Biography
An English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Billy Liar (1963), and Dr. Zhivago (1965). Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre. Courtenay received a knighthood in February 2001 for forty years' service to cinema and theatre. Courtenay is the President of Hull City A.F.C.'s Official Supporters Club. In 1999, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Hull Univers...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Alec Guinness: A Class Act
2024
as self
The story of one of Britain's most celebrated actors of the 20th century, told by those who knew and admired him.

The Railway Children Return
2022
as Uncle Walter
Follow a group of children who are evacuated to a Yorkshire village during the Second World War, where they encounter a young soldier who, like them, ...

Summerland
2020
as Mr. Sullivan
A woman during the Second World War opens her heart to an evacuee after initially resolving to be rid of him.

Cinderella: After Ever After
2019
as The King
Cinderella weds her Prince Charming, only to find married life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The Aeronauts
2019
as Arthur Glaisher
In 1862, daredevil balloon pilot Amelia Wren teams up with pioneering meteorologist James Glaisher to advance human knowledge of the weather and fly h...

The Queen's Corgi
2019
as The Duke of Edinburgh (voice)
Since his arrival at Buckingham palace, Rex lives a life of luxury. Top dog, he has superseded his three fellow Corgis in Her Majesty’s heart. His arr...

King of Thieves
2018
as Kenny Collins
London, England, April 2015. Brian Reader, a retired thief, gathers an unlikely gang of burglars to perpetrate the biggest and boldest heist in Britis...

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
2018
as Eben Ramsey
Free-spirited writer Juliet Ashton forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when sh...

Grandpa's Great Escape
2018
as Grandpa
Many years ago, Grandpa was a World War II flying ace, but sadly he is now suffering from Alzheimer's disease. When his family can no longer look afte...

Dad's Army
2016
as Lance Corporal Jones
A cinema remake of the classic sitcom Dad's Army (1968). The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard platoon deal with a visiting female journalist and a German ...

The Legend of Barney Thomson
2015
as Chief Superintendent McManaman
Barney Thomson, awkward, diffident, Glasgow barber, lives a life of desperate mediocrity and his uninteresting life is about to go from 0 to 60 in fiv...

The First Film
2015
as Himself
Leeds born filmmaker David Nicholas Wilkinson's thirty three year quest to prove that the worlds film industry started in Leeds, Yorkshire, England in...

45 Years
2015
as Geoff Mercer
There is just one week until Kate Mercer's 45th wedding anniversary and the planning for the party is going well. But then a letter arrives for her hu...

Night Train to Lisbon
2013
as Older João Eca
Raimund Gregorius, having saved a beautiful Portuguese woman from leaping to her death, stumbles upon a mesmerizing book by a Portuguese author, which...

Quartet
2012
as Reginald Paget
Cissy, Reggie, and Wilf are in a home for retired musicians. Every year, there is a concert to celebrate Composer Giuseppe Verdi's birthday and they t...

Gambit
2012
as The Major
An art curator decides to seek revenge on his abusive boss by conning him into buying a fake Monet, but his plan requires the help of an eccentric and...

The End of an Era
2011
as Dr Blatella (voice)
Human extinction is almost impossible to imagine, but the notion is never far away in environmental debates. This animation takes an insect eye view t...

The Royle Family: Behind the Sofa
2010
as Self
Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash discuss the creation of The Royle Family, with a look behind the scenes at the production of the show and interviews wi...

The New Sofa
2008
as Dave Best Sr.
Festive special edition of the hit family sitcom. Inspired by Nigella Lawson, Denise decides to cook Christmas dinner for the family. Jim provides the...

The Golden Compass
2007
as Farder Coram
After overhearing a shocking secret, precocious orphan Lyra Belacqua trades her carefree existence roaming the halls of Jordan College for an otherwor...

Flood
2007
as Leonard Morrison
Timely yet terrifying, The Flood predicts the unthinkable. When a raging storm coincides with high seas it unleashes a colossal tidal surge, which tra...

Ready When You Are, Mr McGill
2004
as Joe McGill
Remake of the 1976 TV drama by Jack Rosenthal. An extra in a TV drama is finally given a line to say. He goes on to cause mounting chaos

Nicholas Nickleby
2002
as Newman Noggs
Nicholas Nickleby, a young boy in search of a better life, struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his coldheartedly...

Last Orders
2001
as Vic
Jack Dodd was a London butcher who enjoyed a pint with his mates for over 50 years. When he died, he died as he lived, with a smile on his face watchi...

Sir John Mills' Moving Memories
2000
as Self (archive footage)
A film biography with a difference, Sir John Mills' Moving Memories charts the life of one of Britain's most distinguished actors. Compiled from inter...

Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?
2000
as Harold Smith
It's 1976, and Vinny is a confused teenager who can't decide whether he is a disco king or a proto punk rocker.

A Rather English Marriage
1998
as Roy Southgate
A squadron leader and a retired milkman decide to bury their differences and move in together after they are both widowed on the very same night. They...

Famous Fred
1996
as Kenneth (voice)
Based on the book by Posy Simmonds. Mischievous kitten Fred grows up to be feline singing superstar, but a case of cat flu threatens to cut short his ...

The Boy from Mercury
1996
as Uncle Tony Cronin
Set in 1960s Dublin, a fatherless eight-year-old boy who feels alienated by his family, escapes his reality by deciding he's been sent from Mercury to...

The Old Curiosity Shop
1995
as Daniel Quilp
1839. The young Nell Trent is leading a happy life with her grandfather in his curiosity shop. Wharf owner Daniel Quilp has given large amounts of mon...

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Treasure of the Peacock's Eye
1995
as Bronislaw Malinowski
The war in Europe ends but a new adventure begins for Indy when a mysterious man's dying words, "The eye of the peacock!" send him and Remy on a thril...

Let Him Have It
1991
as William Bentley
In 1950s England, slow-witted Derek Bentley falls in with a group of petty criminals led by Chris Craig, a teenager with a fondness for American gangs...

Redemption
1991
as Stan Peachey
After 16 years away Stan Peachey returns to his village. His wife still loves him but his sister wants revenge. What was his crime?

The Last Butterfly
1991
as Antoine Moreau
Stage mime Antoine Moreau is compelled by the Gestapo to put on a performance for the children of Terezin, a "model" concentration camp, to convince t...

Leonard Part 6
1987
as Frayn
After separating from his wife, Leonard Parker (Cosby) quit the spy business and became a restaurateur. His wife refuses to speak with him, and his da...

Happy New Year
1987
as Edward Saunders
Small time crooksters Nick and Charlie have an elaborate plan to rob an exclusive jewelers store. Using a variety of disguises and posing as rich old ...

Me and the Girls
1985
as George
TOM COURTENAY and Nichola McAuliffe star in Ken Taylor's adaptation of the Noel Coward short story, "Me and the Girls", one of a series called "Noel C...

Absent Friends
1985
as Colin
Adaptation of the play by Alan Ayckbourn.

The Dresser
1983
as Norman
In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser, is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles...

I Heard the Owl Call My Name
1973
as Mark Brian
A young priest named mark is sent as a vicar to a native American village in B.C. Canada, there he learns of faith and humanity, as he watches their c...

Catch Me a Spy
1971
as Baxter Clarke
While on vacation, a woman's husband is taken by the Russian government. After one attempt fails, she begins looking for a suitable spy to capture and...

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
1970
as Ivan Denisovich
Fly-on-the-wall treatment of an ordinary day in the life of a prisoner in Stalin's Gulag. Closely adapted from Solzhenitsyn's classic novel based on h...

Otley
1969
as Gerald Arthur Otley
A petty crook finds himself mistaken for a murderer and a secret agent.

A Dandy in Aspic
1968
as Gatiss
Double-agent Alexander Eberlin is assigned by the British to hunt out a Russian spy, known to them as Krasnevin. Only Eberlin knows that Krasnevin is ...

The Day the Fish Came Out
1967
as The Navigator
A plane carrying a weapon more dangerous than a nuclear weapon goes down near Greece. To prevent panic, the officials go in dressed as tourists (who a...

The Night of the Generals
1967
as Corporal Hartmann
A German intelligence officer investigates a prostitute's killing in Warsaw during World War II. He lands on three major Nazi generals as suspects, tw...

Moscow in Madrid
1965
as Self
When David Lean made his film Doctor Zhivago (1965), he realized that it would be impossible to do location shooting in Moscow. Instead, he found a lo...

Doctor Zhivago
1965
as Pasha Antipov / Strelnikov
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship dur...

King Rat
1965
as Grey
When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison....

Operation Crossbow
1965
as Robert Henshaw
Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant. The film alternates between Ge...

Zhivago: Behind the Camera with David Lean
1965
as Self
In this promotional short for the feature film Doctor Zhivago (1965), director David Lean explains why he chose the performers for the leading roles i...

King and Country
1964
as Pvt. Arthur Hamp
During World War I, Army Private Arthur James Hamp is accused of desertion during battle. The officer assigned to defend him at his court-martial, Cap...

Billy Liar
1963
as William Terrence 'Billy' Fisher
A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him...

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
1962
as Colin Smith
A rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy’s reformatory for robbing a bakery, rises through the ranks of the institution by impressing its Governor throu...

Private Potter
1962
as Pvt. Potter
A military mission is interrupted when a soldier claims that God had appeared to him in a transcendental vision.
A Queen at Sea
N/A
A woman moves back to London with her teenage daughter amid concern for her aging mother.