The BFI archive holds over 150,000 titles. Among them, at least 1,200 feature a significant human-dog relationship, but only a subset of those interweave that bond with a central romance. These are the films that ask a fascinating question: Can a human being truly love another human if they haven't first learned loyalty from a dog? One of the BFI’s most treasured films, Powell and Pressburger’s A Canterbury Tale , seems at first glance to be about war and pilgrimage. However, a deep analysis reveals a radical romantic storyline facilitated by a dog.
This reflects a deeper psychological truth: In British romantic storytelling, the dog represents the protagonist’s past. The suitor isn’t just winning a heart; they are winning the trust of a creature that holds the key to the character’s history of trauma or loyalty. The BFI’s academic journal, Viewfinder , published a 2019 essay titled “The Hound in the Hallway,” arguing that the jealous dog is a stand-in for the fear of intimacy. Perhaps the most fascinating entry in the BFI archive is not a completed film but a script. The Girl with the Dog , written in 1954 by Muriel Spark, was never produced, but its full treatment resides in the BFI’s Special Collections. The logline reads: “A lonely librarian on the Isle of Skye finds her life upended when a wounded stray collie leads her to a reclusive ornithologist; their shared duty to the animal blooms into a late-life romance.” bfi animal dog sex hit
The BFI listed this unmade script as one of “10 Lost Romances of British Cinema” in 2022. It exemplifies the perfect BFI animal relationship: the dog as a passive-aggressive matchmaker, refusing to accept human estrangement. In the last decade, the BFI’s funding arm has actively supported new films that explore this theme. Two recent releases are essential viewing. The BFI archive holds over 150,000 titles
For further research, visit the BFI Mediatheque at BFI Southbank and search the keyword “Animal Relationship” alongside “Romance.” A full viewing list of 40 films, including archival shorts from 1919, is available to members. One of the BFI’s most treasured films, Powell
: Directed by Clio Barnard, this BFI-backed romance follows a young couple, Sam and Jo, whose relationship is on the brink of collapse. They adopt a rescue lurcher named "Mickey." The film’s genius is that Mickey never does anything heroic. Instead, the couple’s arguments about who walked the dog, who fed the dog, and who the dog loves more become the film’s dialogue. In the climactic scene, the couple splits, and Mickey chooses to sit in the empty hallway—allegiance to neither. It is an animal-relationship tragedy. Only when they finally laugh together at the dog’s stubborn neutrality do they kiss. The BFI’s distribution arm noted it as the highest-grossing romantic drama of that year, proving the appetite is still there.