Dir. David Lean
1945 | 87 mins | UK | English
Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey

Showing Times

• Wed 08 Oct: 6pm
• Sun 12 Oct: 2.30pm

We are also hosting a special Parent and Baby Screening in collaboration with Daylight Collective on Wed 03 Dec, 10.30am. Find out more >

Brief Encounter first arrived in Studio 74 10 years ago (to the day) and was one of the first films we screened. Originally programmed alongside the BFI LOVE season, we are excited to welcome back this painfully romantic film about a mother (Laura) who falls in love with a married Doctor. Unable to act on their deep, deep emotions, they are forced to let their fate (and trains) travel in different directions and accept that their lives could never collide again.

Trapped in a suburban marriage, brittle housewife Laura (Celia Johnson) struggles with her passion for dashing doctor Alec (Trevor Howard). The film’s blend of the middle-class everyday, Robert Krasker’s atmospheric black and white cinematography and Rachmaninoff’s swooning 2nd Piano Concerto remains powerfully affecting. The film quivers with pent-up emotion in a way that must have been even more potent on its release in 1945 – just months after the end of World War II – than it is today.

Studio 74: A Decade of Difference
Revisit our article written in 2015 here.

BBFC Rating Details:
Rated PG – adultery theme, suicide references

This screening is part of Too Much: Melodrama on Film, a UK-wide season that celebrates films that champion emotional intensity over ‘good taste’.

Exeter Phoenix presents a selection of films that are united by motherhood; Maternal melodramas.

The season is supported by the BFI through National Lottery funding.

Venue: Studio 74, Exeter Phoenix

*Subject to a £1.50 ticketing system charge. We don’t charge this to make a profit. Find out more >>