1982 Channel 4 launches its Film on Four strand. In its early days, the hits included The Draughtsman’s Contract, Neil Jordan’s Angel, The Ploughman’s Lunch and My Beautiful Laundrette. But does anyone remember Midnight Breaks, Good and Bad at Games or Giro City?

1985 Revolution is as big a flop as Chariots of Fire was a hit, and a trigger for the downfall of Goldcrest. A Room with a View becomes the most archetypally British film of its generation — directed by an American, produced by an Indian, scripted by a Pole and set partially in Italy.

1986 Absolute Beginners should have been the British musical of the 1980s. Sadly, it was a major disappointment and shook the ambitious Palace Pictures outfit. Then again, Palace’s High Spirits was much worse.

1988 Alan Rickman accepts the lead villain role in Die Hard, securing employment for any distinguished British thespian — from Jeremy Irons to Art Malik — who wants to pick up a fat pay cheque and out-act an A-list Hollywood hero.

1994 Richard Curtis’s script for The Tall Guy script laid the groundwork, but it was Four Weddings and a Funeral that established the modern British rom-com, teaming Hugh Grant with a bankable American star.

1996 Trainspotting — adapated from Irvine Welsh’s novel — seemed to start so many things, from the careers of the entire cast (Robert Carlyle, Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Kevin McKidd, Jonny Lee Miller and Kelly Macdonald) to the use of Britpop soundtracks, accompanied by exuberant filming and editing styles that still characterise Boyle’s work, such as 28 Days Later.

1997 The Full Monty blends the subject matter of the British miserabilist Film on Four cinema — unemployment and broken families — with the Robert McKee-approved “triumph over adversity” structure and scores a notable triumph. It happened again with Billy Elliot.

1998 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Though it’s hard to embrace an ’ard East End gangster movie made by the stepson of the chairwoman of the Kensington and Chelsea Conservative Association, Guy Ritchie’s debut drew on a neglected British genre and had a lot of energy. Without its success, there probably wouldn't have been room for really good Brit gang flicks such as Gangster No 1, Croupier or Layer Cake.

1999 What’s the worst British TV comedy spin-off? There are so many candidates — Morons From Outer Space, Kevin and Perry Go Large — but my choice is Guest House Paradiso. One of the reasons we all liked Shaun of the Dead so much was that it was almost unheard of for a UK comedy to be actually funny.

2001 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone — or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in America — transferred J. K. Rowling’s literary franchise to the big screen and kicked off a series that has given employment to every first-rate actor in the United Kingdom.

2002 It’s not so much that Ken Russell’s The Fall of the Louse of Usher is bad that hurts, more the fact that this genuine British talent — like Nicolas Roeg, Mike Hodges and many others — should have been shut out of film-making for so long by an industry that really needs its visionaries. Hodges is working again (hurrah!), but Russell really ought to be doing more.

2004 Despite Richard Curtis’s script doctoring of the scenes involving Lady Penelope, Thunderbirds has to be rated as a depressing low on a par with The Avengers, a thoroughly disheartening botch of what ought to have been a great British sci-fi/ adventure franchise.