Bill Paterson
William Tulloch Paterson (born 3 June 1945) is a Scottish actor. Throughout his career he has appeared regularly in radio drama and provided the narration for a large number of documentaries. Paterson has appeared in films and television series including Comfort and Joy (1984), Traffik (1989), Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1986), Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), The Witches (1990), Wives and Daughters (1999), Sea of Souls (2004–2007), Amazing Grace (2006), Miss Potter (2006), Little Dorrit (2008), Doctor Who (2010), Outlander (2014), Fleabag (2016–2019), Inside No. 9 (2018), Good Omens (2019), Brassic (2020) and House of the Dragon (2022). He is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Scottish BAFTAs.
William Tulloch Paterson was born in Glasgow on 3 June 1945. Paterson was raised in Dennistoun by his father, a plumber, and his mother, a hairdresser. He states that his interest in acting began with a school trip to the Citizens Theatre in the Gorbals in 1961. However, after school he chose to initially pursue a career based on an interest in architecture and spent three years as a quantity surveyor's apprentice before deciding to attend the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
| Known For | Acting |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 1.19 |
| Birthday | 1945-06-03 |
| Place of Birth | Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland, UK |
| Also Known As |
2007
The 50 Greatest Television Dramas
0/0
Boasting an amazing selection of the most watched, most influential and most highly acclaimed programmes ever made, The 50 Greatest Television Dramas...
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The 50 Greatest Television Dramas
1990
The Witches
6.953/1361
A young boy named Luke and his grandmother go on vacation only to discover their hotel is hosting an international witch convention, where the Grand H...
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The Witches
1984
Comfort and Joy
6.627/63
Radio host Alan 'Dickie' Bird witnesses how an icecream van is attacked and destroyed by angry competitors. This leads him into the struggle between t...
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Comfort and Joy
2000
Complicity
5.813/16
Local journalist, Cameron Colley writes articles that are idealistic, from the viewpoint of the underdog. A twisted serial killer seems to have some m...
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Complicity
1985
Dutch Girls
4.125/8
In this sophomoric comedy, a lusty adolescent British hockey team heads for Holland where they find something far more interesting than tulips and win...
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Dutch Girls
2006
Miss Potter
6.641/544
Beatrix Potter, the author of the beloved children's book "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", struggles for love, happiness and success.
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Miss Potter
1986
Defence of the Realm
6.488/40
A reporter named Mullen 'stumbles' onto a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent and a near-nuclear disaster involving a teenag...
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Defence of the Realm
1989
The Return of the Musketeers
6.172/151
It's 1649: Mazarin hires the impoverished D'Artagnan to find the other musketeers: Cromwell has overthrown the English king, so Mazarin fears revolt,...
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The Return of the Musketeers
2006
Amazing Grace
6.909/318
The true story of William Wilberforce and his courageous quest to end the British slave trade. Along the way, Wilberforce meets intense opposition, bu...
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Amazing Grace
2009
Ghosts in the Machine
0/0
Documentary charting the history of the supernatural on British TV, revisiting classic ghost stories and controversial shows. Contributors include Der...
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Ghosts in the Machine
1995
The Riddle of the Sands
0/0
Documenting the life in the estuary of the River Aithen in North-East Scotland.
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The Riddle of the Sands
1996
Victory
5.214/14
Axel Heyst is an American recluse with a dubious past living in the Dutch East Indies port of Surabaya circa 1913. Staying in a German hotel there, He...
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Victory
2008
The Man Who Lives with Bears
0/0
A man shows the gentle and agressive side of Brown and Black Bears living with and around them. After "Grizzly Man" died in Alaska trying to do the sa...
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The Man Who Lives with Bears
1998
Hilary and Jackie
6.583/115
The tragic story of world-renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré, as told from the point of view of her sister, flautist Hilary du Pré-Finzi.
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Hilary and Jackie
1990
Yellowbacks
8/2
Britain in the very near future. In an abandoned hotel, a young female doctor and a middle-aged scientist are interrogated separately. The question th...
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Yellowbacks
2014
Documenting John Grierson
0/0
The life and work of the documentary pioneer.
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Documenting John Grierson
2024
Arthur's Whisky
5.679/14
When Joan’s husband dies, she is shocked to discover he had invented an elixir which makes the drinker look young again. Sharing it with her two frien...
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Arthur's Whisky
2011
The Man who Crossed Hitler
6.5/12
In the summer of 1931, with Germany on the brink of economic collapse, and the city of Berlin turning into a paramilitary war-zone, audacious young pr...
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The Man who Crossed Hitler
2021
The Colour Room
6.198/43
A pioneering ceramic artist Clarice Cliff rises to prominence in the 1920s while working in Britain’s Stoke-on-Trent pottery industry.
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The Colour Room
2009
Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen
7.3/3
Drama illuminating Dr James Niven's efforts to protect the people of Manchester from the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic as millions of soldiers retur...
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Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen
2013
The List
4.3/16
Christopher Cowin is in his mid 30s, a family man who owns a small advertising agency. A court case he had recently lost has shown him the rich and po...
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The List
2011
Fast Freddie, the Widow and Me
5.5/4
Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me is a 2011 one-off Christmas special, made by STV Productions and broadcast by ITV on Tuesday 27 December 2011. The spec...
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Fast Freddie, the Widow and Me
1987
Friendship's Death
6.925/20
A robot messenger is sent to earth to appeal to humans to live in peace. Originally designed to go to MIT, by mistake she ends up in Amman, Jordan dur...
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Friendship's Death
2009
Creation
6.412/245
A psychological, heart-wrenching love story that provides a unique and inside look at Charles Darwin. Torn between faith and science, he struggles to...
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Creation
2023
A Bear Named Wojtek
8/2
Displaced by the Second World War, a troop of Polish soldiers form an inseparable bond through an orphaned bear they name Wojtek.
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A Bear Named Wojtek
1987
Coming Up Roses
6.7/5
An award-winning comedy set in a depressed town in the South Wales Valleys. When the local cinema is closed down, the former projectionist, plagued by...
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Coming Up Roses
1974
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil
8/1
In their songs, comedy and exuberant music, a travelling theatre company give a fiercely polemic account of Scottish history, from the aftermath of Cu...
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The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil
2007
Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars
6.8/18
A gang of sharp witted street kids save Sherlock Holmes from an accusation of murder and to help foil an audacious robbery.
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Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars
1996
The Writing on the Wall
3.583/6
When a bomb explodes in a British RAF base in Germany, MI5 terrorist specialist Bull (Bill Paterson) is called in to investigate. However, the further...
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The Writing on the Wall
1994
Hard Times
7.667/3
Charles Dickens' bleak, passionate novel about the challenges of life in 19th-century London comes to life with an outstanding cast and brilliant cine...
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Hard Times
2004
Lie with Me
5.667/6
Roselyn Tyler awakens in her London flat with no memory of the previous night. She discovers that she was drugged and sexually assaulted -- and her ro...
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Lie with Me
1987
The Interrogation of John
0/0
A suspect is brought to a London police station charged with gross indecency. Police at the station believe he is connected with a murder in the area...
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The Interrogation of John
1987
Lily My Love
0/0
Lily is 13, Colin is 39 and a vagrant. They run away together. 'One and a half to the English Lakes, single, because we're never coming back, we're go...
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Lily My Love
1991
Truly Madly Deeply
6.916/107
Nina is totally heartbroken at the death of her boyfriend Jamie, but is even more unprepared for his return as a ghost. At first it's almost as good a...
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Truly Madly Deeply
2007
Intervention
5.5/2
An eclectic group of people drawn from all walks of life find themselves under one roof for twenty-eight days with one thing in common, addiction.
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Intervention
1984
The Killing Fields
7.465/823
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American...
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The Killing Fields
1974
Clydescope
7/1
A panorama of the Clyde, from Biggar to Brodick, with Billy Connolly as your guide. Directed by Murray Grigor for the Films of Scotland Committee.
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Clydescope
1996
Chaplin's Goliath
6.556/9
A film about the tall actor who was most famous for playing the quintessential villain for Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character.
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Chaplin's Goliath
1978
Licking Hitler
0/0
1941 and the upper class Anna Seaton is hired as part of an allied radio propaganda project, creating disinformation about the Nazi war effort. But te...
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Licking Hitler
1988
Byrne About Byrne
0/0
In this diverse and inventive autobiography, painter and author John Byrne travels from his youth, through his art school years to the period of his s...
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Byrne About Byrne
2006
A War on Science
8/2
When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution nearly 150 years ago, he shattered the dominant belief of his day – that humans were the product...
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A War on Science
1986
God's Chosen Car Park
0/0
Nathaniel Box, a self-styled prophet, along with his daughter Barbara and her fiancé Curtis, holds a night time press conference in an underground car...
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God's Chosen Car Park
2015
The Vote
8.4/6
On 7 May, churches, school halls, and back rooms of community centres will be turned into polling stations, staffed by council workers and volunteers....
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The Vote
1992
Chaplin
7.423/1198
An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent per...
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Chaplin
1979
One Fine Day
5.333/3
Alan Bennett's play about the mid-life crisis of an estate agent.
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One Fine Day
2016
Dad's Army
5.027/219
A cinema remake of the classic sitcom Dad's Army (1968). The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard platoon deal with a visiting female journalist and a German...
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Dad's Army
1984
A Private Function
6.454/65
In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Ch...
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A Private Function
2003
Bright Young Things
6.266/94
During the 1930s in England, a group of young socialites dominate the national gossip with extravagant and outlandish antics. Among the group is the a...
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Bright Young Things
2016
Churchill's Secret
6.3/26
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill suffers from a stroke in the summer of 1953 that's kept a secret from the rest of the world.
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Churchill's Secret
2001
Othello
6.909/11
With freshly rechristened characters and brand-new dialogue, this British TV production of Othello is a "rethinking" of Shakespeare's play, albeit sti...
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Othello
2001
The Whistle-Blower
7.8/5
A bank employee, Laura Tracey, places herself and her family in mortal danger after reporting irregularities in the firm's overseas accounts to the Na...
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The Whistle-Blower
2012
Scotland's Finest: The Story of the Highland Games
0/0
A journey into the history, pageantry and characters that have shaped a Scottish phenomenon. Acclaimed actor Bill Paterson narrates the astonishing st...
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Scotland's Finest: The Story of the Highland Games
1981
The Cherry Orchard
7/1
Madame Ranevsky and her daughter Anya return home from Paris to find their beloved family estate and cherry orchard are to be auctioned off to pay deb...
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The Cherry Orchard
The White Room
0/0
In a world obsessed with knowing the future, we find Alberto, a Colombian immigrant working as a massage therapist in the City of London. Mild-mannere...
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The White Room
1991
The Object of Beauty
5.234/47
American couple Jake and Tina are living in an expensive London hotel above their means, incurring a sizeable debt. When they are asked to pay a lavis...
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The Object of Beauty
2009
1929: The Great Crash
7.2/4
A documentary exploring the causes of the 1929 Wall Street Crash.Over six terrifying, desperate days in October 1929, shares crashed by a third on the...
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1929: The Great Crash
1992
In Dreams
8.5/2
Lenny has some perplexing dreams.
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In Dreams
1997
Mr White Goes To Westminster
5/2
A journalist becomes an independent MP. Loosely based on the election of Martin Bell to the constituency of Tatton between 1997 and 2001.
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Mr White Goes To Westminster
1995
Richard III
6.8/195
A murderous lust for the British throne sees Richard III descend into madness. Though the setting is transposed to the 1930s, England is torn by civil...
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Richard III
1978
Jackie McCafferty's Romance
0/0
A shy, awkward Scottish lad secretly carries a torch for a local lass.
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Jackie McCafferty's Romance
2002
Crush
5.637/51
Three 40-something women in a small English town meet weekly for a ritual of gin, cigarettes, and sweets -- and swapped stories arguing which of them...
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Crush
2003
Danielle Cable: Eyewitness
7/1
Dramatisation of the real-life road-rage killing in 1996 of Stephen Cameron by Kenneth Noye, who was also implicated in the Brinks Mat bullion robbery...
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Danielle Cable: Eyewitness
1999
Sunshine
6.47/149
The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.
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Sunshine
1988
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
6.973/999
An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences with his band of misfits.
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The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
2008
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
6.007/832
Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attra...
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How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
1987
Hidden City
5.375/8
Cassies Stuart leads the uncooperative Charles Dance into a world of misplaces government secrets, capalistic artists and bungling secret agents. Will...
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Hidden City
1988
Franz Kafka's 'The Trial'
0/0
BBC documentary about Franz Kafka played by GREEK TV in 1990. This documentary is one of the ten films of “The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988)”...
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Franz Kafka's 'The Trial'
1988
Just Ask for Diamond
5.5/4
Thirteen-year-old Nick and his slightly dense older brother Herbert run the Diamond Private Detective Agency above Camden Town Tube Station in north-c...
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Just Ask for Diamond
1983
The Ploughman's Lunch
5.071/14
As the UK begins its military engagement in the Falklands, a BBC news journalist attempts to climb up from his working-class roots, at any cost, lying...
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The Ploughman's Lunch
1997
Spice World
4.9/503
World famous pop group the Spice Girls zip around London in their luxurious double decker tour bus having various adventures and performing for their...
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Spice World
1989
Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale
8.333/3
Johnny Fortune (Damon Lowry) is no good to anyone, not mean, but just no good. Surrounded by violence and dishonesty, Johnny lives with Kate. Johnny m...
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Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale
2015
High-Rise
5.622/1247
Life for the residents of a tower block begins to run out of control.
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High-Rise
1999
The Match
5.967/15
Romantic comedy set against the story of a grudge football match between two pubs. The prize for the winner of the centenary match is the the closure...
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The Match
1999
Heart
5.385/13
A woman, plastered in blood, is arrested by a grave, and a tale of loss, lust and jealousy slowly unfolds.
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Heart
2005
Rag Tale
3.571/7
A romance that plays out in the splashy, sensational world of British tabloids.
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Rag Tale
2017
The Man Who Invented Christmas
6.85/866
In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when,...
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The Man Who Invented Christmas
2018
Happy New Year, Colin Burstead
6.425/53
Colin has rented a stately country home for his extended family’s New Year celebrations. He’s the centre of attention until his estranged brother Davi...
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Happy New Year, Colin Burstead
1981
United Kingdom
7/1
Incendiary 1981 Play for Today, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé that tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who atte...
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United Kingdom
1978
The Odd Job
5.9/15
Arthur Harris is a happily married man who returns from his job to discover that his wife, Fiona, is leaving him. Devastated he gets really drunk and...
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The Odd Job
1989
The Rachel Papers
5.1/35
Poised to attend Oxford University, 19-year-old Charles Highway decides it's high time to have a romantic encounter with an older woman. With the help...
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The Rachel Papers
2018
Wonderdate
6/2
A man dazzles a girl on the perfect first date but why won't she text back? He retraces his steps, reexamining the date.
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Wonderdate
1978
The Vanishing Army
0/0
"Why don't you keep that missus o' yours under control? She ain't exactly doin' you a packet o' good, is she? If she was mine I'd bloody put 'er right...
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The Vanishing Army
2009
Into the Storm
6.386/88
This powerful follow-up to “The Gathering Storm” follows Churchill from 1940 to 1945 as he guided his beleaguered nation through the crucible of the w...
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Into the Storm
1995
The Turnaround
5/3
Private investigator Nick Sharman accepts a case which at first seems intriguing, but ends up causing him bitter regret.
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The Turnaround
1977
The Garden Beyond
0/0
The Garden Beyond is a dramatised portrayal of the life of bed-ridden Perth poet William Soutar - the first independently produced Scottish film to be...
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The Garden Beyond
1999
Chrono-Perambulator
10/1
Teddy Knox, a failed inventor, finds the key to a Stone Age riddle.
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Chrono-Perambulator
2019
The Day Mountbatten Died
10/1
On 27 August 1979, Lord Mountbatten, great uncle to Prince Charles, was blown up at sea by the IRA off the west coast of the Republic of Ireland. Thre...
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The Day Mountbatten Died
1992
Tell Tale Hearts
8/1
Anthony Steadman, a child murderer, is being released from prison after 17 years. Sally McCann, a mother whose child disappeared around the time of th...
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Tell Tale Hearts
1993
Wall of Silence
8/1
A corpse is fished out of a north London canal with stab wounds through the eyes. The victim was a prominent member of the Hasidic Jewish community, a...
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Wall of Silence
2020
Marionette
6.275/69
A therapist loses her grip on reality when a ten-year-old boy claims he can control her future.
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Marionette
2020
Love Sarah
6.2/74
A young woman wishes to fulfill her mother's dream of opening her own bakery in Notting Hill, London. To do this, she enlists the help of an old frien...
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Love Sarah
2006
Fascism in Colour
7.5/2
After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he...
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Fascism in Colour
1985
Shooting from the Heart: Chris Menges, Cameraman
0/0
A look at the career of Oscar-winning cameraman Chris Menges. Filmed on location of 'Comfort and Joy'. Chris Menges discusses his early career in tele...
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Shooting from the Heart: Chris Menges, Cameraman
2008
The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen
7.8/4
This is an all new feature length documentary, with interviews from almost everyone involved with the production of the film. Gilliam never shies away...
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The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen
2002
The Entity
8/1
The Entity is a documentary into the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, the state in which a person cannot move as they pass from sleep to a woken state.
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The Entity
2020
Rebecca
6.306/1163
After a whirlwind romance with a wealthy widower, a naïve bride moves to his family estate but can't escape the haunting shadow of his late wife.
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Rebecca
1977
The Thin End of the Wedge
0/0
A student faced with an ultimatum to find £5 by morning - or lose his girlfriend - searches for friends he can tap and discovers that the crises in th...
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The Thin End of the Wedge
2001
Behind Bars
0/0
Documentary about the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary Riots in which 33 inmates were killed.
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Behind Bars
2002
Home Road Movies
6.4/5
A sweet reminiscence about a family of four children and their RAF-veteran dad, who knows the timetable of every bus in London, but realizes his large...
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Home Road Movies
1992
God on the Rocks
7/1
Growing up in a household incapable of showing love and affection, Margaret's life is transformed when Lydia, a worldly teenage maid, arrives.
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God on the Rocks
2024
Children of the Wicker Man
0/0
Fifty years after The Wicker Man (1973), director Robin Hardy’s lost papers resurface, prompting his sons Justin and Dominic to explore the legacy of...
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Children of the Wicker Man
1995
The Pen
0/0
A man frantically searches for a pen while stuck on a train journey somewhere in Scotland.
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The Pen
2011
The Phoenix: A Century of Cinema
0/0
When the Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley, north London, celebrated its centenary year in 2010, On-Par Productions were invited to document the cinema'...
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The Phoenix: A Century of Cinema
2025
The House Was Not Hungry Then
4.5/4
While searching for her estranged father, a young woman breaks into an empty house in the countryside where every visitor disappears. Now she must avo...
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The House Was Not Hungry Then
2022
The Spirit of 1926
0/0
In 1926 Janet ‘Nettie’ Harbison crafted what would become the most valuable bottle of wine or spirit ever sold at auction.
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The Spirit of 1926
1998
The Animal Train
7/1
Animation short about a little boy that sets off on a round-the-world night train to dreamland with only his toy dog for company. But soon all sorts o...
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The Animal Train
2015
Hitler on Trial: The Truth Behind the Story
0/0
In the summer of 1931, a young Jewish lawyer, Hans Litten, put Adolf Hitler on the witness stand of a Berlin court. He forced Hitler to account for hi...
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Hitler on Trial: The Truth Behind the Story
2008
Gone Fishing
8/1
The touching story of a boy and old man coming to terms with bereavement through their shared love of fishing, and the legend of Goliath, the biggest...
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Gone Fishing
1974
Suilven Spring
0/0
The North West of Scotland, seen through the eyes of a young couple taking a Spring break. Starting off in Ullapool, the film shows a fishing trip to...
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Suilven Spring
2025
Being Stanley Baxter
0/0
A portrait of Stanley Baxter, Scotland’s most dazzling TV star of the 1970s and ’80s, whose groundbreaking sketches and lavish specials made him a hou...
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Being Stanley Baxter
1973
Passing Places
0/0
Guide to etiquette on single track roads. Part of BFI collection "Worth the Risk."
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