A Canterbury Tale
1944 · Movie · NR · 125 min · ★ 6.9 · 89% critics
Three travelers bound for Canterbury end up in a small town where an odd local crime disrupts life. As they try to figure out what’s going on, their journey turns into a pilgrimage shaped by the community’s history and wartime connections.
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Watch free on The Roku Channel, Shout! Factory TV, Plex +2 more — also streaming on fuboTV and The Criterion Channel.
2 hours to watch.
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Details
- Years
- 1944
- Release date
- 1944-08-21
- Language
- English
- Rated
- NR
- Runtime
- 125 min
- Max quality
- HD
- Critic score
- 89/100
- TMDB rating
- 6.9/10 (129 votes)
About
You’ll probably enjoy this lyrical wartime travel tale if you like gentle mysteries and uplifting period atmosphere; Not for you if you want nonstop action or a tightly structured thriller, especially compared with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Pros: charming wartime pilgrimage; gorgeous countryside mood; memorable performances | Cons: slow and sometimes sentimental; mystery plot may feel silly; mixed views on pacing
Themes
- england
- world war ii
- wartime
- rural area
- black and white
- railroad
- canterbury
- home front
- american in the uk
Cast & crew
Eric Portman
as Thomas Colpeper, JP
Sheila Sim
as Alison Smith
Dennis Price
as Peter Gibbs
John Sweet
as Bob Johnson
Charles Hawtrey
as Thomas Duckett
Esmond Knight
as Narrator / Seven-Sisters Soldier / Village Idiot
Hay Petrie
as Woodcock
George Merritt
as Ned Horton
Edward Rigby
as Jim Horton
Freda Jackson
as Prudence Honeywood
Directed by Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell