
Penelope Wilton
Actor · b. 1946 · Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, UK
Dame Penelope Alice Wilton DBE (born 3 June 1946) is an English actress. She was formerly married to fellow actor Sir Ian Holm, and as she has not remarried, she retains her married style of Lady Holm. Wilton is known for starring opposite Richard Briers in the BBC sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles (1984–1989), playing Homily in The Borrowers (1992) and The Return of the Borrowers(1993), and for her role as the widowed Isobel Crawley in the ITV drama Downton Abbey (2010–2015). She also played the recurring role of Harriet Jones in Doctor Who (2005–2008) and Anne in Ricky Gervais' Netflix dark comedy After Life. Wilton has had an extensive career on stage, receiving six Olivier Award nominations. She was nominated for Man and Superman (1981), The Secret Rapture (1988), The Deep Blue Sea(1994), John Gabriel Borkman (2008) and The Chalk Garden (2009) before winning the 2015 Olivier Award for Best Actress for Taken at Midnight. Her film appearances include Clockwise (1986), Cry Freedom (1987), Blame It on the Bellboy (1992), Calendar Girls (2003), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Match Point (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), The Girl (2012), The BFG (2016) and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (2023). Description above from the Wikipedia article Penelope Wilton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Movies24
Movie8.1DramaRomanceA story of love and life among the landed English gentry during the Georgian era. Mr. Bennet is a gentleman living in Hertfordshire with his overbearing wife and five daughters, but if he dies their house will be inherited by a distant cousin whom they have never met, so the family's future happiness and security is dependent on the daughters making good marriages.
Pride & Prejudice
2005 · 9K votes
Movie7.5HorrorComedyShaun lives a supremely uneventful life, which revolves around his girlfriend, his mother, and, above all, his local pub. This gentle routine is threatened when the dead return to life and make strenuous attempts to snack on ordinary Londoners.
Shaun of the Dead
2004 · 9.6K votes
Movie6.3AdventureFamilyAn orphan little girl befriends a benevolent giant who takes her to Giant Country, where they attempt to stop the man-eating giants that are invading the human world.
The BFG
2016 · 3.7K votes
Movie7.4DramaRomanceChris, a former tennis pro, takes a job as an instructor and befriends his wealthy young student, Tom. After being introduced to his family, Chris is soon engaged to Tom's sister, Chloe. Despite the professional and financial advantages that this relationship affords him, Chris becomes obsessed with Tom's fiancee, American actress Nola.
Match Point
2005 · 4.5K votes
Movie7.1DramaRomanceWhen Mary finds herself at the center of a public scandal and the family faces financial strife, the entire household grapples with the threat of social disgrace. The Crawleys must embrace change as the staff prepares for a new chapter with the next generation leading Downton Abbey into the future.
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
2025 · 295 votes
Movie7.2DramaRomanceThe Crawley family goes on a grand journey to the south of France to uncover the mystery of the dowager countess's newly inherited villa. Meanwhile, a Hollywood director seeks to film his latest production at Downton.
Downton Abbey: A New Era
2022 · 635 votes
Movie7.2DramaRomanceThe beloved Crawleys and their intrepid staff prepare for the most important moment of their lives. A royal visit from the King and Queen of England will unleash scandal, romance and intrigue that will leave the future of Downton hanging in the balance.
Downton Abbey
2019 · 1.3K votes
Movie6.5WarHistoryIn 1943, two British intelligence officers concoct Operation Mincemeat, wherein their plan to drop a corpse with false papers off the coast of Spain would fool Nazi spies into believing the Allied forces were planning to attack by way of Greece rather than Sicily.
Operation Mincemeat
2022 · 840 votes
Movie7.4RomanceDramaFree-spirited writer Juliet Ashton forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey in WWII.
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
2018 · 1.4K votes
Movie6.4DramaComedyAs the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has only a single remaining vacancy - posing a rooming predicament for two fresh arrivals - Sonny pursues his expansionist dream of opening a second hotel.
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
2015 · 786 votes
Movie6.5DramaComedyMembers of a Yorkshire branch of the Women's Institute cause controversy when they pose nude for a charity calendar.
Calendar Girls
2003 · 420 votes
Movie6.5DramaRomanceIn this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.
The French Lieutenant's Woman
1981 · 248 votes
Movie7.0DramaComedyBritish retirees travel to India to take up residence in what they believe is a newly restored hotel. Less luxurious than its advertisements, the Marigold Hotel nevertheless slowly begins to charm in unexpected ways as the residents find new purpose in their old age.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
2012 · 1.5K votes
Movie6.4DramaRomanceTrue story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Iris
2001 · 226 votes
Movie7.1DramaDido Elizabeth Bell, the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, plays an important role in the campaign to abolish slavery in England.
Belle
2013 · 740 votes
Movie7.5DramaRomanceA woman during the Second World War opens her heart to an evacuee after initially resolving to be rid of him.
Summerland
2020 · 234 votes
Movie7.0DramaA dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.
Cry Freedom
1987 · 240 votes
Movie6.6DramaHarold Fry is an unremarkable man who has made mistakes with all the important things: being a husband, a father and a friend. And now, well into his 60s, he is content to fade quietly into the background of life. Until, one day – Harold learns his old friend Queenie is dying. Harold leaves home, walking to his post office to send her a letter. And out of the blue, Harold decides to keep walking, all the way to her hospice, 450 miles away.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
2023 · 166 votes
Movie6.2ComedyDramaWhen Jane is rejected by life, she spirals into a chaotic, schizophrenic world where love and normality collide with humorous consequences.
Eternal Beauty
2020 · 77 votes
Movie6.2ComedySchool headmaster Brian Stimpson is obsessed with timeliness, order, and discipline. Brian misses his train after meticulously preparing a speech for an education conference. With no one else to turn to, he asks young former student Laura Wisely for a ride. Laura, upset over a break-up, agrees to drive him in her parents' car - which alarms her mother and father, who worry that she has run away with a married man and subsequently alert the police.
Clockwise
1986 · 225 votes
Movie6.6DramaThe story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master, a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores, a grossly out-numbered history teacher, and a headmaster obsessed with results, the boys attempt to pass.
The History Boys
2006 · 222 votes
Movie5.2FamilyFantasyA modern adaptation of the classic children's story 'Alice through the Looking Glass', which continued on from the popular 'Alice in Wonderland' story. This time Alice is played by the mother, who falls asleep while reading the the bedtime story to her daughter. Walking through the Looking Glass, Alice finds herself in Chessland, a magical and fun world. There she meets the Red and White Queens, as well as many other amusing friends on her journey across the chessboard countryside onto become a crowned queen.
Alice Through the Looking Glass
1998 · 72 votes
Movie6.7FamilyWarYoung Tom and his misfit friends fight to save 'Buster' the baby elephant during the German air raid bombings of Belfast in 1941.
Zoo
2018 · 113 votes
Movie6.1DramaTV MovieDirector Alfred Hitchcock is revered as one of the greatest creative minds in the history of cinema. Known for his psychological thrillers, Hitchcock’s leading ladies were cool, beautiful and preferably blonde. One such actress was Tippi Hedren, an unknown fashion model given her big break when Hitchcock’s wife saw her on a TV commercial. Brought to Universal Studios, Hedren was shocked when the director, at the peak of his career, quickly cast her to star in his next feature, 1963’s The Birds. Little did Hedren know that as ambitious and terrifying as the production would be to shoot, the most daunting aspect of the film ended up coming from behind the camera.
The Girl
2012 · 122 votes
Series24
TV7.6Action & AdventureDramaThe Doctor is a Time Lord: a 900 year old alien with 2 hearts, part of a gifted civilization who mastered time travel. The Doctor saves planets for a living—more of a hobby actually, and the Doctor's very, very good at it.
Doctor Who
2005 · 3.5K votes
TV6.6DramaPlay for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.
Play for Today
1970 · 10 votes
TV8.1DramaA chronicle of the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era—with great events in history having an effect on their lives and on the British social hierarchy.
Downton Abbey
2010 · 1.3K votes
TV5.2DramaA BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
BBC Play of the Month
1965 · 8 votes
TV7.8DramaCrimeThe adventures of Miss Jane Marple, an elderly spinster living in the quiet little village of St Mary Mead. During her many visits to friends and relatives in other villages, Miss Marple often stumbles upon mysterious murders which she helps solve. Although the police are sometimes reluctant to accept Miss Marple's help, her reputation and unparalleled powers of observation eventually win them over.
Agatha Christie's Marple
2004 · 149 votes
TV5.3Talk ShowAn Audience with... is a British entertainment television show produced by London Weekend Television, in which a host, usually a singer or comedian, performs for an invited audience of celebrity guests, interspersed with questions from the audience, in a light hearted revue/tribute style.
An Audience with...
1978 · 3 votes
TV6.3DramaAn anthology series of various plays and dramatic performances.
Performance
1991 · 2 votes
TV7.9ComedyDramaTony had a perfect life. But after his wife Lisa suddenly dies, Tony changes. After contemplating taking his own life, he decides instead to live long enough to punish the world by saying and doing whatever he likes from now on.
After Life
2019 · 1.1K votes
TV5.8CrimeDramaThriller series which tracks five 24-hour periods in a police investigation.
Five Days
2007 · 40 votes
TV7.0DocumentaryTalk ShowWhat are the secrets of our favourite TV shows? Famous names from both sides of the camera reflect on making some of the most popular and influential programs of all time.
Remembers…
2022 · 1 votes
TV7.3CrimeDramaJohn Thaw dons the silks as barrister James Kavanagh Q.C., one of the most highly respected criminal advocates in London, commanding admiration from colleagues and opponents alike. However, all this has come at a price as his dedication to work has taken its toll on his private life… Going beyond traditional courtroom dramas, “Kavanagh Q.C.” uncovers the pressures of legal battles and the problems of defining the truth, providing a compelling representation of the euphoric ups and costly downs of success and failure in the legal world.
Kavanagh Q.C.
1995 · 11 votes
TV7.3DramaThe life of doctor's daughter Molly Gibson changes gradually after her widowed father chooses to remarry. The union brings into her once-quiet life an ever-proper stepmother and flirtatious stepsister, Cynthia, while a friendship with the local squire brings about an unexpected romance.
Wives and Daughters
1999 · 40 votes
TV6.5DocumentaryComedyComedy Connections was a BBC One documentary series produced by BBC Scotland that aired from 2003 to 2008. The show looked at the stories behind the production of some of Britain's comedy television programmes, showing how they tied in with the production of other comedy shows. The show featured interviews with some of the cast and crew of the subject programme, as well as footage from the series. Comedy Connections mostly documented BBC comedies and sitcoms, although two programmes have been from ITV and two from Channel 4. The first series consisted of six episodes, however the rest of the series consist of eight episodes each, the first two series were narrated by Julia Sawalha, however the rest of the series were narrated by Doon Mackichan.
Comedy Connections
2003 · 4 votes
TV6.0DramaC.A.T.S. Eyes is a British television series made by TVS for ITV between 1985 and 1987. A spin-off of the series The Gentle Touch, Maggie Forbes leads an all-female detective agency called "Eyes" that secretly operates as a Home Office team known as C.A.T.S. (Covert Activities Thames Section).
C.A.T.S. Eyes
1985 · 5 votes
TV5.2MysteryCrimeEngland, 1954. On a train to London, Fitzwilliam meets Miss Pinkerton, who tells him that a killer is on the loose in the sleepy English village of Wychwood under Ashe. The villagers believe the deaths are accidents, but Miss Pinkerton knows otherwise — and when she’s later found dead on her way to Scotland Yard, Fitzwilliam feels he must find the killer before they can strike again.
Murder Is Easy
2023 · 44 votes
TV4.6DramaAn anthology series adapted from plays and short stories by A.E Coppard and H.E. Bates, depicting English country life and rural romance at the turn of the 20th-century. It presents unsentimental stories of human relationships and raw emotions – heartfelt passions, crippling frustrations, unspoken love and destructive jealousy.
Country Matters
1972 · 5 votes
TV5.3DramaThe Passion is a television drama serial that tells the story of the last week in the life of Jesus.
The Passion
2008 · 13 votes
TV6.0DramaComedyGay thirtysomething schoolteacher Robert 'Bob' Gossage finds himself attracted to a woman, Rose Cooper, exploring their unconventional relationship and the challenges it presents to their identities and those around them, including Rose's heartbroken ex-boyfriend Andy, Bob's jealous best friend Holly, and Rose's gay rights activist mother Carol.
Bob & Rose
2001 · 12 votes
TV6.7DramaIn the early 1980s the lives of four ordinary women, their husbands, mothers, families and community are turned around when they become Ann Summers party plan saleswomen.
Brief Encounters
2016 · 27 votes
TV6.7Sci-Fi & FantasyDramaThe Borrowers are small, 15cm high humans who live in the English hinterland. They live out their lives in mouse-hole sized nooks in human homes, and survive by 'borrowing' all they need from the house and its inhabitants. This series follows young girl Arriety, and her parents Pod and Homily, as they are displaced from their home and try to find a new home, with the help of a human boy, George.
The Borrowers
1992 · 13 votes
TV7.5ComedyMartin Bryce lives in a quiet suburban close with his wife Anne. He does his best to "organise" the leisure time of all of the other inhabitants of the close, running umpteen societies and doing "good works". He's is quite happy with his lot until Paul Ryman moves in next door.
Ever Decreasing Circles
1984 · 16 votes
TV6.9DramaThe lives and loves of a 1930s Yorkshire town explored in a passionate tale of politics in small places. South Riding charts the story of Sarah Burton's homecoming to Yorkshire in 1934 after twenty years teaching in London and the Empire. After a fiery interview with a conservative interview panel, outspoken Sarah takes up her first headmistress-ship at Kiplington High School for Girls, determined to demonstrate to her new pupils that the future is theirs for the taking.
South Riding
2011 · 20 votes
TV6.7DramaComedySix monologues tell the stories of six different repressed souls: a man dominated by his mother, a vicar's wife, an inveterate letter writer, a hopeful actress, a recently widowed woman, and an elderly shut-in.
Talking Heads
1988 · 7 votes
- TV7.0Drama
Series of One-Off dramas produced by various companies for Channel 4.
4 Play
1989 · 1 votes