Biography
Richard Thomas Griffiths (July 31, 1947 – March 28, 2013) was an English actor of film, television, and stage. For his performance in the stage play The History Boys, Griffiths won a Tony Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award. For the 2006 film adaptation, Griffiths was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He played Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter films (2001-2010) and Great Uncle Matthew Brown "Gum" in the BBC fil...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Showing Up
2014
as Self
An unprecedented look at the audition, compiled from more than 50 interviews with notable artists including Kristin Chenoweth, Richard Griffiths, Zoe ...

About Time
2013
as Lawyer in Play (uncredited)
The night after another unsatisfactory New Year's party, Tim's father tells his son that the men in his family have always had the ability to travel t...

Private Peaceful
2012
as The Colonel
Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feud...

Hugo
2011
as Monsieur Frick
Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the statio...

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
2011
as King George
Captain Jack Sparrow crosses paths with a woman from his past, and he's not sure if it's love — or if she's a ruthless con artist who's using him to f...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
2010
as Vernon Dursley
Harry, Ron and Hermione walk away from their last year at Hogwarts to find and destroy the remaining Horcruxes, putting an end to Voldemort's bid for ...

Jackboots on Whitehall
2010
as Hermann Goering (voice)
A satirical alternative history of World War II where the Nazis seize London and England must band together to prevent a full on invasion.

National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art
2010
as Fitz / W. H. Auden
National Theatre Live’s 2010 broadcast of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The Habit of Art, with Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour...

Bedtime Stories
2008
as Barry Nottingham
Skeeter Bronson is a down-on-his-luck guy who's always telling bedtime stories to his niece and nephew. But his life is turned upside down when the fa...

A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa
2008
as Santa Claus
When Gonzo forgets to mail three letters to Santa, he convinces Kermit and the gang to help him deliver the notes to the North Pole. Along the way, th...

Ballet Shoes
2008
as Great Uncle Matthew
An unusual explorer named Gum and his kindly niece adopt three orphans -- Pauline, Petrova and Posy -- and raise them as sisters in 1930s London. But ...

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
2007
as Vernon Dursley
Returning for his fifth year of study at Hogwarts, Harry is stunned to find that his warnings about the return of Lord Voldemort have been ignored. Le...

The History Boys
2006
as Hector
The story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambrid...

Venus
2006
as Donald
Maurice is an aging veteran actor who becomes taken with Jessie, the grandniece of his closest friend. When Maurice tries to soften the petulant and p...

Opa!
2005
as Tierrney
A modern day treasure hunt for a mystical relic that turns into a love story for all time.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2005
as Jeltz (voice)
Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a res...
Princes in the Tower
2005
as Thomas More voice
Drama - The mystery surrounding the disappearance 12 year-old King Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York, has been the cause of speculation a...

Stage Beauty
2004
as Sir Charles Sedley
Humble Maria, who outfits top London theater star Ned Kynaston, takes none of the credit for the male actor's success at playing women. And because th...

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2004
as Vernon Dursley
Year three at Hogwarts means new fun and challenges as Harry learns the delicate art of approaching a Hippogriff, transforming shape-shifting Boggarts...

The Brides in the Bath
2003
as Sir Edward Marshall-Hall
Dramatisation of the real-life case of George Joseph Smith who was hanged in 1915 for the murder of his three wives, each of whom he killed in turn by...

Jeffrey Archer: The Truth
2002
as Willie Whitelaw
A satirical look at the 'secret' TRUE life of Jeffrey Archer. The Truth, the whole truth and everything BUT the truth.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2002
as Vernon Dursley
Cars fly, trees fight back, and a mysterious house-elf comes to warn Harry Potter at the start of his second year at Hogwarts. Adventure and danger aw...

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
2001
as Vernon Dursley
Harry Potter has lived under the stairs at his aunt and uncle's house his whole life. But on his 11th birthday, he learns he's a powerful wizard—with ...

Sleepy Hollow: Behind the Legend
2000
as Self
A behind the scenes look at the making of Sleepy Hollow.

Vatel
2000
as Dr. Bourdelot
In 1671, with war brewing with Holland, a penniless prince invites Louis XIV to three days of festivities at a chateau in Chantilly. The prince wants ...

Sleepy Hollow
1999
as Bürgermeister Phillipse
Skeptical young detective Ichabod Crane gets transferred to the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, New York, where he is tasked with investigating the decapitat...

Ted & Ralph
1998
as Landowner at Party
One-off comedy drama featuring characters from award-winning BBC sketch series 'The Fast Show'. Ralph Mayhew (Charlie Higson) lives alone in a faded s...

Funny Bones
1995
as Jim Minty
Tommy Fawkes wants to be a successful comedian. After his Las Vegas debut is a failure, he returns to Blackpool where his father—also a comedian—start...

A Breed of Heroes
1994
as Brian Beasely
In 1971, fresh-faced, eager for heroics, the young officers arrive in Belfast. Pelted with rocks by kids, sniped at by the IRA, they take refuge in se...

Guarding Tess
1994
as Frederick
Doug is a Secret Service Agent who has just completed his stint in charge protecting Tess Carlisle—the widow of a former U.S. President, and a close p...

Mr. Wakefield's Crusade
1992
as Porter
Darkly comic murder mystery adapted from Bernice Rubens 's Booker Prize-winning bestseller. Luke Wakefield is not so much a knight in shining armour ...

Blame It on the Bellboy
1992
as Maurice Horton
Mike Lawton, Maurice Horton, and Melvin Orton are three men who come to Venice. One of them is a hit man sent to take out a mobster. Another is a lech...

The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends
1992
as Mr. Alderman Ptolomy Tortoise/Mr. Jackson/Sir Isaac Newton
Classic tales of Peter Rabbit."Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter." So begins ...

The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear
1991
as Dr. Meinheimer / Earl Hacker
Bumbling lieutenant Frank Drebin is out to foil the big boys in the energy industry, who intend to suppress technology that will put them out of busin...

King Ralph
1991
as Duncan Phipps
As the only relative in line to ascend the Royal throne, a down-on-his-luck American slob must learn the ways of the English.

Goldeneye
1989
as Second Admiral
British writer Ian Fleming's life and loves suggest that of his spy-novel hero, secret agent James Bond.

The Movie Life of George
1989
as Self
When EMI refused to produce Monty Python's Life of Brian, George Harrison founded Handmade Pictures so that he could see the film. This is the story o...

Withnail & I
1987
as Monty
Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid...

Casanova
1987
as Cardinal
The 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 ...

Shanghai Surprise
1986
as Willie Tuttle
Glendon Wasey is a fortune hunter looking for a fast track out of China. Gloria Tatlock is a missionary nurse seeking the curing powers of opium for h...

A Private Function
1984
as Allardyce
In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Ch...

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
1984
as Captain Billings
A shipping disaster in the 19th Century has stranded a man and woman in the wilds of Africa. The lady is pregnant, and gives birth to a son in their t...

Gorky Park
1983
as Anton
Police Inspector Renko tries to solve the case of three bodies found in Moscow's Gorky Park but finds his attempts to solve the crime impeded by his s...

The Merry Wives of Windsor
1982
as Sir John Falstaff
When Sir John Falstaff decides that he wants to have a little fun he writes two letters to a pair of Window wives: Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Wh...

Gandhi
1982
as Collins
In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian ...
A Light Snack
1982
as The Window Cleaner
A window cleaner fancies a sausage roll, but all is not well in the sausage roll factory.
The World Cup: A Captain's Tale
1982
as Sidney Barron
The true story of the First world football competition, won by a team comprised of miners from Durham.

Britannia Hospital
1982
as Cheerful Bernie
Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative ...

Ragtime
1981
as Delmas' Assistant No. 1
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nos...

The French Lieutenant's Woman
1981
as Sir Tom
In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters...

Chariots of Fire
1981
as Head Porter - Caius College
In the class-obsessed and religiously divided UK of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, a d...

Superman II
1980
as Terrorist
Three Kryptonian criminals led by General Zod team up with Lex Luthor to conquer Earth, forcing a depowered Superman to regain his strength and stop t...

Breaking Glass
1980
as Studio Engineer
Breaking Glass is the story of punk singer Kate and her meteoric rise to stardom. Starting out in the rock pubs of London, Kate, assisted by her manag...

Afternoon Off
1979
as Factory Boss
Lee, a Chinese man, works as a waiter in a hotel in England, despite speaking very little English. Told that a girl called Iris might be interested in...

The Comedy of Errors
1978
as Officer
The Royal Shakespeare Company act (and sing and dance!) Shakespeare's play about two sets of identical twins, separated at birth and brought together ...
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
1977
as Board Member
A rock star is kidnapped at the end of a concert.The record company ask the question is he worth more dead than alive?

Twelve Off the Belt
1977
as Bedworth Hogg
Grand Challenge pie-eating contest : ' Winner finishes most whole pies off the belt in half-an-hour. Ties decided on a raw cabbage '. The Bedworth Hog...

It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet
1976
as Sam Broadbent
Based on James Herriot's books about life as a 1930s veterinarian in Yorkshire, John Alderson plays the kindly doctor who ministers to animals in this...

Well Thank You, Thursday
1976
as Window Cleaner
Miss Shepherd of the registry office is getting a new desk, but things don't go entirely as expected.
Norma
1974
as Park Keeper
Norma is a woman who appears to be leading a very complicated emotional life; she's involved with no less than four men. Michael is the friend she tur...