Biography
Bernard Hill was an English actor. He was known as a character actor of film, stage and television, having acted in nearly 130 projects. He is best known to British television viewers for playing Yosser Hughes in the groundbreaking 1982 TV series Boys from the Blackstuff. On film he has played Captain Edward John Smith in Titanic, King Théoden in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and the Warden of San Quentin Prison in the Clint Eastwood film True Crime. Hill is the only actor to have appeared...
Known For
Complete Filmography

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
2024
In Memory Of
A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and traitorous lord of Rohan seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm Hammerhand, the King of Roha...

The Moor
2024
as Thornley
Claire is approached by the father of her murdered childhood friend to help investigate the haunted moor he believes is his son's final resting place.

Forever Young
2024
as Oscar Smith
An aging woman is given the chance to be young again and right her past but is faced with a dilemma when her husband declines to join her.

Segunda oportunidad
2018
as Peter

Interlude: City of a Dead Woman
2017
as Richard
A former opera singer, a priest and a bullfighter meet on the island of Patmos, seeking redemption; their encounter will affect each other’s lives irr...

Inside CERN
2016
as Narrator
BBC Horizon follows the ups and downs of an outstanding story in particle physics. In June 2015, teams at CERN started running the large hadron collid...

Golden Years
2016
as Arthur
Fate, the pensions crisis and a steadfast refusal to accept the injustice of old age have contrived to force law abiding, retired couple, Arthur and M...

Bloody Queens: Elizabeth and Mary
2016
as Narrator
A dramatisation based on the exchange of letters between Mary Queen of Scots and her cousin Elizabeth I, detailing the hatred and obsession in their b...

North v South
2015
as John Claridge
For decades the criminal underworlds of the North and South bumped along begrudgingly. Like the Cold War, territories were respected out of the necess...

The Sorrows
2013
Sarah grows up with mentally ill parents, and an unexpected pregnancy pushes her toward what she thinks is a normal life with her boyfriend. A frighte...

Reflections on Titanic
2012
as Self
An enthralling and fast-paced four-part documentary feature that covers the making of one of the last major Hollywood epics; Titanic. Cast and crew sp...

Outpost 11
2012
as Cranleigh
Set in an alternative past where steam power still rules the world, Outpost 11 is the story of three soldiers manning a remote listening post in the A...

ParaNorman
2012
as Judge Hopkins (voice)
In the town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock can speak to the dead, but no one other than his eccentric new friend believes his ability is real. One d...

Titanic: Southampton Remembers
2012
Bernard Hill commemorates the centenary of the Titanic disaster, and discovers the impact the tragedy had on Southampton after approximately 550 men l...

Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron
2012
as Captain EJ Smith
James Cameron brings together some the world's leading Titanic experts, including engineers, naval architects, artists and historians, to solve the li...

Titanic: Case Closed
2012

The Kid
2010
as Uncle David
Based on the real life story of Kevin Lewis, the film follows his childhood of abuse, his descent into a life of crime and the way he put his life tog...

Canoe Man
2010
as John Darwin
The story of the "Canoe Man" John Darwin who faked his own death and tried to start a new life with a false identity.

Valkyrie
2008
as General - Desert Sequence
Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to cre...

Franklyn
2008
as Esser
Set between the parallel worlds of contemporary London and the futuristic faith dominated metropolis of Meanwhile City, Franklyn weaves a tale of four...
Exodus
2008
as Narrator (voice)
Exodus charts the decline of the Protestant population from Derry’s Cityside - which saw up to one in five of the City’s population leave their homes ...

Titus: The Gorilla King
2008
as Narrator
The compelling story of one of the most successful mountain gorillas that has ever lived - a huge silverback called Titus. The programme starts in 196...

Bombay Railway
2008
as Narrator
As a sequel to BBC Four's acclaimed Monsoon Railway, this two-part observational documentary looks at the incredible organisation that is the Bombay R...

Save Angel Hope
2007
as Oscar Kurz
Con artists profit from a charity campaign to raise money for a fictitious hospital.

Exodus
2007
as Pharoah Mann
The story of Exodus is relocated to the seaside town Margate. Moses lives in the Promised Lands with his adoptive parents, until he finds his mother i...

The Heart of the Earth
2007
as Sr. Crown
Tensions mount in an Andalusia mining town between local Spanish workers and their British employers.

JFK's Women: The Scandals Revealed
2006
as Self - Narrator (voice)
JFK enjoyed a number of sexual liaisons that could have ended his political career, but his brother Bobby always managed to keep the truth from the pr...

Joy Division
2006
as Dennis
A teenage orphan fights against the Red Army at the end of WWII and in the aftermath is 'adopted' by a Commissar. Years later he is sent to London dur...

No Go: The Free Derry Story
2006
as Narrator (voice)
On the 14th August 1969 the British Army were deployed onto Northern Ireland’s streets for the first time, to relieve an exhausted RUC in the wake of ...

Cruel Sea: The Penlee Lifeboat Disaster
2006
as Narrator (voice)
A moving documentary made to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Penlee Lifeboat Disaster on 19 December 1981. The eight-man crew of the R...

Ocean Odyssey
2006
as Narrator (voice)
The largest predator on the planet, the sperm whale, is your host for an amazing exploration of the final frontier – the world at the bottom of the oc...
The Last Tommy
2005
as Narrator
Britain's last First World War veterans recall their time serving on the Western Front;

$200,000,001: A Ship's Odyssey (The Titanic Crew Video)
2005
as Self / Edward Smith (archive footage)
A light-hearted documentary dedicated to the cast and crew of Titanic, created by directors of photography, Ed W. Marsh, and Anders Falk.
Titanic: Behind The Scenes
2005
as Self / Edward Smith (archive footage)
Behind the scenes featurettes on the making of Titanic, included in the special features of the DVD and Blu-ray release.

A Very Social Secretary
2005
as David Blunkett
Bernard Hill and Victoria Hamilton star in Alistair Beaton's wickedly funny feature-length drama inspired by David Blunkett's private affair held up f...

The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse
2005
as King William III
The fictional world of Royston Vasey is facing apocalypse and the only way to avert disaster is for our nightmarish cast of characters to find a way i...
Horizon: Einstein's Unfinished Symphony
2005

Beatles Biggest Secrets
2004
as Narrator
Featuring new and exclusive interviews, Beatles' Biggest Secrets, reveals the inside story of the world's greatest pop group with explosive revelation...

Wimbledon
2004
as Edward Colt
Britain’s Peter Colt has never quite lived up to his dreams of tennis stardom. Once ranked as high as number 11 in the world, the journeyman veteran h...

The Making of the Return of the King
2004
as Self
A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Created by filmmaker Costa Botes (personally selecte...

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2003
as Théoden
As armies mass for a final battle that will decide the fate of the world--and powerful, ancient forces of Light and Dark compete to determine the outc...

Gothika
2003
as Phil Parsons
After a car crash, criminal psychologist Dr. Miranda Grey regains consciousness only to find that she's a patient in the same mental institution that ...

The Boys & Girl from County Clare
2003
as John Joe
In Ireland in the mid 1960s, two feuding brothers and their respective Ceilidh bands compete at a music festival.

The Making of The Two Towers
2003
A behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." Created by filmmaker Costa Botes (personally selected by Pet...

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2002
as Théoden
Frodo Baggins and the other members of the Fellowship continue on their sacred quest to destroy the One Ring--but on separate paths. Their destinies l...

The Scorpion King
2002
as Philos
In ancient Egypt, peasant Mathayus is hired to exact revenge on the powerful Memnon and the sorceress Cassandra, who are ready to overtake Balthazar's...

Going Off Big Time
2000
as Murray
After surviving prison, a man has to forge a career in the crime world

Eisenstein
2000
as The voice of Stalin
A glimpse at the life of legendary Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein.

A Question of Faith
2000
as Frederick
A man at a monastery realizes he is a woman.

The Criminal
1999
as Det. Insp. Walker
Jasper Rawlins, a none-too-successful musician, finds himself chatting with a beautiful woman at his neighborhood bar. She goes home with him, direct ...

A Midsummer Night's Dream
1999
as Egeus
The lovely Hermia is to wed Demetrius, but she truly cares for Lysander. Hermia's friend, Helena, is in love with Demetrius, while other romantic enta...

The Loss of Sexual Innocence
1999
as Susan's Father
The story of the sexual development of a filmmaker through three stages of his life.

Great Expectations
1999
as Abel Magwitch
A young boy called Pip stumbles upon a hunted criminal who threatens him and demands food. A few years later, Pip finds that he has a benefactor. Imag...

True Crime
1999
as Warden Luther Plunkitt
Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row ...

The Titanic Chronicles
1999
as (voice)
"The Titanic Chronicles" is based on the 1912 Senate Hearings into the "Titanic" Disaster. The actual testimony is read by an international cast. This...
Titanic: Secrets Revealed
1998
as Host
What happened after the Titanic went down? Secrets has been revealed.

Titanic
1997
as Captain Smith
101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fian...

The Mill on the Floss
1997
as Edward Tulliver
Lawyer Wakem takes the mill on the river Floss away from Edward Tulliver (whose ancestors have owned it for 300 years) and becomes the worst enemy of ...

The Wind in the Willows
1996
as The Engine Driver
Jailed for his reckless driving, rambunctious Mr. Toad has to escape from prison when his beloved Toad Hall comes under threat from the wily weasels, ...

The Ghost and the Darkness
1996
as Dr. David Hawthorne
Sir Robert Beaumont is behind schedule on a railroad in Africa. Enlisting noted engineer John Henry Patterson to right the ship, Beaumont expects resu...

First Knight
1995
as Knight (uncredited)
The timeless tale of King Arthur and the legend of Camelot are retold in this passionate period drama. Arthur is reluctant to hand the crown to Lancel...

Madagascar Skin
1995
as Flint
This is the story of Harry and Flint, an unlikely couple. Harry is a shy young gay man who can't seem to fit into his local bar scene. Flint is a crus...

Speaking In Tongues
1994
as Joe
Tony Marchant's eloquent and painful play about the changes to how people are employed, and what that does to their sense of self.

Dirtysomething
1994
as Larry
Dirtysomething centres around young lovers Becca and Dog, an older fellow traveller, sage Larry, and is about the pitfalls of giving up the alternativ...

Skallagrigg
1994
as John
Back in the 'bad old days' when the physically and mentally disabled were locked away in institutions a legend grew of someone who could stand up to t...
Olly's Prison
1993
as Mike
"When you marry, have kids...you'll still be in that chair." An ordinary city flat. Evening. A man tries to talk to his daughter. She will not answer....

The Art of Tripping
1993
Based on the idea that drugs have influenced some of our greatest minds (Poe, Baudelaire etc.), this film documents just how influential drug experien...

Shepherd on the Rock
1993
as Tam Ferrier
A developer tries to take over a Scottish shepherd's land.

A Question of Identity
1992
as Erwin van Haarlem
Erwin van Haarlem is a man of mystery. Living in London in 1986 and ostensibly a Dutch art dealer, he is in fact spying for Czechoslovakia with a miss...

Double X: The Name of the Game
1992
as Ignatius 'Iggy' Smith
Expert safecracker Arthur Clutten masterminds heists for a criminal syndicate he belongs to. But after witnessing the brutal methods of persuasion bei...

The Law Lord
1992
as Martin Allport
A new government takes power with a drastically reduced majority. But the ambitious young Home Secretary has a plan to bring the legal establishment t...

Shoot the Revolution
1990
as Octavian Barbu
During the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, a young girl is shot in the head by Tudor Barbu, a member of the Securitate. His brother Octavian was...

From Moscow to Pietushki
1990
as Readings (voice)
A look at Benedict Yerofeyev, the elusive author of the Russian underground classic From Moscow to Pietushki, who has existed on the fringes of Soviet...

Mountains of the Moon
1990
as Dr. Livingstone
The story of Captain Richard Francis Burton's and Lt. John Hanning Speke's expedition to find the source of the Nile river in the name of Queen Victor...

Shirley Valentine
1989
as Joe Bradshaw
Wondering what has happened to herself, now feeling stagnant and in a rut, Shirley Valentine finds herself regularly talking to the wall while prepari...

Drowning by Numbers
1988
as Madgett
Three generations of women who seek to murder their husbands share a solidarity for one another which brings about three copy-cat drownings.

Bellman and True
1987
as Hiller
Hiller, a computer expert, was bribed by group of bank robbers to obtain details of the security system at a newly-built bank. Having obtained the inf...

Boy Soldier
1987
as Officer
A young Welsh soldier on duty in Northern Ireland finds himself used as a political pawn, following a tragic incident during a violent clash with some...

Theban Plays: Antigone
1986
as Messenger
In a final battle for the control of Thebes, Oedipus's two sons kill each other. Creon issues an order that no one is to bury Polynices upon pain of d...

No Surrender
1985
as Bernard
It's New Year's Eve in Thatcher's de-industrialising Britain. The scene is set at a seedy bar in Liverpool where a group of Irish Protestant and Irish...

Restless Natives
1985
as Will's father
Two lads in Edinburgh embark on a non-violent spree of robberies. They dress up in clown masks and act as modern highwaymen, robbing coach loads of to...

The Burston Rebellion
1985
as Tom Higdon
Drama reconstructing the events of a strike by the schoolchildren of a Norfolk school in 1914, who refused to accept the dismissal of their teachers, ...

Squaring the Circle
1984
as Lech Walesa
An account of how Lech Walesa and the "Solidarity" trade union confronted the might of Communist dictatorship in Poland.

The Bounty
1984
as William Cole
The familiar story of Lieutenant Bligh, whose cruelty leads to a mutiny on his ship. This version follows both the efforts of Fletcher Christian to ...

The Chain
1984
as Nick
Comedy featuring interweaving stories of seven households caught up in a property chain on moving day, each one dependent on the other.

Runners
1983
as Trevor Field
When his young daughter disappears, her father refuses to accept that she is dead and sets out on a journey to find her.

The Tragedy of Richard III
1983
as First Murderer
Richard Duke of Gloucester, youngest brother of King Edward IV, will stop at nothing to get the crown. He first convinces the ailing King that the Duk...

Henry VI Part 3
1983
as Duke of York
The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.

Henry VI Part 2
1983
as Duke of York
The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.

Henry VI Part 1
1983
as Duke of York / Master Gunner Of Orleans
The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.

Gandhi
1982
as Sergeant Putnam
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 Turn for the Worse
1981
as Simon Simpson
Simon Simpson runs an entertainment agency in Liverpool. At one of his regular auditions in The Bootle Railway Club he sees an aggressive young man fr...
Say No to Strangers
1981
as Teresa's Dad
A short film to warn children of sexual predators.
Fox
1980
as Vin Fox
The thirteen-part series recounted the lives of the titular Fox family, who lived in Clapham in South London and had gangland connections.

The Black Stuff
1980
as Yosser Hughes
A Liverpool tarmac gang set off for a contract in Middlesbrough. After a day of work, the group are approached by two gypsies who offer them a lucrati...

Soldiers Talking, Cleanly
1978
as Mick
One man's view of the British Army in Germany - the social life, discipline, drink, women and, occasionally, the defence of the West.

She Fell Among Thieves
1978
as Carson
While on a Pyrenees vacation in 1922, upright English gentleman Richard Chandos (Malcolm McDowell, A Clockwork Orange, Heroes) encounters the villaino...

The Spongers
1978
as Sullivan
In the days leading up the Queen's Silver Jubilee, Pauline, a recently separated single mother, receives a visit from a bailiff and is given 15 days t...

Pit Strike
1977
as Tom
1972: striking miners converge on London's power stations. Among them, the huge, dignified figure of Joshua.

Professional Foul
1977
as Broadbent
Three philosophy professors travel to Prague for a conference. One of them, Anderson, is forced to rethink his ideas on ethics when a former student i...

Daft Mam Blues
1977
as Billy
As sisters, Gladys and Iris never agree about anything - but on one point they're clear: their old mam can't hear a word of their arguments, can she?

Our Flesh and Blood
1977
as Bernard Blincoe
Comedy about a couple expecting their first baby.

It Could Happen to You
1976
as Syph
An educational film about the perils associated with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The drama is interspersed with scenes of a medical adviser ...

Housewives' Choice
1976
as Eric
Marcia is looking for someone to look after her baby and Joyce seems ideal, looking like a perfect, kindly, respectable lady.

Trial by Combat
1976
as Blind Freddie
A group called The Knights Of Avalon are unhappy with the justice system so are taking the law into their own hands by executing criminals using medie...

The Peddler
1976
as Graham
One pill, and you're floating on air. A different one, and you're full of lead. Married, mortgaged, broke, a love-affair gone sour - which drug can he...

Hard Labour
1973
as Edward Thornley
A quiet and put-upon house cleaner breaks her silence.
The Crumblegiant
N/A
as Narrator
An old woman remembers a childhood episode. The past becomes intermingled with the present. The Past becomes intermingled with the present. Past demon...