Ken Russell Filmography

Born:: July 3, 1927 in Southampton, England, UK
Occupation:: Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Birth name:: Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell
Biography:: British director Ken Russell started out training for a naval career, but after wartime RAF and merchant navy service he switched goals and went into ballet. Supplementing his dancing income as an actor and still photographer, Russell put together a handful of amateur films in the 50s before being...Read More

Sort By:
Title
Release Date

Color Me Kubrick

Actors: John Malkovich, Jim Davidson, Richard E. Grant, Terence Rigby

Synopsis: In the mid-'90s, an Englishman by the name of Alan Conway (John Malkovich) conned many people into believing that he was the reclusive American director Stanley Kubrick, despite the fact that Conway was openly gay, bore no physical resemblance to Kubrick, and knew little about the director's work. Read More

3/23/07
Brothers of the Head

Actors: Harry Treadaway, Luke Treadaway, Bryan Dick, Sean Harris, Tania Emery

Synopsis: Brothers of the Head was adapted from Brian Aldiss' novel by screenwriter Tony Grisoni, and marks the narrative feature debut of Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (Lost in La Mancha), who have structured Aldiss' story as a mock documentary. Twins Luke and Harry Treadaway star, respectively, as conjoined Read More

7/28/06
Trapped Ashes

Crew: Director

Actors: Henry Gibson, Jayce Bartok, Lara Harris, Scott Lowell, Michèle-Barbara Pelletier

Synopsis: The traditional horror anthology makes a triumphant comeback in this collection of four frightfully horrific tales from directors Monte Hellman, Ken Russell, Sean S. Cunningham, John Gaeta, and Joe Dante. When seven strangers accept a mysterious invitation to tour a Hollywood studio lot, they Read More

2006
The Fall of the Louse of Usher

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Murder, mayhem, insanity, mini-skirted nuns, and inflatable doll orgies are only part of the fun in Ken Russell's predictably debauched ode to Edgar Allen Poe. Very freely adapted from Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, Russell's low-budget DV-shot extravaganza is set in the sunny climes of Read More

2001
Dogboys

Crew: Director

Actors: Dean Cain, Bryan Brown, Tia Carrere, Sean McCann, Ken James

Synopsis: Ken Russell's Dogboys is set at a southern prison. The title of the film comes from the prisoners who are used to train the attack dogs employed to stop escapes. DA Jennifer Dern (Tia Carrere) is investigating the prison's warden (Bryan Brown). She puts one of her men inside the prison, but he Read More

1998
Mindbender

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Written and directed by outrageous British filmmaker Ken Russell, Mindbender is a 1995 straight-to-video biopic about the celebrity psychic Uri Geller, known for bending spoons and performing other tricks before an audience. Ishai Golan plays Gellar, who started out in the Middle East and was Read More

1995
Tales of Erotica

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Arliss Howard, Cynda Williams, Kathleen Wilhoite, John Toles-Bey, Mira Sorvino

Synopsis: This German film consists of six separate vignettes each created by a different international director, each challenged to create brief erotic scenarios. The first, named "Wet," was directed by Bob Rafelson and involves an encounter between a bathroom fixtures salesman and a customer who comes Read More

1994
The Secret Life of Arnold Bax

Crew: Director

1992
Lady Chatterley

Crew: Camera Operator, Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Joely Richardson, Sean Bean, James Wilby, Shirley Ann Field

Synopsis: Another of writer/director Ken Russell's D.H. Lawrence adaptations, Lady Chatterley (an amalgam of three Lawrence novels) was first shown as a British TV miniseries on BBC1 from June 6 to 27, 1993. In recounting the familiar details of young, bored Lady Chatterley (Joely Richardson), her elderly Read More

1992
Whore

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Theresa Russell, Benjamin Mouton, Antonio Fargas, Sanjay, Elizabeth Morehead

Synopsis: Russell's avowed purpose with Whore was to avoid the glamorous depiction of prostitution common to such slick Hollywood products as Pretty Woman. As played by Theresa Russell (no relation to Ken), the eponymous character lives a hellish existence. Relating her story directly to the camera, Russell Read More

10/4/91
Prisoner of Honor

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Dreyfuss, Oliver Reed, Peter Firth, Jeremy Kemp, Brian Blessed

Synopsis: Directed by Ken Russell, Prisoner of Honor is a made-for-cable retelling of the 1894 court-martial of French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus. The historical drama stars Richard Dreyfuss (no relation) as the head of counter-intelligence who uncovers several damning pieces of evidence. It turns out that Read More

1991
The Russia House

Actors: Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Scheider, James Fox, Klaus Maria Brandauer, John Mahoney

Synopsis: "Barley" Scott Blair (Sean Connery) is an alcoholic book editor from a bargain-basement publishing house in Great Britain who'd rather be drinking in Lisbon than attending a book dealers' show in Russia. So he's surprised when a CIA agent (Mac McDonald) pulls him from his boozy holiday. It seems Read More

12/19/90
Women and Men: Stories of Seduction

Crew: Director

Actors: Melanie Griffith, Elizabeth McGovern, Molly Ringwald, Peter Weller, James Woods

Synopsis: Originally aired on HBO, Women and Men: Stories of Seduction is a short-film anthology that brings to life three famous short stories. Mary McCarthy's "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt" stars Elizabeth McGovern and Beau Bridges. The second, Dorothy Parker's "Dusk Before Fireworks," features Peter Weller Read More

1990
The Rainbow

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Sammi Davis, Paul McGann, Amanda Donohoe, Christopher Gable, David Hemmings

Synopsis: Director Ken Russell returns to the D.H. Lawrence territory that had earlier served him well in Women in Love. Sammi Davis plays Lawrence's Welsh heroine Ursula Brangwen, daughter of a wealthy mine owner, who is first seen as a child given to literally chasing rainbows. Disappointed that she can Read More

5/5/89
A British Picture

Crew: Director

1989
The Lair of the White Worm

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, Catherine Oxenberg, Sammi Davis, Peter Capaldi

Synopsis: Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm uses Dracula author Bram Stoker's final novel as the basic springboard into a surreal and dark-humored tale concerning a bizarre cult and a series of sacrificial murders in honor of an ancient pagan god. When archeologist Angus Flint (Peter Capaladi) discovers Read More

10/21/88
Salome's Last Dance

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Glenda Jackson, Stratford Johns, Nickolas Grace, Imogen Millais-Scott

Synopsis: Ken Russell's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Salome, Salome's Last Dance takes the form of a play within a film. Wilde (Nickolas Grace) arrives at a brothel with his lover, Bosey (aka Lord Alfred Douglas played by Douglas Hodge), where the proprietor, Alfred (Stratford Johns), has gathered his staff Read More

5/6/88
Aria

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Theresa Russell, Nicola Swain, Buck Henry, Jackson Kyle, Marianne McLoughlin, Julie Hagerty, Tilda Swinton, Marion Peterson

Synopsis: An international collection of well-known directors contributed to this compilation film, each fashioning a short film inspired by an aria from a famous opera. The approaches vary broadly, from the playful abstraction of Jean-Luc Godard's segment, which illustrates Armide with exercising Read More

3/18/88
Gothic

Crew: Director

Actors: Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson, Myriam Cyr, Timothy Spall

Synopsis: Director Ken Russell applies his trademark excess to this surreal, experimental examination of the creative dementia which shaped Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein. The story is embellished from events which allegedly took place at the Swiss villa of Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) on the Read More

4/10/87
Crimes of Passion

Crew: Director

Actors: Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins, John Laughlin, Annie Potts, Bruce Davison

Synopsis: Joanna Crane (Kathleen Turner) is a cold, workaholic sportswear designer, divorced and dedicated only to her job. Once strapped into that role, Joanna looks for an "out" and finds it by donning a wig and hitting the pavement as a $50/trick hooker named China Blue. Explicit scenes show her at work Read More

1984
The Planets

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Eugene Ormandy conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in Ken Russell's visual score. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

1983
Altered States

Crew: Director

Actors: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid, Drew Barrymore, Thaao Penghlis

Synopsis: In this 1980 sci-fi horror film, William Hurt plays Eddie Jessup, a scientist obsessed with discovering mankind's true role in the universe. To this end, he submits himself to a series of mind-expanding experiments. By enclosing himself in a sensory-deprivation chamber and taking hallucinogenic Read More

1980
Valentino

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Rudolf Nureyev, Leslie Caron, Michelle Phillips, Carol Kane, Felicity Kendal

Synopsis: Rudolph Valentino, born in Italy in 1895 as Alfonzo Raffaele Pierre Philibert Guglielmi, emigrated to the U.S. and became for a time the reigning male romantic lead of the silent-film era. He died in 1926, having led a short, troubled and tempestuous life which included several stints in prison. Read More

1977
Tommy

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, Roger Daltrey, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Jack Nicholson, Robert Powell

Synopsis: Tommy (Roger Daltrey) is a "deaf, dumb and blind kid" who retreats into himself after the death of his father. His mother, Nora (Ann-Margret), and stepfather Frank (Oliver Reed) take him to see a specialist (Jack Nicholson) but Tommy is apparently a hopeless case. That is, until Tommy discovers Read More

1975
Lisztomania

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Roger Daltrey, Sara Kestelman, Paul Nicholas, Fiona Lewis, Veronica Quilligan

Synopsis: This audacious, vulgar, freewheeling fantasia on the life of pianist Franz Liszt ranks among director Ken Russell's most outrageous efforts. Roger Daltrey, lead singer for The Who, is awkward yet likeable as the flamboyant piano performer with a bevy of fetching mistresses and groupies, while Paul Nicholas Read More

1975
Mahler

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Elaine Delmar, Claire McLellan, Sarah McLellan, Gary Rich, Michael Southgate, Arnold Yarrow, Robert Powell, Georgina Hale, Richard Morant, Lee Montague, Rosalie Crutchley

Synopsis: Director Ken Russell made a number of biographical films of composers' lives including The Music Lovers, (about Tchaikovsky) and Lisztomania. Russell embellished the other films with certain characteristic flourishes, which include a focus on the composers' sexual obsessions, poetically telling Read More

1974
Savage Messiah

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Dorothy Tutin, Scott Antony, Helen Mirren, Lindsay Kemp, Michael Gough

Synopsis: Based on the book of the same name by H.S. Ede, eccentric director Ken Russell created this biographical drama of a great early 20th century artist who died tragically young. Henri Gaudier (Scott Anthony) is only 18 years old, a self-taught Parisian sculptor of enormous talent but prone to rash Read More

1972
The Devils

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Reed, Dudley Sutton, Max Adrian, Gemma Jones

Synopsis: The Devils was the Ken Russell film version of the controversial play by John Whiting. The story, based on Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Loudun, concerns controversial 17th century French priest Urbain Grandier, whose radical political and religious notions and profligate sex life earn him many Read More

1971
The Boy Friend

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Sally Bryant, Ann Jameson, Twiggy, Christopher Gable, Max Adrian, Bryan Pringle, Murray Melvin

Synopsis: The Boy Friend began life as Sandy Wilson's small-scale pastiche of British musical comedies of the 1920s. When the play was brought to America in 1954, its star was the
teenage Julie Andrews. Because The Boy Friend requires a minimum of sets, props, and costumes, it has become a favorite of Read More

1971
The Music Lovers

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Joanne Brown, Richard Chamberlain, Glenda Jackson, Max Adrian, Christopher Gable, Isabella Telezynska

Synopsis: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is given the Ken Russell treatment in The Music Lovers, which means that there is plenty of music, plenty of passion, plenty of debauchery, and plenty of excess. Tame by Russell's later standards (Lisztomania), The Music Lovers nevertheless thrives on creative and sexual Read More

1971
Dance of the Seven Veils

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

1970
Women in Love

Crew: Director

Actors: Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Jennie Linden, Eleanor Bron

Synopsis: Women in Love is set in 1920s England, where free-spirited artist Gudrun (Glenda Jackson) and her schoolteacher sister Ursula (Jennie Linden) make the acquaintance of lifelong friends Gerald (Oliver Reed) and Rupert (Alan Bates). The foursome attends a picnic in honor of a pair of newlyweds, who Read More

1969
Song of Summer

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Max Adrian

Synopsis: Part of the BBC arts program Omnibus, Song of Summer is a made-for-TV biopic about English composer Frederick Delius, based on the book Delius As I Knew Him by Eric Fenby. Shot in black-and-white, the film was made as part of a series of composer biographies by Ken Russell and originally broadcast Read More

1968
Billion Dollar Brain

Crew: Director

Actors: Michael Caine, Karl Malden, Françoise Dorléac, Oscar Homolka, Ed Begley, Sr.

Synopsis: Harry Palmer (Michael Caine), the reluctant secret agent from The Ipcress File (1965) and Funeral in Berlin (1966) -- both (like the source for this movie) based on novels by Len Deighton -- is back again in Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain. Having left Britain's espionage service, Palmer is Read More

1967
Dante's Inferno

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: One of director Ken Russell's earliest films, Dante's Inferno is a made-for-TV biopic about the British poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Oliver Reed), who was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood during the late 1800s. The style was influenced by romanticism and Renaissance Read More

1967
Isadora Duncan

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Vivian Pickles, Ken Russell

Synopsis: Not to be confused with the lavish 1968 biopic Isadora, the black-and-white Isadora Duncan was produced in 1966 for BBC television. Vivian Pickles stars as the free-spirited British ballet artiste of the post-World War I era, while an anonymous double handles the dance sequences. This 65-minute Read More

1966
Always on Sunday

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: James Lloyd, Annette Robertson, Bryan Pringle, Jacqueline Cooke, Roland MacLeod

1965
Six

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: This British anthology series allegedly extended full creative freedom to the actors, writers, and directors involved. The best known of Six's six original 30- and 60-minute dramas was "Diary of a Nobody," directed by Ken Russell and based on a novel by the Grosmith brothers. Other offerings Read More

1964
French Dressing

Crew: Director

Actors: James Booth, Roy Kinnear, Marisa Mell, Alita Naughton, Bryan Pringle

Synopsis: Ken Russell's first feature film is a slight comedy about a stodgy British resort. Gormleigh-by-the-Sea is a holiday community besotted with dullness. But things liven up when Jim (James Booth), a young deck-chair attendant, convinces the local entertainment director and mayor into starting a film Read More

1964
The Debussy Film

Crew: Director

Synopsis: One of a handful of films Ken Russell made about the lives of famous composers, The Debussy Film stars Vladek Sheybal as a director who wants to make a movie about the title artist, portrayed by Oliver Reed. By having actors speak in the character of real historical figures, this film allowed Read More

1963
Elgar

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Elgar is a made-for-TV semi-documentary about English classical composer Sir Edward Elgar. Shot in black-and-white, the film was made as part of a series of composer biographies by Ken Russell and originally broadcast on the BBC in 1962. Elgar worked as a music teacher in the Malvern Hills before Read More

1962
Prokofiev

Crew: Director

1961
In Search of the English Folk Song

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Ken Russell, Siân-Elizabeth Rees, So What, Gary Genna, Bob Appleyard

Synopsis: By all accounts an ardent enthusiast of folk music, iconoclastic and controversial English director Ken Russell (Lisztomania, The Rainbow) headlines the documentary In Search of the English Folk Song. In this program, Russell undertakes a long journey from New Forest, Hampshire, to Cropredy for Read More

Movie data provided by

Add this Person to Favorites

Need Help?

E-mail