Ill Fares the Land: Images of Farming in British Cinema from Akenfield to Dark River

British television is seemingly obsessed with farming, but it is a subject which features relatively rarely in British cinema. Rural landscapes have long played a key role in British films in various different ways, as noted in much of the literature on heritage cinema, yet, although farmed landscapes feature in many of these films, they generally serve as little more than a picturesque backdrop and the actual activity of farming usually registers only incidentally. This article examines a number of films, covering both past and present, which, in different ways, do actually foreground agricultural practice. In particular it is concerned to explore how these films have registered changes in land use and ownership, and how they represent the consequences of these changes, particularly for small farmers, in the era of ‘free market’ globalised capitalism.