The Daily Telegraph‘s chief film critic Robbie Collin has delivered a Christmas present to Greene admirers: like so many critics before him, he has just declared The Third Man (1949) to be the greatest British film ever made. More than that, the screenplay has ‘secured silver-screen immortality for Graham Greene’.
For those of you who don’t subscribe to The Daily Telegraph, here is Robbie’s verdict:
‘The intrigue and depth of The Third Man are sensational, and secured silver-screen immortality for Graham Greene, a year after he’d also co-written The Fallen Idol. In the hands again of Carol Reed, this Vienna-set thriller is a matchless, inky noir about post-war disillusionment, revolving around the betrayal of Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) by one of the shadiest characters in any known medium, the war profiteer Harry Lime (an electric Orson Welles). It’s pure cinema, into which we sink every time like a beloved armchair, sighing at Anton Karas’s wistful zither theme, while Robert Krasker’s magnificent camera lures us into the city sewers where the truth will out.’
The full article can be found here: Robbie Collin, ‘The 50 best British films of all time, ranked’. The Daily Telegraph, 25 December 2025