Olivia Colman's "electrifying" British drama that "you can't shake" is now streaming for free

Tyrannosaur, a 2011 British drama starring The Bear's Olivia Colman, is currently available to stream for free on the Channel 4 service after airing on Film4 over the weekend. As is the case with films on this particular service, it is only available for a limited time, with 27 days left to watch.

Directed by Paddy Considine, who won a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for the project, the film also stars I Swear's Peter Mullan, Back to Black's Eddie Marsan, Casualty's Paul Popplewell, and Coronation Street's Sally Carman.

The plot follows a troubled man who goes on a violent drunken rampage and ends up meeting a woman who runs a local charity shop.

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The two form a strong friendship, but it turns out that he isn't the only one who has some dark secrets in his past.

Filmed mostly across Leeds and Wakefield, the movie had a small budget of £750,000 and didn't make that amount back when it released in cinemas.

While it wasn't a commercial success, it did very well with critics, sitting at a strong 84% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 86 reviews.

Little White Lies called it "vivid, bruising and electrifying", writing: "The most remarkable thing about Paddy Considine’s feature debut is that it doesn’t feel like a debut at all... Tyrannosaur is a fine piece of visual storytelling. He has an eye for inventive composition, and intuitively understands how to integrate that."

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"Tyrannosaur draws on the work of film-makers such as Ken Loach and Shane Meadows, but establishes Considine as a serious and important director in his own right", wrote The Guardian, while IFC.com called it "a powerful film you can't shake and won't want to revisit anytime soon".

Since this film came out, Considine went on to write and direct 2017's Journeyman, which he stars in alongside Popplewell and Jodie Whittaker.

Tyrannosaur can be streamed now for free on Channel 4.

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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.