Clockwise

Clockwise (1986) is a British comedy you can watch online on iFILM, with John Cleese as headmaster Brian Stimpson — a man for whom punctuality is not a virtue but a religion. Every minute of school life runs on his schedule. Everyone else's too, whether they like it or not.

On the day of his career peak — a national headteachers' conference where he is set to give the keynote — Stimpson boards the wrong train. That single slip sets off a chain reaction spanning the width of England: a nervous former student named Laura offers him a lift in her parents' car, the police get involved, then his wife, then half the county. Before sundown he will be wanted for car theft, trespassing and abduction.

The script is by Michael Frayn, the playwright behind Noises Off, and director Christopher Morahan plays it absolutely straight — which is exactly what makes it work. The comedy isn't that Stimpson is a fool; it's that one missed train is all it takes for a perfectly ordered life to collapse. Stream Clockwise online on iFILM.