Bill Nighy Movies
BAFTA-winning veteran actor Bill Nighy gained international recognition in 2003 thanks to his role as a Keith Richards-esque former rock star in the hit romantic comedy Love Actually. Nighy had remained a relatively obscure figure even in his native England until a memorable turn as a controversial politician in series three of the acclaimed television comedy drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet found him finally thrust into the spotlight in 2002. A Caterham, Surrey native, Nighy excelled in English language and literature early on; however, even though his journalistic instincts were strong, his lack of education prevented him from a career in the media. Work as a bike messenger for Field Magazine helped the aspiring writer keep his toes in the business, and a suggestion by his girlfriend that Nighy try his hand at acting eventually prompted him to enroll in the Guildford School of Dance and Drama. As the gears began to turn and his career as an actor started to gain momentum, Nighy was encouraged to stick with the craft after landing a series of small roles.Though British television provided Nighy with most of his early exposure, supporting roles in such features as Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) and The Phantom of the Opera (1989) found the actor honing his skills and laying the groundwork for future feature success. Though Nighy stuck almost exclusively to the small screen in the early '90s, his supporting role in the 1993 Robin Williams film Being Human seemed to mark the beginning of a new stage in his career, focusing mainly on features. A part in the 1997 film Fairy Tale: A True Story found Nighy climbing the credits, and the following year he joined an impressive cast including Timothy Spall, Stephen Rea, and Billy Connolly in the rock comedy Still Crazy. It was his role in Still Crazy that gained Nighy his widest recognition to date -- earning the up-and-coming actor the Peter Sellers Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy Performance. Nighy's role as a conflicted husband who embarks on a heated extramarital affair in 2001's Lawless Heart continued his impressive career trajectory, and later that same year he would land a role in The Full Monty director Peter Cattaneo's jailbreak comedy Lucky Break.
A role in the long-running U.K. television series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet finally found Nighy earning some deserved recognition in 2002, and after a winning performance as the patriarch of an eccentric family in I Capture the Castle (2003), he continued to earned even more accolades for his performance in Love Actually. His part as an ancient vampire in the gothic action horror hit Underworld found Nighy's recognition factor rising for mainstream audiences on the other side of the pond, and before jetting into the future with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 2005, the increasingly busy actor would appear in three feature films in 2004, including the horror comedy Shaun of the Dead, Doogal, and Enduring Love. By the time Nighy received an Emmy nomination for his role as a loved-starved civil servant falling for an enigmatic younger woman in the 2005 made-for-television romantic comedy-drama The Girl in the Café, television fans in both the U.S. and the U.K. knew well of Nighy's impressive range as an actor.
Yet another small-screen role in that same year's Gideon's Daughter allowed Nighy a chance to play a serious role once again. Playing a burned-out PR agent who is forced to reevaluate his life when his adult daughter threatens to cease all contact with him, Nighy gave a performance that moved critics and audiences alike, later earning him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Mini-Series or TV Movie. Soon the actor was venturing into lands of fantasy once again, however, reprising his role as Viktor in Underworld: Evolution, and taking to the high seas as the legendary squid-faced sailor Davy Jones (captain of the Flying Dutchman) in director Gore Verbinski's big-budget summer extravaganza Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. That film, of course, became a predictable sensation (it grossed over one billion dollars worldwide) and (more than any of Nighy's prior efforts) launched the British actor into the public spotlight for audiences of all ages, who were understandably impressed with the presence he was able to exude onscreen despite the layers of makeup and CG it took to make him into a squid-man.
Nighy stayed the course of big-budget fantasy, with a turn as Alan Blunt in that same year's Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker, then signed on for another turn as Davy Jones in 2007's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, co-starring this time with the inspiration for some of his previous characters, Keith Richards. Nighy would spend the next several years appearing in such acclaimed films as Valkyrie, Pirate Radio, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Nighy has maintained a life partnership with veteran British stage and screen actress Diana Quick since 1981. Though the two don't subscribe to the legal institution of marriage (much like long-standing Hollywood couple Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon), Nighy has been known to refer to Quick as his wife simply to avoid confusion. The couple's daughter, Mary Nighy, was born in 1984 and is also an actress. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Having already been seen spying for the Nazis in 1979's The Eagle Has Landed, Donald Sutherland once more infiltrates wartime England on behalf of Der Fuhrer in Eye of the Needle. Willing to kill even the most innocent of bystanders to complete his task, Sutherland manages to remain in Britain until the eve of D-Day in 1944. Discovering that the invasion is to take place on Normandy, Sutherland scurries to rendezvous with a U-boat off the treacherous Isle of Storms. His mission is thwarted by Kate Nelligan, the frustrated wife of paralyzed RAF commander Christopher Cazenove. Though having fallen in love with Sutherland, Nelligan nonetheless prepares to turn the man in when he kills her husband. Tension mounts in the closing scene as Sutherland races against time to (a) make contact with the U-boat and (b) stop Nelligan before she blows the whistle on him. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan, (more)
Curse of the Pink Panther was released just after Trail of the Pink Panther with a script that has someone looking for the inept Inspector Clousseau and the fabulous stolen Pink Panther diamond at the same time. In Curse, Clifton Sleigh (Ted Wass) is a New York retread of the bumbling Inspector, chosen to look for him by Clousseau's former boss because Sleigh most certainly will never find him. Although peppered with a few inventive stunts, Curse still falls short of the Sellers classics. In a bizarre side note, David Niven was himself terminally ill at the time of his appearance in Trail of the Pink Panther and unable to speak adequately. His voice was dubbed in by impressionist Rich Little. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ted Wass, David Niven, (more)
- 1984
- R
Based on John Le Carré's novel by the same name, this story about Charlie (Diane Keaton) a female double agent working between the Palestinians and Israelis, loses some of the excitement and in-depth characterization engendered by the long novel -- mainly because the novel is hard to capture in a two-hour filmed format. But the action itself carries viewers along as Charlie ends up leaving England and her job as an actress in a Brit repertory company to meet Kurtz (Klaus Kinski) in Greece who recruits her as a spy. Charlie later has to handle her own emotions when she gets romantically involved with her Israeli contact (Yorgo Voyagis), though events move her quickly along to a Palestinian military camp near Beirut. Once she has passed herself off as a reliable Palestinian agent and completed her military training at the camp, she goes to Germany to hunt down a Palestinian terrorist (Sami Frey). Filled with a multitude of characters and locations, not to mention camera shots, the intensity of this story is dissipated somewhat by literally and figuratively covering a lot of territory, though the thread of the story itself is never lost. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Diane Keaton, Yorgo Voyagis, (more)
The two-part TV movie Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil crystallizes that evil by concentrating on two Berlin brothers. In 1931, Helmut Hoffman (Bill Nighy) a brilliant student and self-styled opportunist, joins Hitler's SS. At the same time, his younger brother Karl (John Shea), a top athlete and idealist, becomes a chauffeur for the "S.A." (storm troopers). When the SS topples the SA from power, Karl ends up in Dachau. He is rescued through his brother's influence--if you can describe sending Karl to fight on the Russian Front a "rescue." As he watches the Third Reich deteriorate, Helmut at long last suffers pangs of conscience. As if the story of the rise of Nazism needed any further melodrama, Hitler's SS shoehorns in a romantic triangle involving Karl, Helmut, and beautiful nightclub-singer Lucy Gutteridge. The all-star supporting cast of Hitler's SS includes Carroll Baker as the Hoffman brothers' anguished mother; Tony Randall as an androgynous entertainer named Putzi (shades of Cabaret's Joel Grey); and David Warner, repeating his Holocaust role as SS head man Heydrich. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Shea, Bill Nighy, (more)
- 1985
Agatha Christie's famous Belgian fussbudget detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) is called in after a beautiful American actress (Faye Dunaway) claims that her husband, a prominent British lord, was murdered by a woman who looks just like her. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Peter Ustinov, Faye Dunaway, (more)
- 1989
- PG13
This film adaptation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's musical play The Threepenny Opera portrays the engagement of a gangster (Raul Julia) to an innocent girl (Rachel Robertson) in Victorian-era London. The girl's family attempts to thwart the marriage by catching the thief in the act. ~ John Bush, Rovi
- Starring:
- Raul Julia, Richard Harris, (more)
Gaston Leroux's classic tale of love and suspense gets a face-lift in this horror story loosely adapted from Leroux's novel. Christine (Jill Schoelen) is a young classical vocalist who, in the midst of performing a recently discovered piece by an obscure composer, is struck on the head by a sandbag and wakes up in London in 1884. Eric Destler (Robert Englund) is a composer who is desperate to succeed -- so much so that he sells his soul to the devil in exchange for writing songs that people will love. However, the devil adds a twist to the bargain by horribly scarring Eric's face, which can only be disguised by flesh from a living victim. Living below the London Opera House, Eric works night and day on his music; when he hears Christine's voice he falls in love, he and lures her to his lair. Eric decides that Christine is the perfect woman to sing his music; he coaches her to a perfect interpretation of his work, and he kills anyone who stands between her and success. Future Saturday Night Live star Molly Shannon made her film debut in a small role in the film's modern day sequences. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Englund, Jill Schoelen, (more)
- 1991
From director Beeban Kidron, Antonia & Jane is a look at an enduring friendship between a pair of decidedly opposite people. Beautiful, sophisticated, and self-assured, Antonia (Saskia Reeves) has it all -- or so it seems to the pudgy wallflower Jane (Imelda Staunton), who secretly resents the fact that her own inner light is invariably extinguished whenever her glamorous friend enters a room. The fact that Antonia stole and married Jane's first lover only makes matters worse. While Jane vents her feelings in her therapist's office, Antonia herself secretly longs to be more like Jane, who is always off in search of new adventures and experiences. Petricia Leventon and Alfred Hoffman also star. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Saskia Reeves, Imelda Staunton, (more)
- 1996
- R
A dancer whose life and art were integrally connected to his body finds himself going through profound changes when he discovers that he has AIDS. Tonio (Jason Flemyng) recently inherited a plum role in the ballet Indian Summer from his friend Ramon (Anthony Higgins), who recently passed on from AIDS-related illnesses. Tonio, however, refuses all treatments that might interfere with his dancing abilities, determined that if he's going out, he's going out on his feet, doing what he loves most. Tonio meets Jack (Anthony Sher) at Ramon's funeral, and they later cross paths again at a gay dance club. Jack was once Ramon's lover and is about as different from Tonio as two people could be; while Tonio has the trim, athletic build of a dancer, Jack is a stocky guy who looks like he spends most of his day sitting down -- which he does, actually, as a counselor for HIV-positive patients. Jack becomes infatuated with Tonio and tries to win him over, although a healthier Tonio would never have given a second look to someone who lacks his obsession with the body. Indian Summer was written by Martin Sherman, best known for his play Bent; the film has also been shown under the title Alive and Kicking. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jason Flemyng, Dorothy Tutin, (more)
Two young girls who believe that fairies are real attempt to prove it to the world in this drama based on actual events. In 1917, there is little to be happy about in the Wright household in West Yorkshire, England. Polly (Phoebe Nicholls) and her 12-year-old daughter Elsie (Florence Hoath) are still grieving over the death of Elsie's younger brother, and Polly's niece Frances (Elizabeth Earl) has come to stay with them after her father was declared missing in action during World War I. Polly longs for some sort of proof that there is a life beyond our own, while the two girls ardently believe in fairies and enthusiastically study legend and lore. One day, Elsie and Frances produce photographs of fairies that they claim were playing in their garden; Polly believes that they are real, and soon the snapshots attract international attention. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Peter O'Toole), author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and a confirmed spiritualist, declares the photos "as genuine as the King's beard," while illusionist Harry Houdini (Harvey Keitel), who has devoted much time and energy to exposing phony mediums and psychics, takes a more skeptical view. While Fairy Tale: A True Story presents the appearance of the fairies as fact, analysis of the photographs proved them to be fakes (especially after the same fairies were discovered as illustrations in a children's book published before the photos were taken). The real-life Elsie Wright admitted late in life that the fairy photos were a hoax performed as a "little joke" and that she was always surprised that so many people believed them. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Florence Hoath, Elizabeth Earl, (more)
Still Crazy is a film that looks back at the "rock band" era of the 1970s. Brian Gibson, who has directed musical biographies on Josephine Baker and Tina Turner, sets his narrative on a rock group, Strange Fruit, who are attempting a comeback twenty years after a bolt of lightening literally ended their career in the late 1970's. When keyboard player Tony (Stephan Rea) runs into the son of their old festival promoter, he gets the idea he could perhaps bring the aging musicians together for a revival. He goes off to search for Karen (Juliet Aubre), the band's Girl Friday and often the butt of their various ego trips. Karen, who now lives alone with her daughter, thinks it's a great idea and they set off to locate the other members. Beano (Timothy Spall), the drummer, has barricaded himself away in a trailer in his mother's garden for fear of being caught by the taxman. Ray (Bill Nighy), the lead singer, lives in a luxurious country house (beyond his means) with his second wife; he's still in the music business and has released a solo record. Les (Jimmy Nail), a great bass guitarist, is happily married, and his only regret is that his music never found the following he would have liked. As for ex-roadie Hughie (Billy Connolly), the Fruits were always his boys, and he's ready to give up his stall at Camden market and follow the dream. He would also love to see guitarist Brian again, but Brian is nowhere to be found. Karen decides to hire a much younger musician, Luke, to replace him. The re-formed band go to Holland to play a few clubs on a warm-up tour. However, the youngest member of the band is stealing the show, particularly with the members of the opposite sex. Despite efforts to stay calm and professional, the band is falling into the old routine of bickering day by day as they get close to the big reunion concert. Still Crazy was screened as part of the Panorama during the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi
- Starring:
- Stephen Rea, Billy Connolly, (more)
- 1999
Radioactive fish, Italian bombshells, and vomit. These are the key ingredients of this over-the-top gross-out fest about the worst guesthouse in Britain. Former Young Ones star Rik Mayall is Richie Twat (pronounced "Thwaite" as he labors to explain to one and all) who runs the titular hotel with his dull-witted cohort Eddie (Adrian Edmondson). Balancing precariously on a cliff overlooking a nuclear power plant, the hotel is a nightmare from the standpoint of customer service. Richie gleefully abuses the guests, rummages through their luggage, and serves them vile, rotten food. When a nice but impoverished family and an Italian starlet (Gina "Nipples from Naples" Carbonara, played by Helene Mahieau) makes the mistake of staying at their abode, events grow more bizarre and scatological with each passing frame until the film's delirious finale, which has to be the one of the longest and most involved mass puking scenes ever committed to celluloid. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, (more)
When the tiny burgh of Keighley lands the rights to host the annual British hairdressing championships, practically every city in the United Kingdom is represented in the competition -- except Keighley itself. It seems the event is team-oriented, and the only suitable local contestants had a huge falling out a decade ago. For Brian (Josh Hartnett), the son of two hairdressers, that falling out had personal consequences: His mother Shelley (Natasha Richardson) left his father Phil (Alan Rickman) to take up with Phil's hair model Sandra (Rachel Griffiths). Since then, former styling champ Phil has settled for training Brian to help run his lowly barber shop, while Shelley and Sandra have opened a salon of their own. But when Shelley learns that she has terminal cancer, she reaches out to her family in hopes that a reunion for the hairdressing contest might help them all find some sense of closure. To complicate matters, Phil's old arch-nemesis, Ray (Bill Nighy), is now a two-time champ looking for a three-peat, and he's brought along his beautiful American daughter Christina (Rachael Leigh Cook) to work on his team. Blow Dry also marks the screen debut of supermodel Heidi Klum. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson, (more)
This second feature from Boyfriends' directors Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger explores intertwined relationships in a sleepy seaside resort in the U.K., broken up into three segments. The film centers around the funeral of Stuart (David Coffey), the gay partner of Nick (Tom Hollander), who owns a local restaurant. Stuart's brother-in-law Dan (Bill Nighy) is a depressive farmer who lives with his wife Judy (Ellie Haddington) and becomes smitten with a French woman named Corinne (Clementine Celarie), a local florist. As Dan and Judy attempt to settle Stuart's estate, Dan gives into having an affair with Corinne -- but then ends up cheating on her with an amorous stranger (Sally Hurst). Meanwhile, Nick offers Stuart's straight best friend Tim (Douglas Henshall) a place to stay. Nick is furthermore disrupted by the advances of Charlie (Sukie Smith), a free-spirited woman who takes a liking to Nick and introduces him to hetero intercourse. The final section of the film centers on Tim who, after being abroad for several years, has a dalliance with shop owner Leah (Josephine Butler), who happens to be the former girlfriend of his adopted brother David (Stuart Laing). Also featured in the film are Dominic Hall, June Barrie, and Peter Symonds. ~ Jason Clark, Rovi
- Starring:
- Douglas Henshall, Tom Hollander, (more)
The first feature by director Peter Cattaneo since his award-winning British smash hit The Full Monty, Lucky Break is another comedy in the same mold, this time taking place in prison. Small-time crooks Jimmy (James Nesbitt) and Rudy (Lennie James), after years of no success, decide to pull a bank job, where they are both captured and incarcerated. Jimmy is then transferred to Long Rudford, run by the steely security chief Perry (Ron Cook). Jimmy again runs into Rudy (whom he left to take the initial rap) and shares a cell with Cliff (Timothy Spall), a portly man prone to depression. The prison warden, Mortimer (Christopher Plummer), is heavily into Broadway musicals and offers Jimmy an opportunity to stage his long-unproduced work, "Nelson: The Musical," which Jimmy will use as a means to bust out of the prison. After working hard on the new tuner, the boys try to find a way both to do the show and to continue their arduously planned escape. The Sixth Sense's Olivia Williams co-stars as a guard Jimmy falls for, and British comic actors Bill Nighy and Frank Harper appear in supporting roles. ~ Jason Clark, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Nesbitt, Olivia Williams, (more)
Set in 1978 England, AKA opens with 18-year-old Dean (Matthew Leitch) being kicked out of his working-class home by his abusive father. Shy but socially ambitious, Dean subsequently finds work with high society marm Lady Gryffon (Diana Quick), who introduces him to the privileged set. However, Dean does something to perturb the good lady, and is unceremoniously kicked out of her household. Loathe to part company with the perks of high society, he assumes the identity of Lady Gryffon's son, Alex, and relocates to Paris. There, he makes the acquaintance of Benjamin (Peter Youngblood Hills), a cute but drug-riddled American, and Benjamin's lover David (George Asprey), an older playboy who has the hots for Dean. What unfolds is a tale of deceit, class warfare, and the complexities of sexual identity. AKA was screened at the 2002 Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
- Starring:
- Matthew Leitch, George Asprey, (more)
This made-for-TV British comedy begins at the turn of the century, as bumbling ironmonger Alfred Salteena (Jim Broadbent) meets a pretty girl named Ethel Monticue (Lyndsey Marshal) on a train and invites her to his London flat. Hoping to impress the girl, Alfred brags about all the "important" people he knows; swallowing the line whole, the covetous Ethel insists upon meeting Alfred's illustrious acquaintance. Enter Lord Bernard Clark (Hugh Laurie), a seedy nobleman who offers to train Alfred to be a social lion so that he'll be more acceptable to Ethel; what Lord Bernard doesn't tell Alfred is that he intends to keep Ethel for himself. Much of the humor arises from Alfred's experiences at a high-society "boot camp" run by an indigent aristocrat, the Earl of Clincham (Bill Nighy). The Young Visiters was written in 1890 by Daisy Ashford -- who was all of nine years old at the time! The book remained on the shelf until it was published, misspellings and all, in 1919, with a preface by James M. Barrie (whom many reviewers suspected of being the novel's true author). First telecast in the U.K. on December 26, 2003, the film won a BAFTA award for best original music. The Young Visiters premiered in the United States courtesy of the BBC America digital-cable service on November 2, 2004. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jim Broadbent, Hugh Laurie, (more)
All of London is in love -- or longing to be -- in Four Weddings and a Funeral writer Richard Curtis' first directorial effort. Billed as "the ultimate romantic comedy," Love Actually involves more than a dozen main characters, each weaving his or her way into another's heart over the course of one particularly eventful Christmas. The seemingly perfect wedding of Juliet (Keira Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) brings many of the principals together, including heartsick best man Mark (Andrew Lincoln), who harbors a very unrequited crush on Juliet. There's also recent widower Daniel (Liam Neeson), trying to help his lonely stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster) express his true feelings to a classmate. Across town, devoted working mother Karen (Emma Thompson) tries to rekindle the passion of her husband, Harry (Alan Rickman), who secretly pines for a young colleague of his. In the same office, the lonely Sarah (Laura Linney) not-so-secretly pines for a man just a few desks away (Rodrigo Santoro), who returns her affections but may not be able to dissuade her neuroses. Providing the unofficial soundtrack for all of the couples is an aging rocker (Bill Nighy) who just wants to cash in and get laid -- but even he might find a meaningful relationship in the most unlikely of places. A working print of Love Actually premiered at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, (more)
Based on the novel by Dodie Smith (101 Dalmatians), director Tim Fywell's comic romance follows 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain (Romola Garai) and her quirky family as they attempt to make the best of their meager existence in a crumbling English castle. While her father (Bill Nighy) has been struggling for over a decade to repeat the success of his debut novel, her beautiful sister Rose (Rose Byrne) frequently voices her displeasure with their current situation, and nudist stepmother Topaz (Tara Fitzgerald) proves little help at much of anything. The arrival of American landlord Simon Cotton (Henry Thomas) and his brother Neil (Marc Blucas) provides a glimmer of hope as the initially repelled Rose soon takes a liking to Simon and the two arrange to marry. Lost in the chaotic shuffle of marriage plans and increasingly complicated relationships, the hapless Cassandra soon begins to blossom into womanhood as she experiences aspects of life that were heretofore unknown to her. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Romola Garai, Rose Byrne, (more)
The government's dangerous penchant for favoring corporate interests is put to the ultimate test after an ambitious politician's research assistant perishes under mysterious circumstances, and a crime that at first appeared unconnected with the death is exposed to reveal an intricate web of lies and deceit. Stephen Collins (David Morrissey) is a rising politician with everything to lose, and his ex-campaign manager Cal McAffery (John Simm) has recently risen to fame as a respected investigative journalist. One day, on her way to work, Stephen's assistant falls to her death in the London Underground. Later, just as it's revealed that Stephen and his assistant were having an affair at the time of her death, the body of a suspected teenage drug dealer is discovered. At first it appears that these two events are completely unrelated, but a closer look reveals some deeply disturbing information about political and corporate interests becoming hopelessly intertwined. Now, as the lies, manipulations, and deceptions gradually boil to the surface, lives will be lost and friendships put to the ultimate test. Bill Nighy, James McAvoy, and Polly Walker star in the award-winning BBC series that riveted television viewers all across the U.K. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Morrissey, John Simm, (more)
A young man who has pledged his life to helping others finds himself in a pitched battle between two gangs of supernatural villains in this blend of horror story and action thriller. Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman) is a medical student who is heading home after a long day of school and work when he unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of what appears to be a rumble between two well turned-out street gangs. What Michael doesn't know is he has witnessed a skirmish between two deadly underground communities, unknown to the mortal world, who are battling for supremacy -- the Death Dealers, a tribe of vampires, and the Lycans, a band of werewolves. Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is a leading member of the Death Dealers who hears through the grapevine that the Lycans have plans to capture the aspiring doctor who witnessed their battle. Certain something is in the air, Selene begins following Michael around the city, and she finds herself growing emotionally attached to him. As Selene becomes more attracted to Michael, she becomes more convinced that the Lycans are planning a major attack against the Death Dealers, although vampire kingpin Kraven (Shane Brolly) is certain she's crediting the Lycans with more intelligence than they can muster. As Selene shadows Michael, she finds herself wanting to protect him, but her longing becomes a handicap when he's attacked by Lucian (Michael Sheen), the leader of the werewolf community, and the man she wants to save has now become a sworn enemy. Underworld was the first feature film from music video director Len Wiseman. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, (more)
U.K. writer/director Stephen Poliakoff -- the cinematic artist responsible for the critically acclaimed favorites The Lost Prince (2003) and Friends and Crocodiles -- guides an all-star British cast including two-time Academy Award-nominee Miranda Richardson (Damage, Tom & Viv), Bill Nighy (Love Actually), and Poliakoff regular Robert Lindsay (Bert Rigby, You're a Fool), in his latest feature, Gideon's Daughter (2006). Reprising the Sneath character that he brought to life in Crocodiles, Lindsay narrates this tale set at the tail end of the millennium. It concerns Gideon Warner (Nighy), a British public-relations whiz who hits the top of his game as politicos, entrepreneurs, and young actresses seek him out for new campaigns. On the business front, Warner has become the man to know, but his personal life begins to stand in the way of his corporate success. His daughter, Natasha (Emily Blunt), grows increasingly furious with him, and he falls in love with Stella (Richardson), a mother recently bereft of her son. Poliakoff planned this sensitive and poignant drama as a companion piece to Friends and Crocodiles, as both films reflect on British society as the curtain falls on the 20th century. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
When Louis and Emily Trevalyan exchanged wedding vows on a day that seemed to mark the beginning of a blissful union, little could they foresee the trials that would face them in their first year of marriage. As Anthony Trollepe slowly peels away the layers of Victorian propriety, a variety of colorful characters are revealed, including a colonel of questionable morals who makes unwholesome advances to the newlywed bride. As the fans that fuel Louis' jealousy soon give way to a raging inferno, the dejected groom rejects his wife and newborn son leading to a tragic bid to destroy everything in the world that he loves. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bill Nighy, Laura Fraser, (more)
It's often said that the true character of a man is only revealed in times of dire crisis, and for likable, lovelorn loser Shaun (Simon Pegg), that moment of reckoning came when the dead rose from their slumber to feast on the flesh of the living. A hapless electronics store employee who spends most of his spare time downing pints at the local pub with his roommate, Ed (Nick Frost), Shaun's life seems to fall apart when he is dumped by his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), and his obnoxious stepfather, Philip (Bill Nighy), shows up to berate him for not being more attentive to his caring mother Barbara (Penelope Wilton) -- especially since he forgot to send flowers for her birthday. Things take a turn for the worse when the dead return to stake their claim on the Earth, and though the chaos that follows threatens to swallow up all of England, it's up to Shaun to keep his cool and prove himself once and for all by successfully rescuing Liz and his mother. With his trusty roommate by his side, nothing -- not even the living dead -- can stand between Shaun and the two most important women in his life. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, (more)
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