Editing Brief Encounter (section)

==Legacy==
In her book ''Noël Coward'' (1987), Frances Gray notes that ''Brief Encounter'' is, after Coward’s major comedies, his most prominent work. The film has frequently aired on television to high viewership consistently.  <blockquote>Its story is that of an unconsummated affair between two married people [....] Coward is keeping his lovers in check because he cannot handle the energies of a less inhibited love in a setting shorn of the wit and exotic flavour of his best comedies [....] To look at the script, shorn of David Lean's beautiful camera work, deprived of an audience who would automatically approve of the final sacrifice, is to find oneself asking awkward questions (pp. 64–67).</blockquote>

''Brief Encounter'' has earned a lasting legacy in cinema history. In 1952, it was voted one of the 10 greatest films ever made in two separate critics' polls.<ref>{{cite web |title=Brief Encounter (1945) |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/69696/brief-encounter#articles-reviews |access-date=17 March 2017 |website=Turner Classic Movies}}</ref> In 1999, the [[British Film Institute]] ranked it #2 on the [[BFI Top 100 British films]] list, behind only [[The Third Man|''The Third Man'']], and in 2004 ''[[Total Film]]'' magazine named it the 44th greatest British film of all time. Film critic Derek Malcolm included it in his 2000 column ''The Century of Films''. British historian Thomas Dixon remarked that ''Brief Encounter'' "has become a classic example of a very modern and very British phenomenon—weeping over the [[stiff upper lip]], crying at people not crying. The audiences for these wartime weepies could, through their own tears, provide something that was lacking in their own lives as well as those of the on-screen stoics they admired."<ref>{{cite book |last=Dixon |first=Thomas |title=Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-19-967605-7 |location=Oxford, UK}}</ref>

Director [[Robert Altman]]'s wife Kathryn Altman said, "One day, years and years ago, just after the war, [Altman] had nothing to do and he went to a theater in the middle of the afternoon to see a movie. Not a Hollywood movie: a British movie. He said the main character was not glamorous, not a babe. And at first he wondered why he was even watching it. But twenty minutes later, he was in tears, and had fallen in love with her. And it made him feel that it wasn't just a movie." The film was ''Brief Encounter''.<ref>A quote from the final scene in the 2014 documentary ''[[Altman (film)|Altman]]''.</ref>

The film's influence extends into other works. The British play and film ''The History Boys'' features two characters reciting a passage from ''Brief Encounter''.

The episode "Grief Encounter" of the British comedy series [[Goodnight Sweetheart (TV series)|''Goodnight Sweetheart'']] features a reference to Coward and includes a scene filmed at Milford railway station, echoing ''Brief Encounter''. Similarly, "[[Mum's Army]]", an episode of ''Dad's Army'' appears to be loosely inspired by the film.

''Brief Encounter'' also serves as a plot device in ''[[Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont]]'' (2005), a comedy-drama film based on [[Elizabeth Taylor (novelist)|Elizabeth Taylor]]'s [[Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (novel)|1971 novel]]. In the story, the aging widow Mrs. Palfrey reminisces about ''Brief Encounter'' as her and her late husband’s favorite film, leading to a significant connection between her young friend and writer Ludovic Meyer and his eventual girlfriend.

In the 2012 [[Sight and Sound|''Sight & Sound'']] polls of the world’s greatest films, ''Brief Encounter'' received votes from 11 critics and three directors.<ref>{{cite web |title=Votes for Brief Encounter (1946) |url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6a66b375/sightandsoundpoll2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202080944/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6a66b375/sightandsoundpoll2012 |archive-date=2 February 2017 |access-date=28 January 2017 |website=[[British Film Institute]]}}</ref>