The Faber Book of British Cinema chronicles a near-century of British film from the arrival of sound to the advent of streaming. It captures the essence of a uniquely fascinating cinema: hybrid in nature, it draws inspiration from a European arthouse tradition, but is also a multi-billion-dollar business that exploits the opportunities that come from sharing a language with the world's most powerful film industry - Hollywood. The book offers not a detached survey, but a rich, narrative-driven biography, capturing the hopes, dreams and ambitions of the people who were - and are - part of the British cinema's story. In recounting the contributions of a large cast of personalities who shaped that cinema over a hundred years, the book weaves a tapestry of individuals who include such well-known names as Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander Korda, Powell & Pressburger, Carol Reed, David Lean, Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger, David Puttnam, Alan Parker, Ridley Scott, Jeremy Isaacs, Sally Potter, Danny Boyle, Andrea Arnold, and Steve McQueen.