Loosely based on the character of Jimmy Boyle, The Debt Collector explores themes of forgiveness, revenge, change and the macho culture of modern urban Scottish life.

The film is set in and around a state secondary school in the Abronhill district of Cumbernauld. It features John Gordon Sinclair, Dee Hepburn, Clare Grogan, among others. Grogan's role helped promote her career, as she was in the band Altered Images at the time of the film's release.

The film was produced by the BBC and Ecosse Films with the intention of being shown on BBC One and on WGBH's Masterpiece Theatre. However, it was acquired by Miramax and released to unexpected success, going on to earn more than $13,000,000 worldwide.

The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.

Filmed in Scotland, the story follows the adventures of two young men who don masks (a clown and a wolf-man) and hold up tourist coaches in the Highlands. These modern highwaymen become local folk heroes as well as a tourist attraction in themselves.

The soundtrack features music by Big Country. This music became available on the 1998 Big Country collection Restless Natives & Rarities; the Restless Natives soundtrack music is presented as a single 35-minute track featuring clips of actors from the film's audio.

The film stars Liam Neeson in the title role, along with Jessica Lange, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Eric Stoltz, Jason Flemyng, and Brian Cox. Tim Roth was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the villain Archibald Cunningham.

The film also provided starring roles for the then unknown actors Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston and Kerry Fox.

The film was produced in 1995 by Skyline Productions in association with the BBC Film Fund and subsequently released in 1996 and distributed by Pathé - a division of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film received a BBFC Certificate of 15 (intended for audiences aged 15 and over) within the United Kingdom. Some argued that because of the high levels of violence and adult themes portrayed in this film, an 18 Certificate would have been more suitable.

The typical strong Glasgow Patter vernacular that would be characteristic of real local gangs was transformed into a very "standardised" dialect of Scottish English so as to encompass a wider audience.

The Academy Award-nominated screenplay, by John Hodge, was adapted from Welsh's novel. It does not contain any references to the hobby of train spotting. The title is a reference to an episode in the original book (not included in the film) where Begbie and Renton meet "an auld drunkard" who turns out to be Begbie's estranged father, in the disused Leith Central railway station, which they are visiting to use as a toilet. He asks them if they are "trainspottin'." The title also relates to obsessive behavior and to a slang term to inject or "mainline" heroin. Beyond drug addiction, other concurrent themes in the film are exploration of the urban poverty and squalor, in "culturally rich" Edinburgh.

Although the wreck and the escapades over the whisky are at the centre of the story, there is also a lot of background detail about life in the Outer Hebrides, including e.g. culture clashes between the Protestant island of Great Todday and the Roman Catholic island of Little Todday. (Mackenzie based the geography of these islands on Barra and Eriskay respectively, but in real life they are both Catholic islands). There are various sub-plots, e.g. two couples who want to get married.

Based very loosely on David Pinner's 1967 novel The Ritual, the story is about a Scottish police officer, Sergeant Neil Howie, visiting the isolated island of Summerisle to search for a missing girl who the locals claim never existed. The inhabitants of Summerisle all celebrate a reconstructed form of Celtic paganism, which appalls the devoutly Christian Sergeant.

It tells the story of a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every hundred years, though to the villagers, the passing of each century seems no longer than one night. The enchantment is viewed by them as a blessing rather than a curse, for it saved the village from destruction. According to their covenant with God, no one from Brigadoon may ever leave, or the enchantment will be broken and the site and all its inhabitants will disappear into the mist forever. Two American tourists, lost in the Scottish Highlands, stumble upon the village just as a wedding is about to be celebrated, and their arrival has serious implications for the village's inhabitants.

A Cinemascope film version of Brigadoon, directed by Vincente Minnelli, was released by MGM in 1954 with Gene Kelly, Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse in leading roles. The MacLaren family name was changed to Campbell.

The novel was turned into a play by Jay Presson Allen, which opened on Broadway in 1968, with Zoe Caldwell in the title role, a performance for which she won a Tony Award. This production was a moderate success, running for just less than a year, but it has often been staged by both professional and amateur companies since then.

However, although successful in its own terms, some have questioned whether it is a particularly faithful adaptation. It turned an experimental work into a realistic one, and removed some theological issues, turning it into a story of failed love.

The number of girls in the Brodie Set is reduced from six to four (Mary, Sandy, Jenny, and Monica) and some of them are composites of girls in the novel. Mary is a composite of the original Mary and Joyce Emily; although mainly based on the original Mary, the episode of dying in the Spanish Civil War is given to her, and rather more is made of this incident than in the novel. Jenny is a composite of the original Jenny and Rose; in spite of her name she has more in common with Rose, since it is she whom Miss Brodie tries to manoeuvre into having an affair with Mr Lloyd.

Allen adapted her play into a film in 1969, which was directed by Ronald Neame. It is remembered for Maggie Smith's performance in the title role, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. There was also a notable performance from Pamela Franklin as Sandy, for which she won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress. It was also entered into the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.[2]

Gordon Jackson played Gordon Lowther, and Rona Anderson, who was married to Jackson in real life, played chemistry teacher Miss Lockhart, whom Lowther married in the film. Robert Stephens, then Maggie Smith's real life husband, played Miss Brodie's married artist lover, who was having an affair with student Sandy (Pamela Franklin) (posing nude and looking like Miss Brodie in the painting); Teddy Lloyd, singer Isla Cameron played the stern librarian, Miss MacKenzie; Celia Johnson played the austere and antagonistic school headmistress, Miss Emmeline MacKay, and Jane Carr played Mary McGregor. Rod McKuen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song for "Jean", which became a huge hit for the singers Oliver with Rod McKuen's melodious ballad "Jean", in autumn 1969. The play also underwent modification for the film; it cut out a few scenes showing Sandy in later life as a nun.