As a new David Attenborough documentary examines the waterway’s history, we rate the river’s finest movie cameos
This film follows a well-understood movie tradition of using the Thames, with its twists and turns and swerves, as a spectacular setpiece to whoosh us along the city, tracking the river from the air. Here, Harry (played by Daniel Radcliffe) has been expelled from Hogwarts and is under attack from Dementors, so “Mad-Eye” Moody (Brendan Gleeson) takes Harry and his pals on an amazing broomstick ride along the river, past the Canary Wharf towers and the museum ship HMS Belfast. Tower Bridge makes its mandatory appearance before Harry and the gang rocket past the Houses of Parliament and arrive in Grimmauld Place, the former headquarters of the titular Order of the Phoenix, somewhere north of the river.