10 recent Lon­don real­ist films you should watch

In Daphne, Emi­ly Beecham por­trays an ordi­nary mod­ern Lon­don­er. The epony­mous inde­pen­dent woman is not defined by her rela­tion­ship to a man or any­one else, has an unre­mark­able job in a restau­rant and gets drunk. After wit­ness­ing a stab­bing, she goes off the rails but retains her acer­bic edge and urge to joke. She vis­its late-night take­aways and rides the bus chat­ting to strangers, get­ting by like every­one else. If you live in the cap­i­tal you are prob­a­bly like her or know some­one like her.

Daphne, the film and char­ac­ter, exist in a cin­e­mat­ic uni­verse full of tiny mar­vels: moments of sim­ple truth and real­i­ty. It’s a tranche of Thame­side sto­ry­telling that doesn’t buy into the mon­eyed fan­ta­sy of Hamp­stead, the safe­ty of Brid­get Jones’s Diary or the exe­crable inau­then­tic­i­ty of Cassandra’s Dream. A new Lon­don real­ism has emerged fea­tur­ing authen­tic, recog­nis­able voic­es, char­ac­ters and sto­ries. They are not tied to a par­tic­u­lar genre or style and cov­er a gamut of emo­tions, places and peo­ple. Here are 10 great examples.

A pre-Lit­tlefin­ger Aidan Gillen enlivens pro­ceed­ings in writer-direc­tor Jamie Thrave’s under­stat­ed low-bud­get dra­ma. After Tom (Tom Fish­er) deserts his fam­i­ly home in Birm­ing­ham to live among the dis­pos­sessed of south-east Lon­don, he befriends the cheer­ful but hap­less Aidan (Gillen). The pair live on the capital’s mar­gins beg­ging and go on adven­tures in transpon­tine land­marks such as the Horn­i­man Muse­um at For­est Hill. A grave­yard sex scene in Old Cam­ber­well Ceme­tery is a far cry from Wes­t­eros too.

Attack the Block is an alien inva­sion sci-fi that still offers a more real­is­tic vision of Lon­don than Not­ting Hill. In Joe Cornish’s hilar­i­ous and huge­ly enter­tain­ing trib­ute to Crit­ters, Peckham’s John Boye­ga – who seems to have stuck with sci-fi – leads a gang in the fight­back against extra-ter­res­tri­al inter­lop­ers along­side Jodie Whitak­er, a nurse they had pre­vi­ous­ly mugged. Shot around Myatt Fields Estate in Brix­ton and the Hey­gate Estate (RIP), Cor­nish pop­u­lates his script with south Lon­don youth patois and keeps the action tick­ing along with the laughs.

Des­tiny Ekaragha’s broad com­e­dy is an authen­tic and live­ly depic­tion of Peck­ham with far less inter­est in gen­tri­fi­ca­tion than the aver­age SE15 estate agent. Ekaragha tack­les British-Niger­ian life with a script from debut screen­writer Bola Agba­je about teen would-be-play­er Yemi (Malachi Kir­by) and his mis­matched immi­grant broth­er Iku­day­isi (OC Uke­je). Street beef and sib­ling strife soon ring out. Kir­by and Ukeje’s dou­ble-act pro­vokes laughs and recog­ni­tion of fam­i­ly ten­sion in what was only the third fea­ture to be direct­ed by a black British woman.

Jason Statham plays an agro wino in Soho. The Stath’ is an ex-spe­cial forces chap (obvi­ous­ly) fall­en on hard times in filthy, sexy W1 until he breaks into a posh flat and starts work­ing for the Chi­nese mob. Sounds like D‑movie tripe but savvy Steven Knight of Locke and Peaky Blind­ers fame writes and directs, so the lev­el of emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty and nuance is a step above Statham sta­ples such as The Trans­porter. Amid the noise, neon and fight­ing, there are hon­est takes on home­less­ness, alco­holism and PTSD amid ter­rif­ic Chris Menges cin­e­matog­ra­phy. Aga­ta Buzek’s Pol­ish nun who helps at a soup kitchen pro­vides heart.

Bob Ken­ner (Brett Gold­stein) is a Peck­ham post­man who’s hit by a mete­orite and blessed with super­pow­ers. He’s sham­bol­ic as a hero but no worse than one might expect from a Roy­al Mail employ­ee. He bops past pun­gent fish stalls in Rye Lane on his way to a date, sings in a gospel choir and vis­its his mum in a care home. Yes, John Drever’s Super­Bob is a mild com­e­dy about ordi­nary life (super-ness be damned) bol­stered by Cather­ine Tate and Ruth Sheen in sup­port. Worth watch­ing to see a Lon­don with­out tat­toos, beards and craft lager.

Rebec­ca Johnson’s Brix­ton-set melo­dra­ma is based on the sto­ry of a real-life girl from Brock­ley who lured Dept­ford teenag­er Shak­ilus Townsend to his death. It’s a sad tale all too famil­iar to Lon­don­ers used to gang relat­ed inci­dents with quick­ly esca­late to tragedy. Jes­si­ca Sula stars as 15-year-old Lay­la, who gets caught up in a grim ​“love” tri­an­gle and used by one boy and admired by anoth­er with pre­dictably cat­a­stroph­ic con­se­quences. Amid the gang­land machis­mo and doomed love John­son mounts the action with a nag­ging sense of unease.

Cor­rupt cop flicks are typ­i­cal­ly the pre­serve of the Big Apple rather than the Big Smoke. With Hye­na, though, writer-direc­tor Ger­ard Johnson’s sav­age bent-plod thriller gives Ser­pi­co less a run for its mon­ey than a knife in its face. Peter Fer­di­nan­do is a drug squad offi­cer who gets involved in a war between Turk­ish and Alban­ian gangs, like the kind who run London’s real-life nar­cotics traf­fic. Stephen Gra­ham offers fine sup­port while sleazy Bayswa­ter loca­tions pro­vide the verisimil­i­tude. Light relief comes from see­ing crooked five-oh frug­ging to Sylvester’s ​‘Do Ya Wan­na Funk’ while off their faces on the dance floor.

Omer Fast’s psy­cho­log­i­cal heist teas­er is as slip­pery as a greased-up dol­phin and twice as smart. It fol­lows Tom (Tom Stur­ridge), a man try­ing to regain his mem­o­ry after a bizarre acci­dent. As he strug­gles to remem­ber his life in his south Lon­don home he gets involved in local street crime, meet­ing mys­tery fix­er Naz (Arsh­er Ali) and even­tu­al­ly the stag­ing of a heist at a Hol­born bank. Relo­cat­ing the Fer­n­dale Rd, Brix­ton set­ting of Tom McCarthy’s source nov­el to Ken­ning­ton, Fast thrills in the streets and the mind. An unusu­al, reward­ing shot of post-Memen­to puzzling.

Best known for his under­rat­ed com­ic book action­er Dredd, Pete Travis’ adap­ta­tion of Patrick Neate’s nov­el is fine attempt at Lon­don neo-noir. Riz Ahmed is like­able and suit­ably wily as Tom­my Akhtar, a British-Pak­istani pri­vate eye who helps a pros­ti­tute look for a miss­ing per­son. There is lit­tle glam­our in this mul­ti­cul­tur­al cap­i­tal: Akhtar’s office is above a low-rent mini­cab office while atmos­pher­ic scenes are shot in the shad­ow of Ernő Goldfinger’s Trel­lick Tow­er, a west Lon­don land­mark. Mis­ery and mosques, train tracks and tragedy, it’s all there as cer­tain as the tube map. Bil­lie Piper even turns up as an old flame of Akhtar’s. Why? Because she wants to.

In Gareth Tunley’s aus­pi­cious direc­to­r­i­al debut, Tom Meeten impress­es as Chris, a detec­tive who goes under­cov­er as a psychotherapist’s patient to inves­ti­gate a dou­ble mur­der. Chris is helped from police part­ner Jim (Dan Skin­ner) and shrink Kath­leen (Alice Lowe) but the more he inves­ti­gates, the more uncer­tain things become. As the plot weaves in and out of what we think we know, so Chris dri­ves to and fro on the north cir­cu­lar and the city looms above with con­crete men­ace like a brood­ing Under­world tune. The Ghoul is an unnerv­ing look at urban iso­la­tion and paranoia.