Richard Burton Filmography

Born:: November 10, 1925 in Pontrhydyfen, South Wales, UK
Occupation:: Actor
Birth name:: Richard Walter Jenkins, Jr.
Biography:: The 12th of 13 children of a Welsh miner, actor Richard Burton left his humble environs by winning a scholarship to Oxford. Blessed with a thrillingly theatrical voice, Burton took to the stage, and, by 1949, had been tagged as one of Britain's most promising newcomers. Director Philip Dunne, who...Read More

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Becket

Actors: Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, Donald Wolfit, Martita Hunt

Synopsis: A high-class costume drama with a substantive historical basis, Becket is the true story of the friendship between King Henry II (Peter O'Toole) and Thomas à Becket (Richard Burton), a royal courtier and confidant whom Henry appoints as Archbishop of Canterbury. As Becket takes his duties with the Read More

1/26/07
Absolution

Actors: Richard Burton, Dominic Guard, Dai Bradley, Billy Connolly, Andrew Keir

Synopsis: Two Catholic boarding school students (Dominic Guard and Dai Bradley) embark upon a carefully calculated campaign to drive their hated headmaster (Richard Burton) insane. The boys launch their scheme by cooking up the most bizarre and depraved of imaginary sins, then recite these infractions in Read More

2/12/88
1984

Actors: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack, Gregor Fisher

Synopsis: Directed by British filmmaker Michael Radford, Nineteen Eighty-Four is the second film adaptation of the George Orwell novel. The film is set during April of 1984 in post-atomic war London, the capital city of the repressive totalitarian state of Oceania. Winston Smith (John Hurt) is a government Read More

1984
Alice in Wonderland

Actors: Kate Burton, Richard Burton, Zeljko Ivanek, Colleen Dewhurst, Geoffrey Holder

Synopsis: Part of the Broadway Theater Archives, this stage production of Lewis Carroll's children's fantasy Alice in Wonderland was directed by Kirk Browning. Kate Burton plays young Alice, the little girl who wanders into a bizarre wonderland that just gets more and more curious. Her real-life father, Richard Burton Read More

1983
Wagner

Actors: Richard Burton, Vanessa Redgrave, Laszlo Galffi, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson

Synopsis: Originally a nine-hour British miniseries, this film on the last four decades in the life of Richard Wagner may have taken its long-winded cue from the lengthy operas of the famous 19th-century German composer and musical theorist -- the Ring des Nibelungen is 14-15 hours in itself, divided into Read More

1983
Ellis Island

Synopsis: The seven-hour TV miniseries Ellis Island was adapted from a novel by Fred Mustard Stewart. Per its title, the film is a mosaic of subplots involving several European immigrants who passed through New York's Ellis Island before taking up residence in the Big Apple. Most of the characters are based Read More

1983
Circle of Two

Actors: Richard Burton, Tatum O'Neal, Nuala Fitzgerald, Robin Gammell, Patricia Collins

Synopsis: Director Jules Dassin, once shunned by Hollywood for being accused of "un-American activities," had already worked for nearly thirty years in Europe before making this Canadian drama about an elderly painter and a sixteen-year-old teen. Richard Burton delivers as a convincingly up-tight artist Read More

1980
Lovespell

Synopsis: The romance between the wife of a 9th century Irish monarch and her husband's nephew is the focus of this drama also known as Tristan and Isolde. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

1979
The Wild Geese

Actors: Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, Hardy Kruger, Stewart Granger

Synopsis: The plot of this of this adaptation of the Daniel Carney's novel, sprinkled throughout a series of extended Sam Peckinpah-inspired action sequences, deals with a collection of mercenary toughguys -- Colonel Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), Lieutenant Shawn Fynn (Roger Moore), Rafer Janders (Richard Harris Read More

1978
AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Henry Fonda

Synopsis: Hosted by the American Film Institute, this video is a tribute to career of Henry Fonda. Included are excerpts from: Jezebel, Young Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Roberts. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

1978
Sergeant Steiner

Actors: Richard Burton, Rod Steiger, Robert Mitchum, Curd Jürgens, Helmut Griem

Synopsis: Also released as Sergeant Steiner, Breakthrough is a German war flick helmed by western specialist Andrew McLaglen. Richard Burton stars as Sgt. Steiner, a German who doesn't subscribe to the Nazi party line. When the plot to kill Hitler is hatched, Steiner is persuaded to join the conspiracy by Read More

1978
The Medusa Touch

Actors: Richard Burton, Lino Ventura, Lee Remick, Harry Andrews, Marie-Christine Barrault

Synopsis: In The Medusa Touch Brunel (Lino Ventura), a French detective on temporary assignment with Scotland Yard, investigates a mysterious series of disasters. The uncanny events begin happening shortly after writer John Morlar (Richard Burton) was hit over the head by an unknown intruder and rendered Read More

1978
Equus

Actors: Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright, Harry Andrews

Synopsis: Richard Burton plays a psychiatrist who attempts to discover why young Peter Firth has taken to mutilating live horses. In probing Firth's psyche, Burton discovers that the source of the boy's obsession is his mother, Joan Plowright, who has raised Firth with a convoluted set of values. Even as he Read More

1977
Exorcist II: The Heretic

Actors: Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow, Kitty Winn

Synopsis: Four years after her bout of demonic possession, Regan MacNeil seems at peace as she enjoys a privileged but lonely adolescence. Her actress mother, absent on-location, leaves her in the care of her childhood nanny, Sharon, who feels inextricably bound to her young charge despite the terror she Read More

1977
Mystery of the Sacred Shroud

Synopsis: Richard Burton is the narrator for this program which views the Shroud of Turin, a cloth which is supposed to have been the one which was wrapped around the face of Christ's corpse in the tomb. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

1977
Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry

Synopsis: Though not specifically designed as a companion piece to the 1984 John Huston feature film Under the Volcano (especially since it was filmed eight years earlier!), Donald Brittain's Volcano fills that function nicely. This 90-minute documentary on the life of self-destructive British author Read More

1976
Brief Encounter

Actors: Sophia Loren, Richard Burton, Jack Hedley, Rosemary Leach, Ann Firbank

Synopsis: Ignoring the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," producer Carlo Ponti mounted a TV remake of the 1945 British masterpiece Brief Encounter. Sophia Loren (Mrs. Ponti) stars as a bored married woman who embarks upon a brief romantic fling with an equally married man (Richard Burton). Read More

3/15/75
Il Viaggio

Actors: Ian Bannen, Sophia Loren, Richard Burton

Synopsis: In turn-of-the-century Sicily, aristocratic scions Adriana (Sophia Loren) and Cesar (Richard Burton) have loved one another for years, but Adriana accedes to the wishes of Cesar's father and marries his foolish younger brother Antonio (Ian Bannen). When Antonio dies, much to the relief of Read More

3/11/74
The Klansman

Actors: Lee Marvin, Richard Burton, Cameron Mitchell, Lola Falana, Luciana Paluzzi

Synopsis: The setting is Atoka County, Alabama -- the time is somewhere after the peak of the civil rights movement, after cities such as Birmingham, Alabama were out of the headlines. The movement is coming to the sticks, including Atoka County, and a lot of the white residents don't like it and are Read More

1974
The Gathering Storm

Actors: Richard Burton

Synopsis: While Adolf Hitler Ian Bannen builds his war machine, Winston Churchill Richard Burton repeatedly warns England of the dangers the Nazis pose. But most of Churchill's countrymen refuse to listen to him, viewing him as an alarmist. Nevertheless, Churchill continues to press his case at every Read More

1974
Rappresaglia

Actors: Richard Burton, Marcello Mastroianni, Leo McKern, John Steiner, Delia Boccardo

Synopsis: On March 24, 1944, in the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome, one of the most infamous atrocities of World War II occurred -- the mass execution of 330 Italians in retaliation for the deaths of 33 Germans. The book Death in Rome contends that Pope Pius XII knew of the German plan but did nothing to stop Read More

10/4/73
Sutjeska

Actors: Richard Burton

Synopsis: This Yugoslavian epic depicts the World War II military exploits of Marshall Tito (played here by Richard Burton), who later became the unrivalled ruler of that troubled country. During that war, he was instrumental in resisting Nazi efforts to exterminate the Yugoslav partisans. The film details Read More

1973
The Assassination of Trotsky

Actors: Richard Burton, Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Valentina Cortese, Luigi Vannucchi

Synopsis: This film is Joseph Losey's mood piece that delves into the psychological makeup of Frank Jackson (Alain Delon), the assassin of exiled Russian Communist leader Leon Trotsky (Richard Burton). The tale chronicles the final few months of Trotsky's life, from the May 1940 raid upon Trotsky's Mexican Read More

4/20/72
Bluebeard

Actors: Richard Burton, Raquel Welch, Joey Heatherton, Virna Lisi, Natalie Delon

Synopsis: Bluebeard is the retelling of the now familiar story of a wealthy aristocrat who marries and murders and marries again. Baron Von Sepper (Richard Burton), the BlueBeard of the story, meets and marries Anne (Joey Heatherton) who becomes suspicious of Von Sepper when she finds evidence of his Read More

1972
Divorce His, Divorce Hers

Synopsis: Originally made for television, this production features divorce from two perspectives: in the first half, the husband (Richard Burton) explains his perspective of his failed marriage, while the second includes that of his wife (Elizabeth Taylor). ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

1972
Hammersmith Is Out

Actors: Carl Donn, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Peter Ustinov, Beau Bridges, Leon Ames

Synopsis: Loosely based on the Faust legend, Hammersmith is Out stars Richard Burton as the title character, a mental patient confined to the sanitarium owned by a loony doctor (Peter Ustinov, who also directed). Befriending a lackadaisical orderly named Billy Breedlove (Beau Bridges), the satanic Read More

1972
Raid on Rommel

Actors: Richard Burton

Synopsis: The British fleet is enroute to North Africa to engage the Germans, and the best port for them to use is Tobruk. There, they have problems: Germans occupy Tobruk, and have fortified it with devastating heavy artillery which would prevent a British landing. The original scheme for sabotaging the Read More

1971
Under Milk Wood

Actors: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter O'Toole, Glynis Johns, Vivien Merchant

Synopsis: This film is a faithful rendition of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' last major poem, Under Milk Wood. It affectionately examines the day-to-day life of the inhabitants of a small Welsh fishing village. The poem is narrated by Richard Burton, himself a Welshman and a great aficionado of Thomas' work. The Read More

1971
Villain

Actors: Shirley Cain, Wendy Hutchinson, Lindy Miller, Bonita Thomas, Richard Burton, Ian McShane, Nigel Davenport, Donald Sinden, Fiona Lewis

Synopsis: This melodramatic crime drama tells the story of homosexual gang leader Vic Dakin (Richard Burton), who likes a bit of rough sex with his petty criminal pal Wolfe (Ian McShane). Aside from payroll robberies, his gang is not above blackmailing sexually deviant members of Parliament. A Scotland Yard Read More

1971
Anne of the Thousand Days

Actors: Richard Burton, Geneviève Bujold, Irene Papas, Anthony Quayle, John Colicos

Synopsis: Anne of the Thousand Days is the belated film adaptation of Maxwell Anderson's 1948 stage play. The story concentrates on the romance between Britain's King Henry VIII (Richard Burton) and his ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn (Genevieve Bujold). After holding out for marriage rather than an Read More

1969
Staircase

Actors: Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Cathleen Nesbitt, Beatrix Lehmann, Gordon Heath

Synopsis: Homosexuality is only incidentally important in this drama of dependence and intimacy between two aging hair stylists, and nothing shocking to staid and heterosexual sensibilities takes place in this movie, a star turn for Richard Burton and Rex Harrison. Whether the original play was as patently Read More

1969
Where Eagles Dare

Actors: Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Michael Hordern, Patrick Wymark

Synopsis: An expensive but enormously profitable war picture, Where Eagles Dare centers upon a daring rescue and even more daring escape. Disguised as Nazi officers, commandoes Maj. John Smith (Richard Burton), Lt. Morris Schaffer Clint Eastwood and six other courageous souls parachute behind enemy lines. Read More

1968
Un Mur a Jerusalem

Synopsis: This documentary traces the history of the Jews from the beginning of their recorded history to the establishment of the nation of Israel. The conditions of anti-Semitism and the torturous struggles of a people oppressed for millennia is chronicled in the narrative. With the possible exception of Read More

1968
Candy

Actors: Charles Aznavour, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, John Huston

Synopsis: In this big-budget adaptation of Terry Southern's satiric sex farce (the sort of project that could get an immediate green light in the late 1960's and at practically no other time before or since), Ewa Aulin is Candy, a sweet young woman who doesn't seem entirely aware of the powerful sexual Read More

1968
Doctor Faustus

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Hugh Williams, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Andreas Teuber, Ian Marter, Elizabeth O'Donovan

Synopsis: Richard Burton co-directed (along with Nevill Coghill) this labor of love that records a performance given by Burton at Oxford University in 1966 of Christopher Marlowe's 400-year-old verse play. Burton plays Faust, a medieval doctor who sells his soul to Mephistopheles (Andreas Teuber) in Read More

1968
Boom!

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Noël Coward, Joanna Shimkus, Michael Dunn

Synopsis: Boom is taken from the Tennessee Williams play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. Flora Goforth (Elizabeth Taylor) is a foul-mouthed, booze-swilling, pill-popping, middle-aged woman near death. She spends her time swearing at the servants and looks forward to the end of it all, until poet Read More

1968
The Taming of the Shrew

Crew: Producer

Actors: Alfred Lynch, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael York, Vernon Dobtcheff, Michael Hordern, Natasha Pyne, Victor Spinetti

Synopsis: Franco Zeffirelli's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is a zesty version of the classic comedy, highlighted by performances by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and Nino Rota's score. Instead of simply filming a play, Zeffirelli turned Shakespeare's text into a lively Read More

3/23/67
The Comedians

Actors: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Guinness, Peter Ustinov, Paul Ford

Synopsis: The humorous title of this story taken from the novel by Graham Greene gives the viewer the wrong impression. The story concerns the residents of a once-posh hotel in Haiti and the fate of the country's people under the despotic dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) is the Read More

1967
Per Firenze

Actors: Richard Burton

1966
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis

Synopsis: "You are cordially invited to George and Martha's for an evening of fun and games." Thus read the ad copy for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which in 1966 went farther than any previous big-studio film in its use of profanity and sexual implication. George (Richard Burton) is an alcoholic college Read More

1966
The Sandpiper

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Eva Marie Saint, Charles Bronson, Robert Webber

Synopsis: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton -- then Hollywood's most bankable couple -- appeared onscreen together for the third time in this romantic drama shot on beautiful locations along the Big Sur region of the California coastline. Laura Edwards (Elizabeth Taylor) is a free-thinking artist and Read More

1965
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Actors: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Sam Wanamaker, George Voskovec

Synopsis: Based on the novel by John Le Carre, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold stars Richard Burton as a dispirited, end-of-tether British secret agent. He comes in from "the cold" (meaning he is pulled out of field operations) to act as a undercover man behind the Iron Curtain. To make his staged Read More

1965
The Night of the Iguana

Actors: Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Sue Lyon, James Ward

Synopsis: Filmed on location in Mexico by John Huston, Night of the Iguana stars Richard Burton as Rev. Shannon, an alcoholic defrocked minister, who scratches out a living as a south-of-the-border tour guide. His latest customers are several American schoolteachers, and he guides their bus to a rundown Read More

1964
Hamlet

Actors: Richard Burton, Michael Ebert, Barnard Hughes, Robert Milli, Alfred Drake

Synopsis: This 199-minute Broadway production of Shakespeare's classic tragedy was directed for the stage by John Gielgud, who also provides the voice of the Ghost. Richard Burton plays the lead in Hamlet, the dramatic and tragic tale of a Danish prince whose obsessive desire for certainty is his ultimate Read More

1964
Zulu

Actors: Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine

Synopsis: Filmed on a grand scale, Zulu is a rousing recreation of the January 22, 1879, siege of Rorke's Drift in Natal, Africa. An army of 4,000 Zulu warriors have already decimated a huge British garrison; now they are on their way to the much smaller Rorke's Drift. A Royal Engineers officer (Stanley Baker Read More

1964
Cleopatra

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, Pamela Brown, George Cole, Martin Landau

Synopsis: In 1963, this colossal and opulent $60 million spectacular was epic in every sense of the word -- an epic investment, an epic in the annals of Hollywood gossip, and, ultimately, an epic flop that nearly dragged 20th Century Fox down the Nile along with Cleopatra's barge. Handsomely mounted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Read More

1963
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Synopsis: This 1961 adaptation of Shakespeare's magical comedy of errors was performed entirely by puppets. Let's qualify that: the puppets are of the stop-motion variety, expertly manipulated into "humanity" by Czech animator Jiri Trnka. The adaptation is faithful to the text, while the technique allows a Read More

1963
The V.I.P.'s

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan, Elsa Martinelli, Margaret Rutherford, Maggie Smith

Synopsis: Terrence Rattigan, the playwright who brought us the multicharactered, multistoried Separate Tables, again offers us an episodic cross-section of humanity in The V.I.P.'s. When a heavy London fog paralyzes all air traffic, the lives of several people are profoundly affected. As indicated by the Read More

1963
The Longest Day

Actors: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger, Richard Todd

Synopsis: The Longest Day is a mammoth, all-star re-creation of the D-Day invasion, personally orchestrated by Darryl F. Zanuck. Whenever possible, the original locations were utilized, and an all-star international cast impersonates the people involved, from high-ranking officials to ordinary GIs. Each Read More

1962
The Tempest

Synopsis: William Shakespeare's last completed play The Tempest was pared down to 90 minutes for this full-color TV adaptation. Maurice Evans stars as Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, who was usurped by his brother Antonio (William H. Bassett) and exiled to an enchanted island. Living in seclusion with Read More

1960
Ice Palace

Actors: Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Carolyn Jones, Martha Hyer, Jim Backus

Synopsis: Based on the Edna Ferber novel, this engrossing period piece covers the triumphs, tragedies, loves, and sorrows of a few generations of Alaskan settlers between the first World War and the granting of statehood in 1959. Zeb (Richard Burton) is a local despot whose tough personality dominates the Read More

1960
The Bramble Bush

Actors: Richard Burton, Barbara Rush, Jack Carson, Angie Dickinson, James Dunn

Synopsis: In this high-gloss soap opera (not dissimilar to the then-popular Peyton Place), Guy (Richard Burton) is a doctor who returns to the New England town where he grew up to help care for his good friend Larry (Tom Drake), who is dying of Hodgkins Disease. Guy gets to know Larry's wife Margaret (Barbara Rush Read More

1960
Look Back in Anger

Actors: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Mary Ure, Edith Evans, Gary Raymond

Synopsis: Archetypal British "angry young man" Jimmy Porter (Richard Burton) is a college-educated bloke who can't seem to get any better job than working in a candy store. Jimmy's relationship with his wife Alison (Mary Ure) alternates between hugs and kisses when he's feeling good and verbal abuse when Read More

1958
Sea Wife

Actors: Joan Collins, Richard Burton, Basil Sydney, Cy Grant, Ronald Squire

Synopsis: In this melodramatic adventure set after the British evacuated Singapore in 1942, a ship is torpedoed and only four people survive. They are a nun, an RAF officer, a godless bigoted business magnate, and a black purser. The four drift for days before getting themselves washed up on a small desert Read More

1957
Bitter Victory

Actors: Richard Burton, Curd Jürgens, Ruth Roman, Raymond Pellegrin, Anthony Bushell

Synopsis: In Nicholas Ray's WWII drama, two British officers, Captain Leith (Richard Burton) and Major Brand (German character actor Curd Jürgens, who would later play Bond foe Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me), a South African, are being considered to lead a daring raid to steal crucial documents Read More

1957
Alexander the Great

Actors: Richard Burton, Fredric March, Claire Bloom, Danielle Darrieux, Harry Andrews

Synopsis: The short life and quick death of Alexander the Great is recounted in this literate historical epic. Decked out in a blonde wig, Richard Burton stars as the Grecian warrior who conquered the known world while only in his twenties, then wept because there were no more worlds left to conquer. While Read More

1956
Prince of Players

Actors: Richard Burton, Maggie McNamara, John Derek, Raymond Massey, Charles Bickford

Synopsis: Screenwriter Philip Dunne doubled as director on the elaborate filmed biography Prince of Players. Richard Burton stars as the eminent American tragedian Edwin Booth, whose life and career is thrown into turmoil after his younger brother John Wilkes Booth (John Derek) assassinates Abraham Lincoln. Read More

1955
The Rains of Ranchipur

Actors: Lana Turner, Richard Burton, Fred MacMurray, Joan Caulfield, Michael Rennie

Synopsis: After The Rains Came (1939), this epic romantic melodrama was the second version of author Louis Bromfield's novel to get the deluxe, big-budget treatment from Twentieth Century Fox.