At the LFS, he helped introduce the work of the Soviet directors Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov to British audiences, and in 1937 staged a notable programme protesting the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Record of War.

Dickinson's first feature film, starring Lionel Atwill and Lucie Mannheim, was The High Command (1937), for which he formed the short-lived Fanfare Pictures with Gordon Wellesley.

Based on the Patrick Hamilton play, it was later suppressed for some years when MGM bought the rights for its own version, but led to an invitation to work in Hollywood from David O. Selznick which was rejected by Dickinson.

For The Queen of Spades (1949) Dickinson assumed responsibility at five days notice after he was recommended by actor Anton Walbrook, the star of Gaslight, when the production was close to collapse.

Following an aborted attempt to adapt Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge in time for the Festival of Britain, he returned to Secret People (1952), a long cherished project which Ealing Studios took up, but this was unsuccessful at the box-office and became Dickinson's last British-made feature film.

Performing all her own ballet moves during the dance sequences, Dickinson went on to film the screen test of Audrey which led to international stardom.

[13] In Israel, Dickinson directed a short film for the Israeli Army, The Red Ground (1953),[14] and an English-language feature, Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955), for which he reworked the screenplay in collaboration with his wife Joanna.