Maxine Peake
Maxine Peake (born 14 July 1974) is an English stage, radio, film and television actress, playwright, producer, director and political activist, who made her name as Twinkle in Victoria Wood's sitcom Dinnerladies. She has since played Veronica in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series Shameless, barrister Martha Costello in the BBC legal drama Silk and Grace Middleton in The Village. She is also an accomplished stage actress, having played the title role in Hamlet, and had a role in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. In 2018 she played the lead in the film Funny Cow and had a starring role in Mike Leigh's epic Peterloo, a film very close to her heart.
| Known For | Acting |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 1.3491 |
| Birthday | 1974-07-14 |
| Place of Birth | Westhoughton, Lancashire, England, 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
1998
Girls' Night
6.8/10
Two British best friends and in-laws Dawn and Jackie work together at a factory. When Dawn is diagnosed with a brain tumor Jackie shares $100,000 she'...
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Girls' Night
2021
Where We Used to Meet
0/0
While caring for their dying mother, a child finds solace in a group of friends, but begins to encounter violence at every turn.
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Where We Used to Meet
2023
Dance First
6.9/25
Parisian bon vivant, World War II Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse…Samuel Beckett lived a life of...
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Dance First
2025
Words of War
6.586/29
World-renowned journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya went from being a local print journalist to braving the Chechen killing fields...
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Words of War
2008
Clubbed
6.7/72
An underworld drama set in the early 1980s, about a lonely factory worker whose life is transformed when he becomes a nightclub doorman.
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Clubbed
2010
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
6.509/57
A lesbian in the 1800s who keeps a detailed account of her life written in coded diaries attempts to live independently while juggling an affair with...
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The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
2022
The Real Anne: Unfinished Business
0/0
The story of Merseyside mum and campaigner Anne Williams, who lost her son Keven. For nearly three decades she fought the English establishment to exp...
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The Real Anne: Unfinished Business
2007
I Am Bob
7.5/2
On his way to a Make Poverty History gig in Scotland, Bob Geldof is accidentally stranded by an incompetent chauffeur in a run-down motel in Northern...
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I Am Bob
2004
Christmas Lights
5.611/9
Robson Green and Mark Benton co-star in Christmas Lights, a one-off comedy drama for ITV1 centred on two lifelong friends who have always competed wit...
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Christmas Lights
2023
Tish
9/1
A working-class photographer captures the impact of Thatcherism on the north of England but is unable to escape the poverty and inequality she exposed...
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Tish
2022
Wendell & Wild
6.633/380
Two scheming demons strike a deal with a punk rock-loving teen so they can leave the Underworld and live out their dreams in the Land of the Living.
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Wendell & Wild
2010
Edge
6/2
A hotel. A cliff. Six lost people, looking for something, or looking to lose themselves.
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Edge
2024
Woken
5.3/25
Anna wakes to kind faces she doesn’t recognize and a remote island she has no memory of. She is forced to re-learn everything about herself, her husba...
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Woken
2013
Svengali
5.3/29
Svengali tells the story of Dixie, a postman from South Wales, and a music fanatic. All his life he’s dreamed of discovering a great band and then one...
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Svengali
2014
Run & Jump
5.9/28
After a stroke leaves her husband disabled and fundamentally changed, a spirited Irish wife struggles to keep her family members together. All the whi...
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Run & Jump
2008
Hancock & Joan
4.1/5
Drama which tells the story of comedian Tony Hancock's love affair with his friend's wife, and her fight to save the man and his career.
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Hancock & Joan
2014
The Theory of Everything
7.832/11086
The Theory of Everything is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who fall...
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The Theory of Everything
2007
Confessions of a Diary Secretary
0/0
Funny film concerning John Prescott's affair with Tracey Temple
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Confessions of a Diary Secretary
2014
Keeping Rosy
5.4/19
A woman becomes enraged after being passed over for a promotion at her job.
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Keeping Rosy
2022
Something Out of Nothing
0/0
A specially commissioned animation inspired by Barbara Hepworth's art and life.
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Something Out of Nothing
2020
Surfaces
0/0
Short film for Refuge, the national charity for domestic abuse, drawing attention to the shocking rise in violence against women during the 2020 lockd...
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Surfaces
2016
I Wish For You
0/0
A woman is moving house and as she is unpacking boxes she finds a long lost letter from her grandfather. As she reads it, his words evoke strong emoti...
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I Wish For You
2019
Judy
0/0
Set in Royton, Manchester, Judy is the uplifting story of a mother struggling to come to terms with her cancer diagnosis. The debut film of acclaimed...
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Judy
2020
It's Me
0/0
Set over the course of an evening, a mother remembers moments from a game she played with her son throughout his childhood. Tragedy strikes when he un...
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It's Me
2022
Lapushka!
0/0
'The Butternut Squash Gang' always stumble upon a criminal rouse that is passed off by adults as overactive minds. From their clubhouse in the woods,...
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Lapushka!
2015
Strange Weather
0/0
Two strangers witness a mysterious natural phenomenon that reawaken their senses and draws their fractured lives together.
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Strange Weather
2009
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980
6.897/195
After 6 years of brutal murders, the West Yorkshire Police fear that they may have already interviewed The Ripper and let him back into the world to c...
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Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980
2015
The Falling
5.099/197
England, 1969. The fascinating Abbie and the troubled Lydia are great friends. After an unexpected tragedy occurs in the strict girls' school they att...
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The Falling
2022
Inner Polar Bear
0/0
A moving depiction of the alternative human and animal perspectives on the implications of climate change.
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Inner Polar Bear
2015
Hamlet
8.2/6
From its sell-out run at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre comes a film version of this unique and critically acclaimed production of Hamlet with BA...
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Hamlet
2020
The Great Mountain Sheep Gather
0/0
Every summer, the sheep on Scafell Pike are gathered down to the farm for shearing. On this epic journey, a shepherd reflects on life while caring for...
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The Great Mountain Sheep Gather
2006
The Madness of the Dance
6.5/2
In the middle ages there was an outbreak of dancing manias in Europe that lasted hundreds of years. In the 20th century thousands of Chinese men and s...
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The Madness of the Dance
2016
Generation '66
7/1
Documentary exploring the key events of 1966, a period when British pop music, fashion and sport was making waves across the globe, but when the natio...
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Generation '66
2005
Faith
9/1
A gripping story of love, deceit, betrayal and survival set against the backdrop of the Miners' Strike of 1984-85. Michelle is married to Gary, a youn...
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Faith
2016
Red Top
5.3/3
Comic fantasy telling the story of Rebekah, an innocent and beguiling Northern girl who accidentally becomes Chief Executive of News International and...
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Red Top
2000
Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings
7/7
The comedienne stars in this festive sketch show, alongside a host of celebrity guests.
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Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings
2023
Choked Up
7/1
A politician learns just how quickly things can go terribly wrong when a career-defining live TV interview goes off the rails due to a surprise coughi...
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Choked Up
2012
Private Peaceful
6.6/45
Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feud...
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Private Peaceful
2008
Bike Squad
0/0
Comedy-drama featuring a group of inept constables who are relegated to the embarrassing "Bike Squad", a new police scheme intended to serve as a more...
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Bike Squad
2002
All or Nothing
7.087/167
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children,...
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All or Nothing
2016
A Midsummer Night's Dream
5.1/15
At the tyrannical court of Athens, pitiless dictator Theseus plans his wedding to Hippolyta, a prisoner of war, while young Hermia is sentenced to dea...
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
2002
Hamilton Mattress
6.857/7
Sludger the aardvark tries to make it big as a drummer in the big city.
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Hamilton Mattress
2018
Funny Cow
6.3/33
A comedian uses her troubled past as material for her stand-up routine, trying to rise up through the comedy circuit by playing Northern England's wor...
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Funny Cow
2024
Art Matters
10/1
Join Melvyn Bragg for an insightful journey into why “Art Matters,” With a career spanning over 60 years, Bragg passionately advocates for the importa...
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Art Matters
2013
Keeping Up with the Joneses
5.9/5
MP's wife Celia discovers her husband's true colours when she is taken hostage by his criminal business associates.
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Keeping Up with the Joneses
2012
Best Laid Plans
5.4/28
David Blair directs this powerful British Drama, loosely inspired by John Steinbeck's novel 'Of Mice and Men'. Set in Nottingham, the film revolves ar...
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Best Laid Plans
2005
Frozen
5.895/19
It's two years since the mysterious disappearance of Kath Swarbrick's older sister Annie, but Kath remains haunted by a need to know what happened. Wh...
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Frozen
2025
I Swear
8.228/272
Diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome at 15, John Davidson navigates his way against the odds through troubled teenage years and into adulthood, finding in...
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I Swear
2013
The Heart Fails Without Warning
0/0
Lola's sister has stopped eating. Lola treats her with the scorn she deserves - she'll snap out of it soon, won't she? Adapted from Booker Prize Winne...
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The Heart Fails Without Warning
2019
Fanny Lye Deliver'd
6.3/58
On an isolated English farm in 1657, Fanny lives a quiet life with her oppressive husband John and their young son. One day their life is rocked with...
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Fanny Lye Deliver'd
2007
Would Like To Meet
10/1
A single mum looks for love in the lonely-hearts pages, but someone has already decided to play cupid - her eight year-old son…
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Would Like To Meet
2010
Imaginary Friend
8/1
Short film starring Maxine Peake and written by actor Reece Dinsdale
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Imaginary Friend
2018
Peterloo
6.776/156
An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Mancheste...
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Peterloo
2017
Men Who Sleep in Cars
0/0
Drama, entirely in verse, following three men who sleep on the streets of Manchester in their vehicles, having lost all their economic and social powe...
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Men Who Sleep in Cars
2018
Wonders of the Moon
6.6/5
Documentary which uses the latest, most detailed imagery to reveal the monthly life cycle of the moon. From Wales to Wyoming, Hong Kong to Croydon, th...
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Wonders of the Moon
2017
Cake
5.3/3
Two women sit in a barren dystopian wasteland discussing the best way to die.
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Cake
2011
DeafBlind
0/0
'Ever had that feeling you're being watched?' A Deaf Blind woman has a man living in her house. She doesn't know he's there. What does he want?
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DeafBlind
2018
Gwen
5.4/62
A mysterious — and suspicious — run of ill fortune plagues a teenage girl and her mother and sister on their hillside farm in this folk story set in t...
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Gwen
2018
The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca
0/0
Maxine Peake's exploration of the true story of Lillian Bilocca, a largely forgotten but formidable figure in the fight for safer trawlers. The progra...
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The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca
2017
The Priest
0/0
Johnny Marr has teamed up with the award-winning actor Maxine Peake to create a new project which sets Peake’s spoken word performances to Marr’s inst...
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The Priest
2017
Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle
4/1
Narrated by Maxine Peake, this feature documentary explores the failures and deception that have caused a chronic shortage of social housing in Britai...
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Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle
2006
The Fear of Trilogy
0/0
Maxine Peake stars in a short film about three fears (birds, falling, sleepwalking) - filmed and edited in a single day on a mobile phone for Cinema N...
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The Fear of Trilogy
2015
The Shuttleworths
0/0
Versatile singer/song-writer John Shuttleworth struggles to balance semi-professional obligations - a gig at a care home - with domestic, namely his...
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The Shuttleworths
2017
Bunch of Kunst - A Film About Sleaford Mods
7.2/12
Documentary following British punk duo Sleaford Mods on their two year journey from Nottingham bedroom recording sessions to chart success
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Bunch of Kunst - A Film About Sleaford Mods
Twisting My Melon
0/0
Biopic based on Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder's autobiography, the film will track the singer’s journey from a guitar-loving child to a leading l...
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Twisting My Melon
2019
Be Still My Beating Heart
1/1
Two adult sisters exist dysfunctionally, each limited by illnesses affecting both body and mind — one physically and the other psychologically.
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Be Still My Beating Heart
2017
Unseen
0/0
A cleaner in a brand new apartment block begins to suspect one of the residents is a victim of domestic abuse.
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Unseen
2018
Ceremony: The Return of Friedrich Engels
0.5/1
Following the artist Phil Collins' search for a decommissioned statue of German philosopher Friedrich Engels in eastern Ukraine, and documenting its j...
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Ceremony: The Return of Friedrich Engels
2025
Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough
7/4
One of the most controversial writers of our times, join Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh as he undergoes a remarkable trip to find new meaning in hi...
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Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough
2025
Quiet on Set: The Class Division in the Film Industry?
0/0
Filmmaker Mark Forbes explores the persistent class barriers within the UK film industry, revealing the struggles, resilience, and untold stories of w...
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Quiet on Set: The Class Division in the Film Industry?
2025
The Occupant of the Room
0/0
Based on the short ghost story of the same name by Algernon Blackwood from 1909, The Occupant of the Room centers on a schoolteacher whose late-night...
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The Occupant of the Room
2026
Becoming Victoria Wood
6/1
A feature length documentary celebrating the life of Britain’s beloved comedy icon Victoria Wood delving into the complex inner world of this national...
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