After the end of the Second World War – and as its overseas empire began to crumble – Britain had to embark on the rocky road to national reconstruction and revival. This wide-ranging survey of British cinema of that period shows the cultural response by the nation's filmmakers, writers, producers, performers, and studios as they collectively tried to make sense of the transformations of this turbulent new era.

Featuring everything from beloved classics by legendary filmmakers like David Lean, Carol Reed, or Powell and Pressburger to unheralded genre gems by lesser-known craftsmen like Seth Holt or Lance Comfort, the program celebrates British studio filmmakers from 1945 to 1960, when a new wave washed up on Britain's shores.

The significant role women played in that earlier period – in films directed by Muriel Box, Wendy Toye, Margaret Tait, and Jill Craigie – as well as the role of American filmmakers exiled by the anti-Communist blacklist – like Joseph Losey, Cy Endfield, and Edward Dmytryk – also plays a part in Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema (1945-1960).