Six is not really enough, and there is no version of this where it is. Six Guy Ritchie films to stream in the UK, then, with The Gentlemen back on Netflix on Thursday 3 September and MobLand on Paramount+ on Friday 18 September. He rather has the month.
The trouble is the volume. A shortlist that leaves out Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Wrath of Man, Operation Fortune, King Arthur and Aladdin looks less like editing than an oversight, given Aladdin took $1.054bn worldwide, per Box Office Mojo, and is comfortably his biggest. Several are not streaming here anyway, which spared us the argument.
The two Britain cannot watch
Start with the awkward part. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels has no streaming home in the UK at all right now. Not iPlayer, not ITVX, not Channel 4, not NOW, not on anything you pay for. The 2020 Gentlemen film, the one the Netflix series grew out of, is in the same position. Both are perfectly watchable abroad.
So the country that has been quoting these films at each other in pubs since the Blair government is the one market that cannot get at them. The Friday ritual of having all four open at once, iPlayer for the thing you feel virtuous about, ITVX for the thing you do not, Channel 4 because Gogglebox told you to, NOW for the Sky stuff, gets you no closer.
Where to stream Guy Ritchie films in the UK tonight
After that it improves. Snatch and RocknRolla are both on NOW, Revolver is free on ITVX, which is not the order anyone would have predicted, and the newest one, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is on Prime Video. Six below, all streaming in the UK tonight, nothing to rent.
Two near misses: Guy Ritchie's The Covenant on Prime Video, the most serious thing he has done, and Fountain of Youth on Apple TV. Worth saying plainly that Netflix has none of the early films.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Henry Cavill leading a unit of sanctioned lunatics against Nazi supply ships, from an operation that really happened. The old assembled-crew routine, relocated to the Atlantic and given rather more money.
The Gentlemen
Theo James inherits a dukedom and the very large cannabis farm underneath it. Series one is the homework for 3 September, and it is not exactly a chore.
MobLand
Tom Hardy as the fixer for a London crime family, with Helen Mirren doing the quiet, frightening bit. Series one is on Paramount+, where series two arrives on 18 September.
Snatch
A stolen diamond, a bare-knuckle boxer nobody can understand, and a dog that swallows a squeaker. Still the funniest thing he has made, and still on NOW.
RocknRolla
London property money, Russian gangsters and Tom Hardy before anyone had noticed him. Not his tidiest film, but the one that most enjoys its own company.
Revolver
Honourable mention
The one nobody defends, free on ITVX. A con man out of prison, a chess metaphor that gets thoroughly out of hand. Watch it as a curiosity and it rather works.
Why does every British crime film look like this?
Because of one of them, made for about £800,000. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels took $28.4m worldwide, per The Numbers. The BFI credits it with reviving the British gangster film and notes that most of the imitators were unwatchable. Both halves are true, and for a decade the first half was the house style of the entire British film industry.
You know the grammar without being told it: the freeze-frame, the name captioned across the screen as each bloke arrives, three firms colliding in a plot none of them can see the whole of. Everything that followed had a go, and most managed the mannerisms without the timing.
It built careers out of people who did not have one. Jason Statham's first film role came off a street market stall, per MentalFloss. Vinnie Jones was a footballer with no acting behind him at all, per FilmInk. Snatch followed in 2000, took $83.6m on a $10m budget, per Box Office Mojo, and had Brad Pitt already cast and nowhere near the accent. SlashFilm's account is that the unintelligible version was agreed the night before shooting. It is still the bit everyone does badly at parties.
A spotting game while you go: he appears in two of his own films, reading a newspaper in Snatch and running the inn in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, uncredited both times, per IMDb.
Then the bad patch. Swept Away collected five Razzies in 2002, Worst Director among them, and Revolver arrived in 2005 to a Rotten Tomatoes consensus of incoherent misfire. He rebuilt on studio money: Sherlock Holmes took $524m in 2009, Aladdin passed a billion a decade later, per Box Office Mojo. Neither of those is a British crime film. Both paid for going back to them.
September is the month he takes over British telly
The Gentlemen returns on Thursday 3 September on Netflix, all eight episodes at once, so there is no weekly argument about who watched ahead. A third series was commissioned before the second had aired, which is either confidence or asking for it.
MobLand follows on Friday 18 September on Paramount+, ten episodes weekly through to a finale on 20 November, according to Paramount+. It was created by Ronan Bennett rather than by Ritchie, who directed the opening episode. Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren handle the rest of the damage.
- The Gentlemen series two: Thursday 3 September, Netflix, all eight episodes at once. Series three already commissioned.
- MobLand series two: Friday 18 September, Paramount+, ten episodes weekly to 20 November.
- New to The Gentlemen: start with series one. The 2020 film is not available here.
Sorting it before the takeaway turns up
The telly goes on earlier than it did a fortnight ago, which is how six films across four apps becomes forty minutes of scrolling and then Coronation Street by accident. The best film apps for couples piece covers why deciding together beats taking turns; if the question is only tonight, what to watch tonight in the UK is the shorter answer.
Settle the shape of the evening first. Revolver and a wartime commando picture are both Ritchie and are not the same night in.
Swipe the six separately, see which ones you both said yes to, and put that on. Two minutes, and nobody sits through anything resentfully. That is the honest list of Guy Ritchie films to stream in the UK right now, rentals excluded, with a series landing next Thursday. MatchWatch is free to use. Available in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the United States.