Dench, Swinton and Biggins: all Derek Jarman’s feature films – ranked!
Judi Dench reads 14 Shakespeare sonnets over 77 minutes of homoerotic imagery, backed by compositions by Benjamin Britten and experimental band Coil in this romantic and dreamy film. While not as powerful as Jarman’s best queer works, which channelled anger as well as beauty in their rebellion against oppression, Dench’s readings and the woozy imagery work beautifully together.
10. Jubilee (1978)
Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre) time travels to punk-era Britain and discovers a desperate, violent society in Jarman’s provocative second feature. It’s an incoherent, messy and divisive work (Vivienne Westwood loathed it), but the inspired casting (Toyah Willcox, Adam Ant) and set pieces (Malcolm McLaren protégé Jordan’s jaw-dropping performance of Rule Britannia) offer fun amid the mayhem.
9. The Garden (1990)
Jarman’s health was deteriorating when he made this deeply personal experimental film, shot around Prospect Cottage and his famous garden on the otherworldly coast of Dungeness, Kent, where he spent his final years. Filmed on Super 8, it’s a poetic if sometimes self-indulgent depiction of Jarman’s musings on queerness in the 20th century, fused with religious imagery, some disturbing, some joyous.
8. Wittgenstein (1993)
Jarman’s funniest film is a playful chamber piece that considers moments from the life of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittily played by Karl Johnson, Wittgenstein emerges as a likably crabby eccentric, arguing philosophy with John Maynard Keynes, Bertrand Russell and even a spirited Martian, while struggling (according to Jarman) with his own homosexuality. A fun if minor piece in Jarman’s filmography.
7. Caravaggio (1986)
Jarman’s most beautiful film, and perhaps his most critically acclaimed, queers the life of Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio (Nigel Terry). It features strong early performances from Sean Bean, Dexter Fletcher and, in the first of her many collaborations with Jarman, Tilda Swinton, while the recreations of the artist’s mastery of chiaroscuro are utterly gorgeous.
6. The Tempest (1979)
Few directors have had as much fun adapting Shakespeare as Jarman does with The Tempest. Jack Birkett hams it up as Caliban and Christopher Biggins does fine work as drunken seaman Stephano. After all the campery, we get the loveliest music number in Jarman’s canon – a glorious rendition of Stormy Weather by Elisabeth Welch, sung to a room of adoring sailors.
5. Sebastiane (1976)
Jarman started as he meant to go on with his erotic take on the legend of martyred Saint Sebastian, exiled to a remote garrison where he becomes the object of lust to the menacing male guards. The tale is told in Latin with English subtitles, lingering on male bodies through an unapologetically gay gaze. British cinema had never seen anything like it.
4. Blue (1993)
When Jarman made his final film, Aids complications had made him partially blind. He responded by creating his most experimental work, a 79minute shot of a blue background, over which play Jarman’s contemplations around life and imminent death, narrated by some of his frequent collaborators, with music by Simon Fisher Turner. An overwhelming viewing experience.
3. War Requiem (1989)
Jarman’s marriage of Benjamin Britten’s choral work with staged depictions of wartime tragedy alongside first world war archive footage is quite remarkable. Swinton gives a harrowing, silent performance as a nurse affected by the war and, touchingly, it features the final screen appearance of Laurence Olivier. The poetic representation of the horrors of war and the references to poet Wilfred Owen make this an ideal companion to Terence Davies’ Benediction (2021).
2. The Last of England (1987)
Jarman’s merciless attack on Thatcher’s Britain still shocks today, depicting England as a totalitarian hell through disturbing, often violent imagery. The stunning final sequence, of a screaming, grieving bride (Swinton) ripping off her wedding dress, is particularly disturbing. The film is a tough watch but a necessary one; its depiction of a viciously cruel, dying Britain evokes a warning from the recent past.
1. Edward II (1991)
His adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II shows Jarman playing to all of his strengths, showcasing a playful interpretation of a classic text, an ability to work wonders with a small budget and a celebration of gay sex against his burning disgust at institutional homophobia. It makes bold choices that work tremendously well, with anachronisms such as an army of gay rights activists and a romantic serenade courtesy of Annie Lennox. It also transforms the grisly torture-murder of the original text to give its heroes that rarest of things in contemporary queer cinema – a gay happy ending.