I’m a major fan of what I think of as quirky British movies. And lately there has been a bumper crop to choose from. It’s been a wonderful era for people like me. Here are a handful that I’ve enjoyed most:

• The Duke (2/25/22 UK) This movie stars two of my favorite living film performers: Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. That alone is worth the price of admission. (That’s a meaningless assessment given that I got the video from the library but you get my point.) This is based on the true story of a painting stolen from the National Gallery. It would be great regardless but the fact that the events are essentially true make it even more appealing, if that’s possible.

• The Phantom of the Open (3/18/22) Another brilliant (in both the literal US meaning as well as the common British usage) performance by yet another brilliant actor, Mark Rylance. Again, a (“based on”) true story of a down-and-outer who decides to take up golf by entering the British Open before he’s played a single round. It has the added incentive of including the incomparable Sally Hawkins. We’ll see her again in this list.

• Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (7/15/22 US) If this delightful more-than-just-a-romantic-comedy doesn’t put a smile on your face, you might want to check your pulse. This isn’t a true story, but I wish it were.

• The Lost King (3/24/23 US) Another Sally Hawkins vehicle. I’ll watch anything she does, including commercials, if she ever makes one. (She’s so great, she almost saved the dreadful poser movie, “The Shape of Water”.) This is another inspired-by-true-events tale about an amateur historian who fights the powers-that-be to make a discovery everyone told her was impossible.

The next one is far and away the cream of said bumper crop, IMHO. It’s quirkier than all of the rest combined but (a) has absolutely zero (maybe less) basis in reality and (b) has not one single big name performer. Nonetheless, this is one of my favorite movies in years.

• Brian and Charles (7/8/22 UK) No synopsis can do this justice. The short version is that it’s about an eccentric Welshman who invents a robot to keep him company. But it’s not in any sense science fiction.

A couple of honorable mentions to spectacular British films that aren’t quirky enough but are great regardless:

• Living (11/4/22 UK) Bill Nighy, who makes every movie he’s in better, in a role he was born to play.
• Banshees of Inisherin (11/4/22 US) It’s more twisted and dark than quirky and definitely not a comedy, despite what its marketeers claim, but it is terrific.

American cinema hasn’t produced quirky films as prolifically as have our British cousins but one recent entry I’d put in the same category as those above is:

• Jerry and Marge Go Large (6/17/22 US) Like a few of the above, this film features great performances by great actors portraying real people in a stranger-than-fiction situation.

All those movies were released in the last 18 months. It’s a feast for the quirk-lovers among us.