Summary: We consider the axisymmetric arrangement of an annular liquid film, coating the inner surface of a narrow cylindrical tube, in interaction with an active core fluid. We introduce a low-dimensional model based on the two-phase weighted residual integral boundary layer (WRIBL) formalism [G. F. Dietze and C. Ruyer-Quil, J. Fluid Mech. 722, 348–393 (2013; Zbl 1287.76050)] which is able to capture the long-wave instabilities characterizing such flows. Our model improves upon existing works by fully representing interfacial coupling and accounting for inertia as well as streamwise viscous diffusion in both phases. We apply this model to gravity-free liquid-film/core-fluid arrangements in narrow capillaries with specific attention to the dynamics leading to flooding, i.e. when the liquid film drains into large-amplitude collars that occlude the tube cross-section. We do this against the background of linear stability calculations and nonlinear two-phase direct numerical simulations (DNS). Due to the improvements of our model, we have found a number of novel/salient physical features of these flows. First, we show that it is essential to account for inertia and full interphase coupling to capture the temporal evolution of flooding for fluid combinations that are not dominated by viscosity, e.g. water/air and water/silicone oil. Second, we elucidate a viscous-blocking mechanism which drastically delays flooding in thin films that are too thick to form unduloids. This mechanism involves buckling of the residual film between two liquid collars, generating two very pronounced film troughs where viscous dissipation is drastically increased and growth effectively arrested. Only at very long times does breaking of symmetry in this region (due to small perturbations) initiate a sliding motion of the liquid film similar to observations by J. R. Lister et al. [J. Fluid Mech. 552, 311–343 (2006; Zbl 1151.76376)] in thin non-flooding films. This kickstarts the growth of liquid collars anew and ultimately leads to flooding. We show that streamwise viscous diffusion is essential to this mechanism. Low-frequency core-flow oscillations, such as occur in human pulmonary capillaries, are found to set off this sliding-induced flooding mechanism much earlier.