The best Paul Popplewell’s movies

Manchester, 1976. Tony Wilson is an ambitious but frustrated local TV news reporter looking for a way to make his mark. After witnessing a life-changing concert by a band known as the Sex Pistols, he persuades his station to televise one of their performances, and soon Manchester's punk groups are clamoring for him to manage them. Riding the wave of a musical revolution, Wilson and his friends create the legendary Factory Records label and The Hacienda club.

A young British soldier must find his way back to safety after his unit accidentally abandons him during a riot in the streets of Belfast.

An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reforms and protest against rising levels of poverty.

Morvern Callar wakes on Christmas morning to discover that her troubled boyfriend has died by suicide, leaving behind the unpublished manuscript to his first novel and a sum of money intended to pay for his burial. Instead, Morvern attempts to use both to reinvent her life.

The story of Joseph, a man plagued by violence and a rage that is driving him to self-destruction. As Joseph's life spirals into turmoil a chance of redemption appears in the form of Hannah, a Christian charity shop worker. Their relationship develops to reveal that Hannah is hiding a secret of her own with devastating results on both of their lives.

In the 1930s, a social set known to the press – who follow their every move – as the “Bright Young Things” are Adam and his friends who are eccentric, wild and entirely shocking to the older generation. Amidst the madness, Adam, who is well connected but totally broke, is desperately trying to get enough money to marry the beautiful Nina. While his attempts to raise cash are constantly thwarted, their friends seem to self-destruct, one-by-one, in an endless search for newer and faster sensations. Finally, when world events out of their control come crashing around them, they are forced to reassess their lives and what they value most.

When Steve Coogan is asked by The Observer to tour the country's finest restaurants, he envisions it as the perfect getaway with his beautiful girlfriend. But, when she backs out on him, he has no one to accompany him but his best friend and source of eternal aggravation, Rob Brydon.

Two children in 1917 take a photograph, believed by some to be the first scientific evidence of the existence of fairies. Based on a true story

Teenage musicians travel to England's Spike Island in the hope of attending an outdoor performance by their favorite band, the Stone Roses.

Paul Raymond builds a porn, entertainment and real estate empire that makes him the wealthiest man in Britain, but drugs doom his beloved daughter, Debbie.

A boxer suffers a serious head injury during a fight, and must deal with the consequences.

We’re in the middle of a heat-wave in Fenland England. Goob Taylor has spent each of his sixteen summers helping Mum run the transport cafe and harvest the surrounding beet fields. When Mum shacks up with swarthy stock-car supremo and ladies’ man gene Womack, Goob becomes an unwelcome side thought. However Goob’s world turns when exotic beet picker Eva arrives. Fuelled by her flirtatious comments, Goob dreams of better things.

North London band Wolf Alice have had a rise to prominence that might have been bends-inducing were it not for their tightness as a group. In summer of 2015, the deliciously dark, hook-and-riff-filled sound of their debut album, My Love Is Cool, inspired the NME to crown it: "the debut of the decade". As a measure of their impact, BAFTA-winning filmmaker Michael Winterbottom joined the band on the road, capturing 16 different gigs and daily life backstage.

Long-awaited sequel to the 1995 film. A young British Asian, Mo is a fast-rising police officer who goes under cover infiltrating Shadwell's resurgent hooligan element, who are fired up by Shadwells's takeover by a Russian oligarch and their unlikely adventure into European competition. Mo quickly becomes embroiled in the local schism between the BNP and EDL and plans to build a new mosque in the shadow of the Shadwell ground creates an explosive environment in which football and political violence form a perfect storm of social unrest. In the midst of this, Mo is faced with the essential existential question of of who he really is and where he really belongs. It's 20 years on and clever Trevor is now chief super, but what happens to the rest of the gang?