The Dig

Suffolk, 1939. The landowner Edith Pretty hires Basil Brown to excavate the mounds on her property. Brown has no university training and taught himself the work. What he finds becomes one of the most important archaeological discoveries in England: the Sutton Hoo ship burial. Meanwhile war is about to be declared. Simon Stone directed, from John Preston's 2007 novel. Carey Mulligan plays Edith Pretty and Ralph Fiennes plays Basil Brown, with Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Ben Chaplin and Ken Stott in the cast. Netflix released it in January 2021. Eighty-eight percent of 153 Rotten Tomatoes reviews are positive with a 7.2 average. Kevin Maher in The Times called it serious, intellectually committed and emotionally piercing cinema. Katie Rife in The A.V. Club took the other side: the actual experience of watching it, she wrote, is a lot like sitting at a bus stop. It took five BAFTA nominations including Outstanding British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay, and won none. Its historical accuracy was criticised. The archaeologist Peggy Piggott is shown as inexperienced when in fact she was trained. A fictional character, Rory Lomax, was created for a romantic subplot, replacing the real photographers who were there, Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet period drama and are interested in archaeology. Who it is not for: anyone wanting pace. There is almost no conflict, and the only tension comes from the approaching war.