Bronco Bullfrog

Directed by Barney Platts-Mills

“Before Quadrophenia, before The Jam, before the Sex Pistols, THERE WAS BRONCO BULLFROG.” —Sasha Frere-Jones, Observer

“A RAW and SENSITIVE DRAMA about working-class London teens facing formidable walls of social exclusion… The on-location filming depicts their narrow and perilous world with a documentary-like authority, and the cast of nonprofessional actors invest the milieu with their SHAMBLING ENERGY and POIGNANT PRESENCE.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker 

“AN AUSPICIOUS FIRST FEATURE… a British equivalent of Italian neo-realism: A cast of nonactors recruited from the streets of London’s depressed East End enact a story that might have been their own… UNPRETENTIOUSLY ATMOSPHERIC.” —J. Hoberman, The New York Times

The debut film by “one of the forgotten heroes of British cinema” (Matthew Sweet, BBC Radio 4), Barney Platts-Mills’ Bronco Bullfrog is “remarkable” (Mollie Panter-Downes, The New Yorker), a “breathtaking time capsule” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian), and a “revelation” (Kieron Corless, Sight & Sound). 

Seventeen year old Del, with no money and nowhere to go, breaks into train cars with his cool, fresh out of borstal (reform school) pal Bronco Bullfrog. But one day he meets the lovely Irene, and despite an earful from his dad (and her mum), the two young lovers run away together… but to where?

Shot in London’s East End in 1969, cast with Doc Marten wearing “suedehead” locals, and set to a dynamic soundtrack by early 70s art rock band Audience, Bronco Bullfrog has been compared to the work of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, but with a punk rock spirit. After a minuscule American release following its Edinburgh and Cannes premieres, this “lost gem” (Dave Calhoun, Time Out) returns over 50 years later as a cult landmark of two teens in love, in black and white and cockney—with subtitles.