Following the success of Karel Reisz´s "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", Alan Sillitoe adapted another of his works for the screen, this time a short story of a disillusioned teenager rebelling against the system to make Tony Richardson´s "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" one of the great British films of the 1960s. Newcomer Tom Courtenay is compelling as the sullen, defiant Colin, refusing to follow his dying father into a factory job, railing against the capitalist bosses and preferring to make a living from petty thieving.
Arrested for burglary and sent to borstal, Colin discovers a talent for cross-country running, earning him special treatment from the governor (Michael Redgrave), and the chance to redeem himself from anti-social tearaway to sports day hero. With Colin a favourite to win against a local public school, tensions build as the day approaches..