
Bruce Purchase
Actor · 1938 – 2008 · Thames, New Zealand
Movies22
Movie6.7WarDramaAt the start of World War I, Paul Baumer is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside.
All Quiet on the Western Front
1979 · 234 votes
Movie6.6AdventureDramaA distinguished military leader whose reign was touched by great scandal, shocking betrayals and rousing victories. A simple shepherd boy chosen to be king, under the watchful eyes of prophet Samuel.
David
1997 · 67 votes
Movie6.8DramaWarHaving helped his brother King Edward IV take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne, and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed.
Richard III
1995 · 198 votes
Movie6.8AdventureDramaEsther, the beautiful queen of Persia, intervenes to save the Jewish people from a bloody massacre.
Esther
1999 · 40 votes
Movie7.1WarDramaScotland, 11th century. Driven by the twisted prophecy of three witches and the ruthless ambition of his wife, warlord Macbeth, bold and brave, but also weak and hesitant, betrays his good king and his brothers in arms and sinks into the bloody mud of a path with no return, sown with crime and suspicion.
Macbeth
1971 · 303 votes
Movie6.7DramaHistoryMary Stuart, who was named Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old, is the last Roman Catholic ruler of Scotland. She is imprisoned at the age of 23 by her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, the English Queen and her arch adversary. Nineteen years later the life of Mary is to be ended on the scaffold and with her execution the last threat to Elizabeth's throne has been removed. The two Queens with their contrasting personalities make a dramatic counterpoint to history.
Mary, Queen of Scots
1971 · 64 votes
Movie5.2AnimationAdventureFrederick is a young medieval French prince with magical powers, turned into a frog by his evil sorceress aunt, who kills his father in a bid to seize the throne. After being pursued by his aunt, the prince is saved by the Loch Ness Monster, who indebts herself to him, and hides out with a colony of anthropomorphic frogs for a time. After ultimately deciding to accept his fate and fight evil using his powers, Freddie grows to the size of an adult human, travels to the future, and becomes a French secret agent with a sentient car.
Freddie As F.R.O.7.
1992 · 35 votes
Movie4.6ComedyIn this comedy, set during the Nazi occupation of France, Peter Sellers plays most major male parts, so he stars in nearly every scene, always bumbling in inspector Clouseau-style.
Soft Beds, Hard Battles
1974 · 17 votes
Movie4.1ComedyRomanceThe life story of an 18th century womanizer who's arrested, not so much for his crimes, but because he's viewed as an undesirable by the husbands and families of the women he seduces.
Casanova
1987 · 12 votes
Movie8.5DramaHistoryThe death of King Henry the Fourth and the coronation of King Henry the Fifth.
Henry IV Part 2
1979 · 2 votes
Movie5.6AdventureDramaA young knight sets out to join King Richards crusaders. Along the way, he encounters The Black Prince who captures children and sells them as slaves to the Muslims. It is Robert Narra's sworn duty to protect the children and lead them to safety.
Lionheart
1987 · 19 votes
Movie7.5DramaHistoryBio-drama tracing the life and career of Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla from his days as a young activist in Poland to his rise and installation in 1978 as Pope of the Catholic world.
Pope John Paul II
1984 · 5 votes
Movie6.4DramaGeneral Othello's marriage is destroyed when vengeful Ensign Iago convinces him that his new wife has been unfaithful.
Othello
1965 · 30 votes
Movie6.3FamilyFantasy1973 BBC TV movie adaptation of the book by Lewis Carroll.
Alice Through the Looking Glass
1973 · 6 votes
Movie7.3DramaHistoryHenry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed 'Hotspur'). Henry's son Hal, the Prince of Wales, has thrown over life at court in favour of heavy drinking and petty theft in the company of a debauched elderly knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal must extricate himself from some legal problems, regain his father's good opinions and help suppress the uprising.
Henry IV Part 1
1979 · 4 votes
Movie6.7DramaThe story of G.I. Gurdjieff an Asian mystic who after a lifetimes study developed a form of meditation incorporating modern dance.
Meetings with Remarkable Men
1979 · 17 votes
Movie8.0RomanceComedyArrogant businessman Rupert Granger is used to getting everything he wants... everything except Alison. Rupert is determined to win her over, only Alison is not the kind who can be bought. He promises to change, but promises will not rescue him when a cancelled flight leaves him stranded at the airport in Spain. Now his only hope to win her back lies in Chas, an airline passenger stuck at the airport with him. Chas doesn't tolerate any nonsense, while Rupert complains about everything... but Chas is about to give Rupert the personality makeover of a lifetime, one to put Rupert Granger on the right track to winning Alison back.
The Sea Change
1998 · 1 votes
Movie6.8ComedyThe evil brother of Richard the Lionheart is holding the king for ransom, and only Robin Hood and his band of merry men can save him...for a small fee, of course.
The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood
1984 · 6 votes
Movie6.2DramaHorrorTV-movie version of the Victor Hugo novel.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1976 · 5 votes
MovieComedyTV MovieGoff and Lytton have a dream – a canal boat of their own on which to cruise the inland waterways. The reality is the boatyard of Josh Adkins and a rusting hulk called Atlantis.
Atlantis
1983
Movie5.7CrimeA woman is wrongly accused of murdering her husband in Edwardian London. Just before the outbreak of World War I, Edith Graydon married her boyfriend Percy Thomson. He survives the war but theirs is not a happy marriage. She doesn't really love him and he feels it every day. He's also possessive and their daily life is a constant battle. She meets and falls in love with Frederick Bywaters, her sister's one-time boyfriend. They have a long affair and her desperate attempts to get either a formal separation of divorce from her husband falls on deaf ears. They are at their wits end and Bywaters decides to do something about it. On a dark evening when Edith is walking with her husband, Bywaters stabs him to death. Edith is charged with murder along with Bywaters and both are found guilty. She claims her innocence right up until the day they are both executed by hanging in 1923. Based on a true story.
Another Life
2001 · 11 votes
Movie6.7DramaA retired entertainer makes his living as a street musician on the streets of London. Two young children befriend the old musician, brightening his otherwise colorless life
The Optimists of Nine Elms
1973 · 15 votes
Series22
TV7.9DramaAction & AdventureThe adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.
Doctor Who
1963 · 722 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
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
TV7.1DramaComedyRumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.
Rumpole of the Bailey
1975 · 24 votes
TV7.3DramaSci-Fi & FantasyA group of convicts and outcasts fight a guerrilla war against the totalitarian Terran Federation from a highly advanced alien spaceship.
Blake's 7
1978 · 51 votes
TV7.2DramaAction & AdventureThe New Avengers is a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series broadcast during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series The Avengers and was developed by Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens. A joint United Kingdom-France-Canada production, the show picks up the adventures of John Steed and his team of Avengers fighting evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit, a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey, a former trainee with The Royal Ballet who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's previous female partners.
The New Avengers
1976 · 52 votes
TV7.0DramaComedyAn anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.
BBC2 Play of the Week
1977 · 1 votes
TV7.0Action & AdventureDramaCallan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972. The series starred Edward Woodward as David Callan, a reluctant professional killer for a shadowy branch of the British Government's intelligence services known as 'the Section'.
Callan
1967 · 10 votes
TV7.8DramaWar & PoliticsAcclaimed blackly comic historical drama series. Set amidst a web of power, corruption and lies, it chronicles the reigns of the Roman emperors - Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and finally Claudius.
I, Claudius
1976 · 141 votes
TV6.4DramaSci-Fi & FantasyDoomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC 1 between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present-day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist, responsible for investigating and combating various ecological and technological dangers. The series was followed by a film adaptation produced by Tigon British Film Productions and released in 1972, and a revival TV film was broadcast on Channel 5 in 1999.
Doomwatch
1970 · 6 votes
TV7.0Drama"Fall of Eagles" is a 13-part British television drama aired by the BBC in 1974. The series portrays historical events from 1848 to 1918, dealing with the collapse of the ruling dynasties of Austria-Hungary (the Habsburgs), Germany (the Hohenzollerns) and Russia (the Romanovs).
Fall of Eagles
1974 · 10 votes
TV8.8DramaLong-running anthology program sponsored by Hallmark Cards. Beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2019, the series received 80 Emmy Awards, 24 Christopher Awards, 11 Peabody Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 4 Humanitas Prizes. Early seasons were a weekly live drama, eventually transitioning to videotaped and then filmed productions broadcast as occasional specials.
Hallmark Hall of Fame
1951 · 8 votes
TV7.2DramaMysterySupernatural is a 1977 British anthology television programme broadcast on BBC One. Each episode follows the Club of the Damned, where a prospective member is required to tell a horror story, and their application would be judged on how fright factor. Applicants who fail to tell a sufficiently frightening story are killed.
Supernatural
1977 · 11 votes
TV5.0DramaFreud, also known as Freud: The Life of a Dream, is a 1984 six-part BBC television serial dramatised by Carey Harrison, and starring David Suchet as Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Each episode begins with Freud and his family in London, where they had fled from Vienna in 1938 following the Nazi Anschluss, leading up to Freud's death a little over a year later. The rest of the episodes are told mainly in flashbacks to key moments in Freud's life and career
Freud
1984 · 3 votes
TV7.1DramaDavid McCallum stars as the rebellious Alan Breck Stewart, and this ambitious serial (a co-production between HTV and Germany's Tele-Munchen) also features a host of British character actors, including Bill Simpson, Patrick Allen, Andrew Keir, Patrick Magee and Frank Windsor. When young David Balfour arrives at his uncle's bleak Scottish house to claim his inheritance, his relative tries to murder him then has him shipped off to be sold as a slave in the colonies. Luckily for the lad, he strikes up a friendship with Alan Breck Stewart, who is on the run after Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeat at Culloden. When a ship's captain tries to kill Breck for his money, the two manage to get to land and set out for Edinburgh, dodging the ruthless Redcoats along the way.
Kidnapped
1979 · 10 votes
TV5.6DramaCrimeStudents get involved in a violent Internet-based game, around the same time as a series of murders - is there a connection?
Killer Net
1998 · 11 votes
TV6.0DramaClayhanger is a British television drama based on Arnold Bennett's novel series of the same name, published between 1910 and 1918, dramatised by Douglas Livingstone for ITV. Produced by Associated Television, the 26-episode programme is a coming-of-age story set in 19th century England. Edwin Clayhanger aspires to be an architect but is expected to join his father's printing business. His personal growth, eventual acceptance of the family business, and his romantic entanglement with Hilda Lessways are explored. Clayhanger was ITV's longest-ever drama at the time. While some found the pacing slow, it was nonetheless praised for its faithful adaptation, excellent acting, and atmospheric sets.
Clayhanger
1976 · 2 votes
TV6.8DramaSci-Fi & FantasyIn the near future, a now-elderly Bernard Quatermass investigates the disappearance of his granddaughter and a mysterious cult.
Quatermass
1979 · 17 votes
TV7.2Sci-Fi & FantasyIn the year 2089, an alien race stalks the land in towering machines known as Tripods. They have taken over the earth and enslaved mankind with a mind-controlling device, ceremoniously implanted at adolescence. Will Parker, desperate to escape this ritual, leaves the village with his cousin, Henry and attempts to link up with the human resistance movement.
The Tripods
1984 · 19 votes
TV7.0DramaWar & PoliticsA Horseman Riding By is a 13-part BBC television serial produced by Ken Riddington, and adapted by Arden Winch, Alexander Baron, and John Wiles from R.F. Delderfield's 1966-68 historical novel series of the same name. Having been invalided out of the Boer War, Paul Craddock buys Shallowford, a manor house and estate in Devon, with money from his late father's scrapyard business. He soon becomes a much-respected 'Squire' determined to treat all his tenant farmers fairly, unlike his predecessor.
A Horseman Riding By
1978 · 2 votes
TV9.0DramaIn 19th-century industrial England, Anna Tellwright gains independence and wealth after inheriting a fortune, challenging her domineering father and strict Methodist upbringing.
Anna of the Five Towns
1985 · 1 votes
TV6.0DramaA Picture of Katherine Mansfield is a 1973 BBC television drama series starring Vanessa Redgrave as the title character. The series included dramatizations of Mansfield's life as well as adaptations of her short stories.
A Picture of Katherine Mansfield
1973 · 3 votes