Brief Encounter (1945)

Position: 81

Genre: Romance, Drama

Director: David Lean

Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey, Cyril Raymond, Everley Gregg

Plot: Laura (Celia Johnson) is a seemingly happy, middle-class housewife who meets a middle-aged married doctor Alec (Trevor Howard) when he removes a speck of dust from her eye at a railway station. They are slowly drawn into a quietly passionate, chaste love affair marked by intimate conversation and longing glances. They both eventually realise that their love is impossible, as neither is able to break the bonds of social propriety that keep them married to other people.