Biography
John Bernard "Bernard" Lee was an English actor, best known for his role as M in the first eleven James Bond films.
Known For
Complete Filmography
Best Ever Bond
2002
as M (archive footage) (uncredited)
Roger Moore presents the ten best sequences ever to have appeared in the James Bond series, and cast members recall their favourite moments.

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...

Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective
1981
as Sgt. Ben
When D. C. Dangerous Davies, not held in high regard by his superiors, is assigned to find a notorious criminal kingpin, he uncovers the details of 15...

Moonraker
1979
as M
After Drax Industries' Moonraker space shuttle is hijacked, secret agent James Bond is assigned to investigate, traveling to California to meet the co...

Death Becomes Me
1979
as Sam Milford
Two episodes of the TV series "The Persuaders" joined into a movie. Two playboys, Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) and Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis), investig...

Seawrack
1978
as Man
On the shoreline of Lancashire's Lune Estuary, an old tramp is befriended by a young lad who volunteers with the St John's Ambulance.

A Christmas Carol
1977
as Ghost of Christmas Present
Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his yout...

The Spy Who Loved Me
1977
as M
Russian and British submarines with nuclear missiles on board both vanish from sight without a trace. England and Russia both blame each other as Jame...

Beauty and the Beast
1976
as Edward Beaumont
A beautiful girl agrees to marry a hideous, deformed beast and live in his castle in order to save her father's life.

From Hong Kong with Love
1975
as M
Bons baisers de Hong Kong (From Hong Kong with Love) is a 1975 French film directed by Yvan Chiffre. It is a parody of James Bond movies featuring Les...

Murrain
1975
as Beeley
When a mystery illness infects the pigs of a village farmer and a local boy is also taken ill, the villagers try to convince a veterinarian that it is...

The Man with the Golden Gun
1974
as M
Cool government operative James Bond searches for a stolen invention that can turn the sun's heat into a destructive weapon. He soon crosses paths wit...

Percy's Progress
1974
as Barraclough
Percy, the man with the world's first penis transplant, discovers that there is a chemical in the world's water that makes men impotent.

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell
1974
as Tarmut
Dr Simon Helder, sentenced to an insane asylum for crimes against humanity, recognises its director as the brilliant Baron Frankenstein, the man whose...

Live and Let Die
1973
as M
James Bond must investigate a mysterious murder case of a British agent in New Orleans. Soon he finds himself up against a gangster boss named Mr. Big...

The Man Who Died Twice
1973
as Francis Cumberland
A painter who surfaces after having disappeared for seven years finds himself contending with art forgeries and a crooked art dealer.
The Man in a Looking Glass
1972
as Morgan Travis
A robbery is prevented by an undercover art dealer pretending to be a criminal. Edited from TV series, The Baron.

Diamonds Are Forever
1971
as M
Diamonds are stolen only to be sold again in the international market. James Bond infiltrates a smuggling mission to find out who's guilty. The missio...

Dulcima
1971
as Mr Gaskain
Dulcima, treated as a drudge by her family, becomes a housekeeper to Parker, a curmudgeonly widower living in drunken disarray on a neighbouring farm....

The Raging Moon
1971
as Uncle Bob
Bruce Pritchard is paralysed in a soccer game and is confined to a wheelchair in a convalescence home. But this doesn't slow his lust for life. Then h...
Danger Point
1971
Three irresponsible teenagers borrow a yacht belonging to the local Sea Scouts and run out of fuel. They hoist the sail in an endeavour to stop the bo...

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
1969
as M
James Bond tracks his archnemesis, Ernst Blofeld, to a mountaintop retreat in the Swiss alps where he is training an army of beautiful, lethal women. ...

Crossplot
1969
as Chilmore
A successful London ad-exec hires a beautiful Hungarian girl to pose for some modeling shots, little realising that she has overheard an assassination...

You Only Live Twice
1967
as M
A mysterious spacecraft captures Russian and American space capsules and brings the two superpowers to the brink of war. James Bond investigates the c...

Operation Kid Brother
1967
as Commander Cunningham
The evil crime syndicate Thanatos is bent on taking over the world, using a magnetic wave generator that will cause all metal-based machinery to grind...

The Night Before The Morning After
1966
as Daniel Whittaker
Susan and Neville begin to have doubts the evening before their wedding.

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
1965
as Patmore
British agent Alec Leamas refuses to come in from the Cold War during the 1960s, choosing to face another mission, which may prove to be his final one...

Thunderball
1965
as M
A criminal organization has obtained two nuclear bombs and are asking for a 100 million pound ransom in the form of diamonds in seven days or they wil...

The Incredible World of James Bond
1965
as Bernard Lee: M (Vice Admiral Sir Miles Messervy KCMG)
This promotional film was aired on American television on 26 November 1965, one month before the release of Thunderball (1965). Narrated by Alexander ...

The Legend of Young Dick Turpin
1965
as Jeremiah
When a rapacious new landlord threatens to evict him, seize his horse, and leave him penniless, the young farmer Dick Turpin flees to London and reluc...

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors
1965
as Hopkins (segment 2 "Creeping Vine")
Five strangers board a train and are joined by a mysterious fortune teller who offers to read their Tarot cards. Five separate stories unfold: An arch...

Goldfinger
1964
as M
Special agent 007 comes face to face with one of the most notorious villains of all time, and now he must outwit and outgun the powerful tycoon to pre...

Who Was Maddox?
1964
A publisher is nearly framed for murder, but he appears to have been goaded by the blackmailer who has also blackmailed the publisher's wife.

Saturday Night Out
1964
as George Hudson
Five seamen and a passenger are intent on making the most of the 14 hours they will spend in London.

Ring of Spies
1964
as Henry Houghton
The film is based on the actual events of the Portland Spy Ring trial in the U.K. A disgruntled Navy Clerk is transferred to a secret research establi...

From Russia with Love
1963
as M
Agent 007 is back in the second installment of the James Bond series, this time battling a secret crime organization known as SPECTRE. Russians Rosa K...

A Place to Go
1963
as Matt Flint
Set in contemporary Bethnal Green in east London, A Place to Go charts the dramatic changes that were happening in the lives of the British working-cl...

Two Left Feet
1963
as Mr Crabbe
Based on David Stuart Leslie's novel Two Left Feet is a story about Alan Crabbe (Michael Crawford a callow youth desperate for a date with any girl wh...

The L-Shaped Room
1962
as Charlie
Jane is young, French, pregnant and unmarried. Bucking convention, she is uninterested in settling with her baby's father or getting an abortion. Afte...

Dr. No
1962
as M
Agent 007 battles mysterious Dr. No, a scientific genius bent on destroying the U.S. space program. As the countdown to disaster begins, Bond must go ...

The Brain
1962
as Dr. Frank Shears
A millionaire businessman's brain is kept alive after a fatal accident, and communicates clues to a doctor on the trail of the killer

The Share Out
1962
A gang of high class corporate thieves use blackmail to induce their victims to sell property at knock-down prices.

Clue of the Silver Key
1961
as Superintendent Meredith
The police investigate the murder of a wealthy old man.

Whistle Down the Wind
1961
as Mr. Bostock
When an injured wife-murderer takes refuge on a remote Lancashire farm, the farmer’s three children mistakenly believe him to be the Second Coming of ...

The Secret Partner
1961
as D.S. Frank Hanbury
A shipping tycoon with a record becomes a suspect when money goes missing from the company vault.

Partners in Crime
1961
as Inspector Mann
British crime film directed by Peter Duffell and starring Bernard Lee, Moira Redmond and John Van Eyssen, loosely based on the 1918 novel "The Man Who...

Fury at Smugglers' Bay
1961
as Black John
It is the end of the 18th century and smuggling is considered to be a legitimate spare-time occupation for most fishermen around the British shores. B...

Clue of the Twisted Candle
1960
A man is murdered in a room with no windows and a steel lined door which locks only from the inside.

Cone of Silence
1960
as Capt. George Gort
A seasoned pilot is condemned for an error which causes a crash. The pilot later dies in a crash with similar circumstances and an examiner looks for ...

The Angry Silence
1960
as Bert Connolly
When the union in his factory walks out on strike, a family man refuses to participate, risking the wrath — and retaliation — of his fellow workers.

Kidnapped
1960
as Captain Hoseason
Kidnapped and cheated out of his inheritance, young David Balfour falls in with a Jacobite adventurer, Alan Breck Stewart. Falsely accused of murder, ...

Sink the Bismarck!
1960
as Firing Officer (uncredited)
The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bi...

Web of Evidence
1959
as Patrick Mathry
A World War II evacuee returns years later to England and finds his father in prison framed for murder.

Danger Within
1959
as Lieutenant Colonel Huxley
Drama set in an Italian prisoner of war camp during World War 2, where a group of British soldiers find their plans for escape thwarted by a mysteriou...

Nowhere to Go
1958
as Victor Sloane, alias Lee Henderson
A professional thief is sprung from prison with the assistance of a new partner who wants to know where he's hid his loot.

The Man Upstairs
1958
as Inspector Thompson
The mental breakdown of a guilt-ridden man provides the drama in this fascinating psychological profile starring Richard Attenborough as a scientist w...

The Key
1958
as Cmdr. Wadlow
In wartime England, circa 1941, poorly-armed tugs are sent into "U-Boat Alley" to rescue damaged Allied ships. An American named David Ross arrives to...

Dunkirk
1958
as Charles Foreman
A British Corporal in France finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed. He has to get them back to Britain someh...

High Flight
1957
as Flight Sergeant Harris
The Commanding Officer of an RAF Training School must deal with a difficult cadet, but the cadet reminds the C.O. of himself when young.

Across the Bridge
1957
as Chief Inspector Hadden
In Mexico, a financier on the run poses as a man he just murdered, only to find out that the man was also a murderer.

Fire Down Below
1957
as Doctor Sam
Tony and Felix own a tramp boat, and sail around the Caribbean doing odd jobs and drinking a lot. They agree to ferry the beautiful but passportless I...

The Spanish Gardener
1956
as Leighton Bailey
Harrington Brande, a British diplomat who recently broke up with his wife, is stationed in a small coastal town in Spain with his son, Nicholas. Harri...

The Battle of the River Plate
1956
as Captain Dove - M.S. Africa Shell
In the early years of the World War II, the Royal Navy is fighting a desperate battle to keep the Atlantic convoy routes open to supply the British Is...

The Ship That Died of Shame
1955
as Customs Officer Brewster
After World War II the crew of a motor gunboat join together to buy their old vessel and go into business for themselves. This may sound like a laudab...

Out of the Clouds
1955
as Customs Officer
A day following workers at an airport

The Purple Plain
1954
as Dr. Harris
An RAF airfield in Burma in 1945, during World War II. Canadian bomber pilot Bill Forrester is a bitter man who lives haunted by a tragic past. He has...

Seagulls Over Sorrento
1954
as Lofty Turner
A Navy lieutenant is borrowed by the British to supervise torpedo experiments after one of their scientists is killed.

Father Brown
1954
as Inspector Valentine
Works of art are disappearing, stolen by a master thief, a master of disguise. Father Brown has two goals: to catch the thief and to save his soul.

Beat the Devil
1953
as Insp. Jack Clayton
A group of con artists stake their claim on a bogus uranium mine.

Sailor of the King
1953
as Petty Officer 'Stokes' Wheatley
A British naval officer has a brief affair with a woman in England and never knows that she bears him a son. 20 years later the boy is on a ship under...

The Yellow Balloon
1953
as Constable Chapman
A young boy is blackmailed by a crook who saw him unwittingly cause his friend's death.

Gift Horse
1952
as A.S. 'Stripey' Wood
Compton Bennett's war drama The Gift Horse follows the fortunes of ageing destroyer The Ballantrae and her crew from the time they come together in 19...

Mr. Denning Drives North
1951
as Inspector Dodds
When well-off aircraft designer Denning finds his daughter's current boyfriend is a nasty character he tries to buy him off, ending up hitting him and...

Appointment with Venus
1951
as Brigadier
At the outbreak of WWII the British realise they can't prevent the invasion of the Channel Islands. However, someone realises that a prize cow is on t...

Calling Bulldog Drummond
1951
as Colonel Webson
Bulldog Drummond leaves retirement to help a Scotland Yard Sergeant catch thieves armed with radar.

Fortune in Diamonds
1951
as O'Connell
As the Boer War ends a South African soldier hides a cache of diamonds he finds on a body. He returns to the town he left three years earlier where hi...

White Corridors
1951
as Burgess
White Corridors was based on Yeoman Hospital, a novel by Helen Ashton. Told episodically, the story concentrates on the day-to-day activities in a bus...

Cage of Gold
1950
as Inspector Grey
The love that Judy, a young painter, feels for Alan, a promising doctor to whom she is engaged, falters when Bill, an old friend, suddenly appears.

Odette
1950
as Jack
The film is based on the true story of Special Operations Executive French-born agent Odette Sansom, who was captured by the Germans in 1943, condemne...

Last Holiday
1950
as Inspector Wilton
George Bird is a salesman of agricultural machinery who finds out that he hasn't long to live. On his doctor's advice, he goes to an exclusive seaside...

Morning Departure
1950
as Cmdr. Gates
The crew of a submarine is trapped on the sea floor when it sinks. How can they be rescued before they run out of air?

The Blue Lamp
1950
as Divisional Detective Inspector Cherry
P.C. George Dixon is a long-serving traditional copper who is due to retire shortly. He takes a new recruit under his aegis and introduces him to the ...

The Third Man
1949
as Sergeant Paine
In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he ...
I Have Been Here Before
1949
as Walter Ormund
Guests at an hotel become irrationally convinced that they have been there before - perhaps in a different life?

Elizabeth of Ladymead
1948
as John Beresford in 1903
Four generations of a British family live through their experiences in the Crimean War, Boer War, WWI and WWII.

Quartet
1948
as Ned Preston, a Prison Visitor (segment "The Kite")
Somerset Maugham introduces four of his tales in this anthology film: "The Facts of Life," "The Alien Corn," "The Kite," and "The Colonel's Lady."

The Fallen Idol
1948
as Detective Hart
Phillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, idolizes Baines, his father's butler, a kind of hero in the eyes of the child, whose perception changes ...

The Adventures of Dusty Bates
1947
as Captain Ford
Dusty Bates observes some smuggled jewels hidden in a crate aboard a ship; he is pursued by low-lifes when the crate is put ashore.

The Courtneys of Curzon Street
1947
as Colonel Gascoyne
On New Years Eve, 1899, baronet's son Edward Courtney becomes engaged to Kate, his mother's maid, much to the scandal of London society. The film then...

This Man Is Mine
1946
as James Nicholls
One wartime Christmas the well-to-do Ferguson family extends a festive welcome to various strays, with comic results.

The New Lot
1943
as Interviewing Officer
A new batch of Army recruits, from diverse backgrounds and with varying degrees of commitment, is shaped into an efficient fighting unit.
Once a Crook
1941
as Duke
Once a Crook is a 1941 British crime film directed by Herbert Mason and featuring Gordon Harker, Sydney Howard, Bernard Lee, Kathleen Harrison, and Ra...

Spare a Copper
1940
as Jake
George is an inept reserve policeman working in wartime Liverpool, who is chosen by a gang of Nazi saboteurs as the stooge for their planned destructi...

Let George Do It!
1940
as Oscar
Shortly after the start of World War II, a ukelele player (George) takes the wrong boat and finds himself in (still uninvaded) Norway. He is mistaken ...

The Frozen Limits
1939
as Bill McGrew
The Crazy Gang join the 1898 gold rush. Unfortunately it's now 1939 and they're a bit late.

Murder in Soho
1939
as Roy Barnes
A London nightclub hostess pretends to fall for the mobster who killed her husband.

The Outsider
1939
as Cameraman
A controversial osteopath sets out to cure the daughter of a famous surgeon - and falls in love with her in the process.

The Terror
1938
as Ferry Fane
For ten years, The Terror has laughed at both police and public. And for ten years, two of his erstwhile associates, Joe Conner and 'Soapy' Marks, hav...

Rhodes of Africa
1936
as Cartwright
Rhodes of Africa is a 1936 British biographical film charting the life of Cecil Rhodes. It was directed by Berthold Viertel and starred Walter Huston,...
The River House Mystery
1936
as Wade Belloc

The Black Tulip
N/A
as William Of Orange
In the Dutch Republic in 1672, a wealthy man named Cornelius Van Baerle devotes his life to growing tulips, unaware of his family's close involvement ...