Get Carter is a 1971 British gangster thriller film, written and directed by Mike Hodges in his directorial debut and starring Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, John Osborne, Britt Ekland and Bryan Mosley.

Producer Michael Klinger optioned Lewis's novel shortly after its publication and made a deal with the ailing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to finance and release the film, making Get Carter the last project to be approved by the studio's Borehamwood division before its closure.

Critics grudgingly appreciated the film's technical achievements and Caine's performance while criticising the complex plot, violence and amorality, in particular Carter's apparent lack of remorse for his actions.

Get Carter eventually garnered a cult following, and further endorsements from directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie led to the film being critically re-evaluated,[4] with its depiction of class structure and life in 1970s Britain and Roy Budd's minimalist jazz score receiving considerable praise.

Jack is having an affair with Gerald's girlfriend Anna and plans to escape with her to South America, but he must first return to Newcastle and Gateshead to attend the funeral of his brother, Frank, who died in a purported drink-driving accident.

[2] In 1969, producer Michael Klinger devised plans for a gangster film to capitalise on public interest in the British criminal underworld after the Kray Twins' convictions.

Klinger was invited to view a first print of Peter Walker's Man of Violence (1969) and was unimpressed, telling the director "I'm going to make a gangster film, but it's going to cost a lot more than this and it's going to be better".

Klinger contacted Hodges on 27 January 1970 with a copy of Jack's Return Home and contracted him[34] to write and direct the film, paying him a flat fee of £7,000 (£135,700 in 2024) for his services.

[36] Steve Chibnall writes: "his treatment retained the essential structure of Lewis's novel with its strong narrative drive, but introduced some minor changes to characterisation and more fundamental alterations to narratology".

[36] Given that Ted Lewis had not specified where his novel was set, Hodges felt free to relocate the story[37] to a place he was familiar with, considering Grimsby, Lowestoft, Hull and North Shields[2] before deciding on Newcastle upon Tyne.

[36] He also dispensed with flashbacks to Carter's youth featured in the novel which explored his relationship with his brother Frank, streamlining the plot to a linear narrative spanning a single weekend.

As Chibnall writes: The immediate consequence was the loss of the insights into Carter's motivations provided by his memories of boyhood and his relationships with brother Frank and delinquent gang leader Albert Swift.

[39] Hodges' decision to kill off Carter was initially protested by MGM executives, as they wanted the character to survive in the event that the film proved successful enough to warrant a sequel.

As well as Telly Savalas, names posited by Klinger and studio executives were Joan Collins, and someone Hodges described as "the Canadian lead actress in TV's Peyton Place", which is likely a reference to Barbara Parkins.

[41] Hodges described how wandering alone through the upper structure, he realised how the different levels could be used to reveal the hunter, Carter, and the hunted, Brumby, simultaneously but without either being aware of the other – adding to the suspense.

[34] Steve Chibnall writes "It proved a perfect location, wreaking [sic] of authenticity and full of useful details such as the cowboys and Indians wallpaper [...] the African shield and crossed spears on the wall of the crime lord's living room".

[54] At the advice of Richard Lester, Hodges and his assistant director stayed at a separate hotel to the rest of the cast and crew, which enabled him to have some respite from the production after the shooting day was done.

Hodges chose the beach for its bleak, dark atmosphere but when he returned to shoot the scene he found it bathed in bright sunshine, unsuitable for the sombre conclusion he was hoping for.

[5] The theme (otherwise known as "Carter Takes a Train"), the best-known piece from the film, was played by Budd and the other members of his jazz trio, Jeff Clyne (double bass) and Chris Karan (percussion), and was recorded on a budget of £450 (£8,700 in 2024).

The music playing in the nightclub scene is an uptempo cover of the 1969 Willie Mitchell tune "30-60-90" performed live by the Jack Hawkins Showband, which was the resident band at the Oxford Galleries night club.

The Pelaw Hussars, a local juvenile jazz band and majorette troupe, also appear and perform two numbers, "When The Saints Go Marching In" and "Auld Lang Syne".

MGM sold distribution rights to the film in the U.S. to its future subsidiary United Artists, which promoted it poorly, amidst worries the cockney dialogue in the opening scene would be unintelligible to U.S. audiences.

[73] UA placed the film on the declining drive-in movie circuit,[1] where it played at the bottom of a double bill with Dirty Dingus Magee, a vehicle for Frank Sinatra.

[77] In South Africa the censor cut out Britt Ekland's phone sex scene, shortening her already brief role; her name was still left on the poster, leaving filmgoers to wonder why she was advertised as appearing.

[85] BFI Video released its 4K restoration of Get Carter on August 1, 2022 on standard and Ultra HD Blu-ray;[80] the two-disc sets include the special features of earlier home media releases of the film, as well as a new audio commentary with critics Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw, an isolated music track, interviews with Hodges, Trunk Records founder Jonny Trunk, actress Petra Markham and Michael Klinger's son Tony, Philip Trevelyan's 1966 documentary film The Ship Hotel, Tyne Main, a booklet containing various essays on the film and other paraphernalia, postcards and a double-sided poster for both the restoration and a replication of the original UK poster art.

[91][92] In contrast, Nigel Andrews found the characters to be clichéd archetypes of the criminal underworld, such as the "homosexual chauffeur, bloated tycoon, glamorous mistress", describing the film as "perfunctory".

[95] Steve Chibnall writes that "America was rather more used to hard-boiled storytelling" and that reviewers there were "more prepared than British criticism to treat Get Carter as a serious work",[96] Pauline Kael admiring its "calculated soullessness"[97] and wondering if it signalled a "new genre of virtuoso viciousness".

Judith Crist in New York magazine gave a glowing review, saying "Michael Caine is superb, suave and sexy" and describing the film as "a hard, mean and satisfying zinger of the old tough-tec school done in frank contemporary terms".

[127] Shane Meadows' film Dead Man's Shoes has also drawn comparisons to Get Carter, being similarly a revenge gangster story set around a provincial English town.

[62] The Human League 1981 album Dare contains a track covering the Get Carter theme, although it was only a version of the sparse leitmotif that opens and closes the film as opposed to the full-blooded jazz piece that accompanies the train journey.