Billy Liar

Billy Liar (1963) is John Schlesinger's bittersweet British comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Billy clerks for a small-town undertaker, but in his head he rules an invented country called Ambrosia, where he commands armies and breaks hearts at will.

The trouble starts when the fantasies leak into daylight. Billy lies to his parents, his bosses, and his girlfriends — he has somehow gotten engaged to two women at once, prim Barbara and sharp-tongued Rita, while the one he actually wants is free-spirited Liz, played by a luminous Julie Christie. His ticket out is a scriptwriting job in London and a late train south. Whether he climbs aboard is the whole ache of the film. Tom Courtenay makes Billy's lying feel less like cruelty and more like a boy gasping for air in a town too small for him.

Born from the British New Wave and Keith Waterhouse's novel, the picture turned Christie into a star a year before Darling. It is funny and quietly devastating, often in the same breath — a study of someone whose nerve fails the moment escape is real. Worth a look for anyone who loves wry English comedy about ordinary people with outsized dreams. Stream Billy Liar (1963) online on iFILM.