The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

A film by Tony Richardson

Colin (Tom Courtenay) is a defiant teenager who rebels against the system, refusing to follow his dying father into a factory job, railing against the capitalist bosses and preferring to make a living from petty thieving.

Sent to borstal, Colin discovers his talent for cross-country running. The borstal governor (Michael Redgrave) offers him the chance to redeem himself in a race against a local public school, and tensions build as the day approaches.

Following the huge success of Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe here adapted another of his works for the screen. Newcomer Tom Courtenay is compelling as the sullen, disillusioned delinquent in the British New Wave classic, a passionate, explosive tale of rebellion.