Kind Hearts and Coronets

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) is the Ealing black comedy to watch online on iFILM. Louis Mazzini, snubbed by his mother's noble family, decides he is ninth in line to a dukedom and quietly sets about removing the eight relatives ahead of him.

The whole thing is told from a prison cell, where Louis pens his memoirs with the calm of a man recounting a dinner menu rather than a string of murders. The joke that made the film famous: all eight doomed D'Ascoynes, men and women alike, are played by one performer. Alec Guinness slides through every role, from the pompous banker to the gas-bagging suffragette, while Dennis Price narrates the killings with a politeness that never cracks.

Director Robert Hamer built a masterclass in tone here, staging each death more courteously than a tea invitation, with Joan Greenwood and Valerie Hobson pulling Louis between two very different women. It still lands on lists of the finest British comedies ever made. If you want your wit dry, lethal and impeccably mannered, start here. Stream Kind Hearts and Coronets online on iFILM.