
Willie Ross
Actor · 1938 – 2000 · Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England, UK
The Bishop Auckland-born entertainer began as a comic on the North-East club circuit, teaming up with Peter Lambert to become Lambert and Ross, a duo that became nationally known. When the partnership folded in the 1980s, Willie became a successful actor, with hits in film, TV and on stage. His big break was as the foul-mouthed father in the film Rita, Sue and Bob Too. He went on to acclaimed roles in Ken Loachs Riff Raff and Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. On TV he was seen in Our Friends In The North, and One Foot In The Grave, to name but a few. He died in 2000, following an accident at home. He was 62.
Movies21
Movie7.3CrimeDramaWhen churlish mobster Albert Spica acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina, is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with regular guest Michael. Despite their best efforts to keep it secret, Spica learns about their trysts, and he plots a terrible revenge.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
1989 · 746 votes
Movie6.4DramaRomanceThe film tells the story of Russian emigree and the only survivor from ship crash Yanko Goorall and servant Amy Foster in the end of 19th century. When Yanko enters a farm sick and hungry after the shipwreck, everyone is afraid of him, except for Amy, who is very kind and helps him. Soon he becomes like a son for Dr. James Kennedy and romance between Yanko and Amy follows.
Swept from the Sea
1998 · 78 votes
Movie6.1DramaRomanceAn aspiring young physician, Robert Merivel found himself in the service of King Charles II and saves the life of someone close to the King. Merivel joins the King's court and lives the high life provided to someone of his position. Merivel is ordered to marry his King's mistress in order to divert the queens suspicions. He is given one order by the king and that is not to fall in love. The situation worsens when Merivel finds himself in love with his new wife. Eventually, the King finds out and relieves Merivel of his position and wealth. His fall from grace leaves Merivel where he first started. And through his travels and reunions with an old friend, he rediscovers his love for true medicine and what it really means to be a physician.
Restoration
1995 · 144 votes
Movie5.9ComedyDramaThe annual British Hairdressing Championship comes to Keighley, a town where Phil and son Brian run a barbershop and Phil's ex-wife Shelly and her lover Sandra run a beauty salon.
Blow Dry
2001 · 155 votes
Movie6.7ComedyDramaStevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. Working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with unemployment. Some help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, an aspiring singer.
Riff-Raff
1991 · 121 votes
Movie5.6DramaThe London branch of Whitney Paine, a major American investment bank, is in the midst of a crisis; after the loss of $100 million, one of their leading traders, Tony Eisner commits suicide by putting a slug through his head while seated at his place in the board room. Despite the high stakes, many of the firm's staff are eager to step into Tony's now-vacated shoes and get credit for saving the company. Daniel Pascoe, the leading trader at the firm, is convinced that he's first in line for the assignment, but the firm imports a new trader from America, Anna Schuman. Daniel is enraged and makes a point of trying to dig up as much dirt on Anna as he can, but things are going to take another turn.
Dealers
1989 · 7 votes
Movie6.2ComedyDramaOn a run-down Bradford council estate, teenagers Rita and Sue both share a job babysitting for Bob and Michelle's children. On the way home one night, Bob takes Rita and Sue up to a deserted, countryside landscape. Knowing what he has in mind, the girls are only too happy to oblige and both have a sexual encounter with him that becomes a regular occurrence.
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
1987 · 84 votes
Movie7.5DramaA boy reads about the attacks of a unknown animal on livestock in the town. He plans to run his own investigation. The so called beast however is also used as a metaphor for every day problems the townsfolk face.
The Nature of the Beast
1988 · 2 votes
Movie7.0ComedyOld Blackpool comedian Alfie Duffell allegedly wrote a song called 'Put a Bit of Treacle on my Pudding Mary-Ann', which might have made him famous, had he not sold it years ago, for five pounds. Now it is up to his grandson Stephen to take the song into the eighties.
Treacle
1987 · 1 votes
Movie5.2RomanceComedySet in working class Newcastle, the Stott family fight their private battles against the backdrop of the conflict of World War II. Helen Stott, over thirty and with a limp, is resigned to being left on the shelf until she meets and falls in love with Norman, a serviceman from London. In contrast, her younger sister Joyce has quite a way with men, and finds herself a little too popular with the troops, especially when her husband pops up on leave from his regiment.
And a Nightingale Sang
1989 · 5 votes
Movie4.8ComedyDramaDaisy is the love of Ken's life - she is also large... and very pretty... and on the dole. But Ken is a dreamer, all his dreams to make a fast buck ending up where they started - as dreams. With the rent unpaid, the bailiffs at the door and Ken's dreams in tatters, Daisy sets out to bring home the bacon and gets a job in the local factory. There she meets Marlene and half a dozen other large women who are all united in a secret passion - Sumo wrestling! Ken doesn't know what's hit him.
Secret Society
2000 · 4 votes
Movie7.2DramaTV MovieDrama based on the real life events of April 1989, when ninety-six Liverpool supporters were crushed to death during an F.A. Cup Semi-Final match against Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough Stadium. This movie follows three Liverpudlian families before the match, during the tragedy and at the ensuing court battles which tried to decide who was to blame and what went wrong.
Hillsborough
1996 · 21 votes
Movie4.3CrimeVirgil Guppy buys a sleek-looking used Jaguar, but the car turns out to be a lemon. Unfortunately, that's just the start of his problems; a dead prostitute is discovered in the trunk, and Virgil is accused of her murder. Aided by a dysfunctional family of thieves, unorthodox police procedure and some clever body work of his own, he sets out to clear his name.
Bodywork
2001 · 4 votes
Movie7.3DramaScience FictionUniversity lecturer Neil Tannahill is drawn into a sinister conspiracy involving secretly-stored Soviet nuclear waste at a remote British nuclear facility after receiving an enigmatic note from legendary atomic scientist and one-time former head of "Doomwatch" (the infamous Scientific watchdog group of the seventies), Dr Spencer Quist.
Doomwatch: Winter Angel
1999 · 3 votes
Movie7.2TV MovieDramaA view of the inhabitants of a derelict road in Manchester, unsatisfied with their lives and routines. A young man locks himself away from the world. An older woman flirts with a soldier on leave. Two men invite two girls into an empty house.
Road
1987 · 18 votes
Movie3.0ComedyCrimeIn 1960s London, sisters Gerry, Mandy and Jo don male disguises and rob jewelry stores. Gerry also takes a job at a hip magazine in order to scope out a potential target. Sparks fly, however, between Gerry and American journalist Daniel Wheaton, and their budding romance threatens to expose the sisters' latest operation.
Honest
2000 · 5 votes
- Movie10.0Drama
An old man living in a flat in London makes a final decision.
The End
1998 · 1 votes
Movie7.0ComedyTV MovieYoung, handsome and alone in London at the start of a great career. But will Sunil's luck hold out against the seductions of pretty girls, the wiles of con-men and a hundred temptations of the great city?
Lucky Sunil
1988 · 1 votes
Movie6.7ComedyDramaGerry and Sewell are broke. Gerry's still at school and Sewell is unemployed. They both wish for better things in life. Owning two season tickets to their beloved football club is their biggest dream of all. The tickets cost £1000 - they're £1000 short. But they are nothing if not resourceful, and they set themselves a mission to raise the cash. While they think up increasingly outlandish money making schemes - from selling junk to shoplifting and the odd bit of housebreaking - real life begins to interfere with the pair's final scam going hilariously awry landing them in jail, only to discover that their punishment gets them exactly where they want to be!
Purely Belter
2000 · 35 votes
Movie5.0RomanceComedyRachel discovers she is pregnant. Just as she is about to break the news to her stockbroker boyfriend Bill, he dumps her. Heartbroken and angry, Rachel takes Bill's cherished sports car, clears out their joint bank account and heads off to the country and to her dysfunctional family's farmhouse. By trying to sort out her own family's problems Rachel hopes to come to terms with her own predicament. But Bill discovers her whereabouts and is on the warpath.
Loop
1997 · 5 votes
- Movie9.0Drama
A single father prepares for a job interview while his young son, Clint, prepares sandwiches for their lunch. When he goes for the interview, Clint has to wait in a café next door for his Dad. While there he loses their lunch to a homeless man. Clint's Dad returns from the interview to find his lunch gone and confronts the hungry man with unexpected results.
Bait
2000 · 1 votes
Series12
TV6.8CrimeDramaThe daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.
The Bill
1984 · 47 votes
TV7.1ComedyDramaRoguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.
Minder
1979 · 30 votes
TV7.1CrimeDramaSet during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.
Heartbeat
1992 · 34 votes
TV8.0ComedyMysteryCadaverous scream legend the Crypt Keeper is your macabre host for these forays of fright and fun based on the classic E.C. Comics tales from back in the day. So shamble up to the bar and pick your poison. Will it be an insane Santa on a personal slay ride? Honeymooners out to fulfill the "til death do we part" vow ASAP?
Tales from the Crypt
1989 · 1K votes
TV6.4MysteryCrimeIn the fictional Yorkshire town of Wetherton, the unlikely duo of politically incorrect elephant-in-a-China-shop-copper DS Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) and his more sensitive and university educated sidekick DS, later DI, Peter Pascoe is always on hand to solve the classic murder mystery, while maintaining down-to-Earth wit and humour.
Dalziel and Pascoe
1996 · 29 votes
TV8.2Action & AdventureFamilyThe Storyteller, aided by his cynical dog, narrates classic folk tales, fables, and legends.
The Storyteller
1988 · 243 votes
TV7.7ComedyOne Foot in the Grave is a BBC television sitcom series. The series features the exploits of Victor Meldrew and his long-suffering wife, Margaret. The programmes invariably deal with Meldrew's battle against the problems he creates for himself. Living in a typical household in an unnamed English suburb, Victor takes involuntary early retirement. His various efforts to keep himself busy, while encountering various misfortunes and misunderstandings are the themes of the sitcom. Despite its traditional production, the series supplants its domestic sitcom setting with elements of black humour and surrealism.
One Foot in the Grave
1990 · 92 votes
TV7.7DramaWar & PoliticsOver the course of four decades, the personal lives of a quartet of Newcastle friends—Nicky, Geordie, Mary, and Tosker—intertwine with various political machinations, often for the worse: slum housing projects, police corruption, the rise of Thatcherism, political sleaze, and specific events like the 1984 Miners' Strike.
Our Friends in the North
1996 · 26 votes
TV7.7ComedyInvestigative reporter Chris Morris puts modern Britain under the spotlight, and smacks the issues of the day till they bleed. He tackles weighty issues including animals, drugs, sex and skewered celebrities and politicians alike - and in a later episode in 2001, paedophiles.
Brass Eye
1997 · 110 votes
TV8.0CrimeDramaAmbitious DS Franky Drinkall's life is turned upside down when he is diagnosed with epilepsy. His refusal to accept his condition leads him into a downward spiral and ultimately to his demise. DS Rebecca Bennett gives an ever-present emotional charge as she finds herself the subject of both PC Holder's and DC Allen's affections.
Out of the Blue
1995 · 1 votes
TV5.0CrimeDramaThe Fear is a five-part television drama produced by Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films for ITV. Broadcast from 17 February to 16 March 1988, the serial follows Carl Galton, the enterprising leader of a criminal gang running a protection racket in North London. Young and ambitious, Galton represents a new breed of criminal who seeks to expand his underworld empire and takes on the old East End firms. 1980s materialism clashes with old school London villainy as Galton rises to power, yet his ruthlessness carries a personal cost, especially on his wife Linda and best friend Marty.
The Fear
1988 · 1 votes
TV6.1DramaMysteryA corpse is found in an ice house ten years after Phoebe's husband went missing. The police seem determined to accuse Phoebe, to the delight of the villagers.
The Ice House
1997 · 17 votes