented screenwriters of all time – and his genius is twinned with a powerful performance from Martin Sheen as President Jed Bartlet. So powerful that the American public wanted him to run for the actual Presidency!
My final session of the working day finishes at 8pm. Most evenings, I will watch an old episode before bed. I have now seen all 154 episodes three times in my lifetime, and I’m hoping to live long enough to do it once again. I now use it the way other people use sleep apps — Sorkin’s dialogue running in the background, my brain switching off, the Bartlet White House humming on. There is no higher praise I can give a piece of writing than this: it is the only television I have ever owned that improves with familiarity.
A marvellous insight into American politics, into the way the White House works. He originally played it through the eyes of the President’s speechwriter — obviously always in the White House, regularly in the Oval Office, always in the middle of the gigantic problems the President had to deal with. But it was so successful, which they clearly hadn’t anticipated, that it came off the speechwriter and moved on to being a story about the president himself, President Bartlet, a Nobel Prize winner.
Oh gosh, I wish we had President Bartlet, a Nobel Prize winner, as president today.
Fondly remembered for the iconic soundtrack by Vangelis, but of particular interest to me because I was also a sprinter in my younger days. In one sense, you could argue that the story is rather ridiculous because Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Lord Burghley (part-inspiration for Nigel Havers’ character, Lord Lindsay) didn’t compete in the same Olympics. But does that matter?
I actually saw the film with my best friend, Adrian Metcalfe, who was the leading 400m runner of his day.
I sprinted at Oxford. I was not Harold Abrahams and I was certainly not Eric Liddell, but I knew what it felt like to spend three years training for ten seconds of work. The film gets that exactly right. Adrian (Metcalfe) — who really was that fast — should have got gold, but perhaps we didnt know how to train properly in those days.
As we came out, we looked at each other and said, “Who cares if it’s not factually correct? It’s still the most amazing story!”
Directed by the incomparable Billy Wilder, this is not just a film, but a masterpiece of narrative artistry. Following on from Some Like It Hot, Wilder once again demonstrates his unique genius in the realm of comedy. It made me laugh, it made me cry… and ever eager to watch it many times over.
The film’s brilliance lies not only in its exceptional script and direction, but also in its outstanding ensemble cast. Shirley MacLaine and Jack Kruschen deliver performances worthy of their Oscar nominations, embodying their characters with depth and authenticity. However, it’s Jack Lemmon who truly captivates. His portrayal is a blend of humour and pathos, balancing the film’s comedic elements with its underlying themes of loneliness and moral complexity. For me, he steals the show.
Like the best of Wilder’s work, The Apartment weaves humour with social commentary, exploring corporate culture in a way that is as relevant today as it was in the 1960s.
This is based on a play with the same name – literally, Dinner of Fools. A group of fashionable and annoyingly arrogant Parisian businessmen get together for dinner every week, but each guest has to bring along a ‘dullard’ who the other guests can make fun of. You can guess what happens… the snooty businessmen get their comeuppance as cruelty, humour and revenge join hands for a moving finale.
This is a film that could only have been made in France and there is something about French humour that I absolutely adore. It makes me roar with laughter every time I watch it.
Let’s continue the French theme. There was a British version of this released a few years ago (and now a Bollywood version by Banijay), but the French version was the original and remains by far the best. So successful in fact that, by series two, you had all the French A-listers screaming for a cameo: Christophe Lambert, Isabelle Adjani, Juliette Binoche, Jean Reno.
If you go back a few decades, film stars used to turn their noses up at TV. It was very much the poor relation. These days, we’re getting stuff on the small screen that’s better than what you can see at the cinema. As a storyteller, the length of TV series, 8-10 hours per series, and multiple series, allows a completely different freedom, and present a totally different challenge to a 2 hour film. I have been told many times over the years that my books are too long for Film. I hope that some of them will find a way onto TV in this new golden age.
Contained some painful moments that were excruciatingly difficult to watch (as there is no one to root for) but, at the same time, it managed to be such fun! A Great all-round cast, again – who would be brave enough to argue with Brian Cox’s Logan Roy? – but it was Kendall who really had the greatest impact.
You could argue that there is an exaggerated quality to a lot of what happens in the show, but I have moved in these circles, sitting around the dinner table with billionaires and their ‘people’. I have met one or two of these deeply unhealthy individuals in real life. Their only concern is usually themselves, and making money, money, money. And damn the consequences.
I have sat with people exactly like Logan Roy. Not many. Three or four, over fifty years. The smell of money is the same in every language, and the way the children flinch around the father is the same in every culture.
Succession is not exaggerated. It is, if anything, gentler than the real thing. The real ones do not even bother to shout.
The Lives of Others might just be the best film I’ve ever seen in my life.
I was introduced to it, as one is with foreign films, by someone else. It’s a German film with subtitles. The sad story of a junior civil servant who is made to spy on two lovers — an actress and her producer — because the state thinks they are against it. And it’s what happens to him while he’s doing it.
The actor playing the spy won an Oscar for it and died a year later. What I remember about his performance was — it must have taken him 40 years to be that good. And I felt so sad that he didn’t spend another 20 years being hailed in his own country for what he was, a truly great man. Professional. Very sad.
Let me warn you. If the last line in the film doesn’t bring you to tears, you have no feelings.
As the credits rolled, I had to stand and applaud. And I wasn’t the only one.
How often does that happen in the cinema?
10. HOUSE OF CARDS (British version – 1990)
A frighteningly beautiful performance by Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart.
And having worked with half a dozen Chief Whips in my time, I can tell you that he got it spot on. So much of that authenticity came from the writer, Michael Dobbs, who was part of that political world and would have been familiar with all the Chief Whips of the time. More to the point, he knew what made them tick.
Willie Whitelaw was Margaret Thatcher’s deputy and her enforcer. I watched him work the corridor of the Commons for fifteen years and the most dangerous man in any room was usually Willie.
From outside Parliament, Whitelaw may have come across as a cuddly bear, but he was not the kind of cuddly bear you wanted to get on the wrong side of! He had a smile that suggested he had just remembered something amusing. He had also, by the time he finished smiling, ended your political career.
I believe Michael Dobbs based Urquhart on him. He has never quite confirmed it. He doesn’t need to.
11. DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954)
Dial M for Murder is one of my favourite films. It’s a simple story. A woman, looking through a window, spots a murder taking place and isn’t sure what to do. The camera follows her cleverly indeed — it’s very, very frightening. Hitchcock at his best. He loves to set up that sort of plot.
And isn’t it amazing that the great man, with all those films, never won an Oscar? He went to his grave without one. He must be the most heralded director who did go to a grave without an Oscar. Because Dial M for Murder is one of many, many great Hitchcock films I’ve enjoyed over the years.
12. THE LEOPARD (2025)
I read The Leopard probably too young. It’s a very demanding book — a work of genius, but very demanding. Reading it again recently, in my 70s, I found you had to cover each paragraph and sometimes go back two or three times. So demanding. You had to try to see what the author was telling you. But it doesn’t stop the fact that it’s a wonderful story.
The recent six-part Netflix series, I recommend to anyone. Russell Crowe turned down the lead — more fool him — and the lead was taken by an Italian who does it very well indeed. I was captured by the acting performance, and the convincing way the daughter of the Count fails to marry the man she loves, while the man she loves marries a tart. (His description, not mine.) Some series would not work over six episodes. This one does, and beautifully.
It’s a lovely look at Sicily — almost a country on its own, almost nothing to do with Italy. Some people forget it’s nearer Africa than Italy, but it’s Italian and has its own reputation. You see the man who is the count, respected, almost worshipped in Sicily, slowly going to the dogs because the new boys are taking over. It’s sad in that way, to see his demise. You follow it right through to his death and what the young lady does about it. Wonderful. Loved it. My miniseries of the year.
13. LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1978)
So many films I’ve enjoyed over the years, I’ve only been able to follow with subtitles. One in particular I remember with great delight — La Cage aux Folles. My first look at two men living together as man and wife — beautifully performed, utterly convincing. But their parents and relations all not exactly in favour. So moving, so touching, and one of the best films I’ve ever seen in my life.
The translator is every bit as important as the author or the filmmaker.
![What Ever Happened To Baby Jane [DVD] [1962]: Amazon.co.uk: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Anna Lee, Maidie Norman, Marjorie Bennett, Anne ...](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91QuXmbNQvL.jpg)
14. WHAT HAPPENED TO BABY JANE (1962)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? is a masterpiece at several levels. You don’t get a film as great as that unless you’ve got a script, script, and script. But you then need an actress or actor to take you away into another world — and in this particular case, it’s two actresses. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
Joan Crawford — a beautiful woman and a brilliant actress. But I never saw Bette Davis as anything other than semi-attractive. My God, when she was on the screen, you could not take your eyes off her. Their rivalry in the film is totally convincing, possibly because their rivalry in real life was even worse. They didn’t like each other. And that comes over utterly convincingly in the film — adds to its strength. Don’t miss it.
15. BLUE JASMINE (2013)
I remember coming out of the film. I saw it in Leicester Square. I remember walking out onto the pavement and saying, “If Cate Blanchett doesn’t get the Oscar, then I will go and see the film where the actress does.” On the day, she walked it. Everybody knew she was going to win.
She plays two women. One is a successful society hostess in New York with a successful, immensely wealthy husband — until we discover he’s a crook, goes bankrupt, and goes to jail. She has to go and live with her sister in California, who is married to a slob. She likes her sister, doesn’t care for the slob, and has to live a totally different life. Two performances and they are amazing. I put her down as one of the great film actresses of all time. I’ve never seen her on stage.
16. ROWAN ATKINSON – IN ANYTHING
So I couldn’t keep him to one role – but I remember as a young man going to the theatre to see a man called Rowan Atkinson in a one-man show.
That’s 50 years ago, and I can still remember it because I realised I was in the presence of a genius.
Then my son fell in love with him, when he released the LP, Not Just A Pretty Face – see the album cover opposite – such wit. In this, a line that stays with me forever, a deceptively flat piece of floor in the Indian waiter skit.
I followed his career with great interest, Blackadder, amazing cameos in Four Weddings and Love Actually – and sometimes through my children and grandchildren such as Johnny English and Man Vs Bee & Man Vs Baby – I’ve never seen kids laugh so much – and right up to the Olympic Games, where he stole the whole damn show in the opening ceremony.
Wicked. I mean, he’s wicked. He can hold you by just a look – and then have you in hysterics with a change of look. He can say a sentence which makes you feel guilty.
He has that gift to say to you: “I am a fool, but you’re even more stupid than I am.” I don’t know how he does it. I just know it’s a weird and wonderful gift – a true one off.
I met him some years ago and begged him to bring back his one-man show. He thought about it. If it ever comes back to the West End, don’t miss it. There’s one particular line in it I will never forget.
He looks at the audience and gets someone to ask him: “What’s the secret of great comedy?”
And the person says, “What’s the secret of —”
and he says: “Timing.”
Atkinson reminds me of the great Donald Sinden in Shut Your Eyes and Think of England — a wonderful 70s farce at the Apollo. Sinden loved to break the fourth wall, and you had to be that good and that popular in London to get away with it. Sinden always could. There’s a moment near the end of the first act when he passes the mirror as he leaves. The curtain is meant to come down. The director told me he asked Donald afterwards: “Did you write that?” Donald said: “No, I did it on the spot.” He had walked out, passed the mirror, looked at it, and said: “Oh, but you are so good looking.” And then the curtain came down. And he kept it in.
I suspect Rowan Atkinson falls into that same category — someone so clever he thinks of a line on the spot, delivers it, and the director says, “Thank you very much.”
My books have been adapted for stage, screen, and television.
If you’ve enjoyed these films and TV shows, you may want to read the novels behind some of mine.
Kane and Abel was made into a CBS mini-series with Peter Strauss and Sam Neill — and is now in development again with The Jeffrey Archer Company.
Adam & Eve is my new novel, out this October — film rights are already in development.
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less has been on stage, on radio, on television, and is currently in development with Paramount as a TV series. The 50th anniversary edition is out this June – Listen to Chapter 1, or the Radio Play
More from the Unputdownable series.
The 12 Most Inspiring (Auto)biogrpahies for Writers and Leaders
Top 12 Best Classic Novels of All Time
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