Joan Plowright
Also Known As: Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, Joan Ann Olivier, Dame Joan Plowright
Biography: Joan Ann Plowright, Lady Olivier, DBE (28 October 1929 - 16 January 2025), better known as Dame Joan Plowright, was an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards. Joan Plowright is also one of only four actresses to have won two Golden Globes in the same year.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Brigg, Lindsey, Lincolnshire, England, UK
Birthday: October 28, 1929
Deathday: January 16, 2025
Adult: No
Gender: Female
Popularity:
Known For:
I Love You to Death
Overview: Joey Boca is the owner of a pizza parlour, and has been married to Rosalie for years. When Rosalie discovers that Joey is a womanizer and has been cheating on her for a long time, she goes to extreme lengths to punish him.
Genres: Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1990-04-06
Popularity:
Avalon
Overview: A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1990-10-05
Popularity:
Dinosaur
Overview: An orphaned dinosaur raised by lemurs joins an arduous trek to a sancturary after a meteorite shower destroys his family home.
Genres: Animation Family Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2000-05-19
Popularity:
A Pyromaniac's Love Story
Overview: A pastry boy and the son of a hair-piece mogul become involved in an arson scandal. Sergio is offered a bribe in exchange for taking the blame for the fire that destroys his workplace. Garet, the real arsonist, is apalled that someone else would try to take credit for his act of love. Before long, Sergio and Garet become entangled in a zany love-quadrangle involving Hattie and Stephanie. Written by Brian Whiting
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-04-28
Popularity:
Tea with Mussolini
Overview: In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.
Genres: Comedy Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1999-03-25
Popularity:
Bringing Down the House
Overview: Uptight lawyer Peter Sanderson wants to dive back into dating after his divorce and has a hard time meeting the right women. He tries online dating and lucks out when he starts chatting with a fellow lawyer. The two agree to meet in the flesh, but the woman he meets — an escaped African-American convict named Charlene — is not what he expected. Peter is freaked out, but Charlene tries to convince him to take her case and prove her innocence. Along the way, she wreaks havoc on his middle-class life as he gets a lesson in learning to lighten up.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-03-07
Popularity:
George and the Dragon
Overview: In 12th century England, the handsome and noble knight, George, has left the Crusades behind to follow his dream of a peaceful life on his own piece of land. However, in order to obtain his land from the ruling King Edgaar, he must help find the King's missing daughter, Princess Lunna, a quest which sees George drawn into an unexpected battle with the kingdom's last surviving dragon.
Genres: Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2004-03-28
Popularity:
101 Dalmatians
Overview: An evil, high-fashion designer plots to steal Dalmatian puppies in order to make an extravagant fur coat, but instead creates an extravagant mess.
Genres: Family Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1996-11-27
Popularity:
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Overview: Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.
Genres: Family Adventure Fantasy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-02-14
Popularity:
Dennis the Menace
Overview: Mr. Wilson's ever-present annoyance comes in the form of one mischievous kid named Dennis. But he'll need Dennis's tricks to uncover a collection of gold coins that go missing when a shady drifter named Switchblade Sam comes to town.
Genres: Family Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1993-06-09
Popularity:
Widows' Peak
Overview: Scandal and mystery reign following the arrival of Edwina in a small Irish town populated entirely by widows. Edwina quickly falls out with the locals while also falling in with the son of the community's leader
Genres: Comedy Thriller Mystery Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-04-15
Popularity:
Enchanted April
Overview: When married British women Rose Arbuthnot and Lottie Wilkins decide to take a break from their respective spouses, they stay at a castle in Italy for a quiet holiday. Joining the ladies is Caroline Dester, a young socialite, and Mrs. Fisher, an older aristocrat. Liberated from their daily routines, the four women ease into life in rural Italy, and each finds herself transformed by the experience.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-11-27
Popularity:
Last Action Hero
Overview: After his father's death, a young boy finds solace in action movies featuring an indestructible cop. Given a magic ticket by a theater manager, he is transported into the film and teams up with the cop to stop a villain who escapes into the real world.
Genres: Adventure Fantasy Action Comedy Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1993-06-18
Popularity:
Britannia Hospital
Overview: Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments.
Genres: Comedy Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-05-27
Popularity:
Revolution
Overview: New York trapper Tom Dobb becomes an unwilling participant in the American Revolution after his son Ned is drafted into the Army by the villainous Sergeant Major Peasy. Tom attempts to find his son, and eventually becomes convinced that he must take a stand and fight for the freedom of the Colonies, alongside the aristocratic rebel Daisy McConnahay. As Tom undergoes his change of heart, the events of the war unfold in large-scale grandeur.
Genres: Adventure Drama History War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1985-12-25
Popularity:
Drowning by Numbers
Overview: Three generations of women who seek to murder their husbands share a solidarity for one another which brings about three copy-cat drownings.
Genres: Comedy Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1988-09-10
Popularity:
Knife Edge
Overview: A successful Wall Street trader returns to England with her new husband and five-year-old son, but their new start together turns into a nightmare when they move into a country house which contains a terrible secret.
Genres: Horror Mystery Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-10-23
Popularity:
Back to the Secret Garden
Overview: A youngster living in a stately home discovers the magical garden Mary, Colin & Dickon stumbled across years before - but faces a battle with the housekeeper over whether to nurture it.
Genres: Fantasy Drama Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2000-09-02
Popularity:
Equus
Overview: A psychiatrist, Martin Dysart, investigates the savage blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in Hampshire, England. The atrocity was committed by an unassuming seventeen-year-old stable boy named Alan Strang, the only son of an opinionated but inwardly-timid father and a genteel, religious mother. As Dysart exposes the truths behind the boy's demons, he finds himself face-to-face with his own.
Genres: Drama Mystery Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1977-10-16
Popularity:
Time Without Pity
Overview: Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son’s name while battling “the bottle.”
Genres: Crime Thriller Mystery Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1957-03-21
Popularity:
I Am David
Overview: Based on Anne Holm's acclaimed young adult novel North to Freedom, I Am David chronicles the struggles of a 12-year-old boy who manages to flee a Communist concentration camp on his own -- through sheer will and determination. All he has in his possession is a loaf of bread, a letter to deliver to someone in Denmark and a compass to help get him there.
Genres: Drama Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-12-03
Popularity:
Global Heresy
Overview: A rock band bursts onto the scene and then their frontman disappears on the eve of a European tour.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-09-03
Popularity:
Jane Eyre
Overview: After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meet the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1996-01-20
Popularity:
Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont
Overview: All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, an elderly woman strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-11-25
Popularity:
Callas Forever
Overview: Aging opera singer Maria Callas tries to make a comeback by performing in a production of Bizet's "Carmen."
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-09-18
Popularity:
Dance with Me
Overview: Young Cuban Rafael just buried his mother, and comes to Houston to meet his father John for the first time. The difficult part is that John doesn't know he is Rafael's father. John runs a dance studio, and everyone prepares for the World Open Dance championship in Las Vegas. It soon becomes clear Rafael is a very good dancer, and Ruby is the biggest hope for the studio at the championship.
Genres: Drama Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-08-21
Popularity:
Scrooge and Marley
Overview: Ebenezer Scrooge is back in a made-for-TV film produced by Coral Ridge Ministries. The ill-tempered miser is played by skilled Christian actor Dean Jones, widely acclaimed for his acting ability in St. John in Exile and well-known for many Disney movies and Broadway shows.
Genres: Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2001-12-01
Popularity:
The Entertainer
Overview: Archie Rice, an old-time British vaudeville performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1960-07-25
Popularity:
Brimstone & Treacle
Overview: A strange young man has a sinister effect on the family of a middle-aged writer.
Genres: Mystery Drama Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-10-01
Popularity:
Hotel Sorrento
Overview: Meg, Pippa, and Hillary are sisters who grew up in Sorrento, a small seaside town in Australia. Meg, who has lived in England for 10 years has just written a criticially acclaimed novel which she claims is entirely fictional. The book causes a stir in Sorrento and in her family when it is supected that the book is not as fictional as she claims.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-04-20
Popularity:
The Diary of Anne Frank
Overview: The story of a 13-year-old Jewish girl and her family who are forced into hiding by the Nazis during World War II.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1980-11-17
Popularity:
Stalin
Overview: The life and career of the brutal Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin.
Genres: Drama History War TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1992-11-21
Popularity:
A Place for Annie
Overview: Baby Annie is HIV positive and has been left in the clinic by her drug addicted mother. To prevent that she's deported to a home where they'd just wait for her to die, nurse Susan takes charge of Annie at her home. Two years later she plans too adopt her -- but suddenly Annie's mother reappears and demands her back. And under the law, Susan, as foster-mother, has no claim to the child.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-05-01
Popularity:
The Dressmaker
Overview: In England during World War II, a repressed dressmaker and her sister struggle looking after their 17-year-old niece, who is having a delusional affair with an American soldier.
Genres: Drama Romance War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1988-12-16
Popularity:
The Summer House
Overview: Margaret (Lena Headey) is a shy, pale, middle-class Englishwoman who is reluctantly engaged to her older, twittish neighbor Syl Monro (David Threlfall). Both bride- and groom-to-be still live with their mothers in the humdrum suburb of Croydon. However Margaret has been acting strangely ever since a vacation in Egypt, where she stayed with her mother's friend Marie-Claire (Catherine Schell). She secretly despises Syl, but does not resist when her mother Monica (Julie Walters), who has repressed the failure of her own matrimony, insists on marriage for the sake of social convention.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1993-12-21
Popularity:
Goose on the Loose
Overview: Grieving young Will Donnelly looks to protect his new best friend, a talking goose, from school Principal Congreve Maddox, who's fattening up the bird for a Christmas cook-off.
Genres: Adventure Comedy Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-01-13
Popularity:
Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within
Overview: Fact-based story about a 90's espionage case that was chronicled as the worst case of espionage in US history
Genres: Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-11-29
Popularity:
The Merchant of Venice
Overview: An Edwardian take on the Shakespeare play starring Laurence Olivier.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1973-10-07
Popularity:
Twelfth Night
Overview: Sir Alec Guinness, Sir Ralph Richardson and Joan Plowright star in this merry on-stage mix-up of identity, gender and love in Tony Award-winner John Dexter’s production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Originally broadcast on Britain’s ITV, this classic performance captures all the slapstick, puns and double entendres that have amazed and amused audiences for over four hundred years.
Genres: Drama Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1970-07-12
Popularity:
A Pin for the Butterfly
Overview: Communism seen through the eyes of a young girl who watches her beloved uncle struggle with the oppressive government .
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-02-16
Popularity:
Three Sisters
Overview: Nearly a thousand miles away from their beloved Moscow, Chekhov's Three Sisters live in virtual exile. Olga , a schoolmistress, attempts to support her siblings and the home that is the sole legacy of their late father.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1970-04-01
Popularity:
Mr. Wrong
Overview: A single and lonely woman finds the seemingly perfect man to date, but soon regrets it when his deranged and possessive other personality emerges and worst still, she cannot convince anyone else of his Jekyll/Hyde true nature.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1996-02-16
Popularity:
Bailey's Mistake
Overview: "Bailey's Mistake" is the name of a cold, dreary island that a bitter widow finds herself stuck on. Seems Liz Donovan got cut out of her husband's will because he'd secretly spent all his money on a New England island. Kids in tow, Liz discovers spooky secrets while getting to know the eccentric natives.
Genres: Fantasy Drama Family TV Movie Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2001-03-17
Popularity:
The Scarlet Letter
Overview: Set in puritanical Boston in the mid 1600s, the story of seamstress Hester Prynne, who is outcast after she becomes pregnant by a respected reverend. She refuses to divulge the name of the father, is "convicted" of adultery and forced to wear a scarlet "A" until an Indian attack unites the Puritans and leads to a reevaluation of their laws and morals.
Genres: Drama Romance Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-10-13
Popularity:
And a Nightingale Sang
Overview: Set in working class Newcastle, the Stott family fight their private battles against the backdrop of the conflict of World War II. Helen Stott, over thirty and with a limp, is resigned to being left on the shelf until she meets and falls in love with Norman, a serviceman from London. In contrast, her younger sister Joyce has quite a way with men, and finds herself a little too popular with the troops, especially when her husband pops up on leave from his regiment.
Genres: Romance Comedy Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-04-17
Popularity:
The House of Bernarda Alba
Overview: A domineering,reclusive, and ostentatiously pious widow in a small Spanish town keeps such close watch on her daughters that they are unable to have normal social lives. However, the eldest is allowed to become engaged to an unprincipled young man, primarily for the financial advantages it will bring the mother, Bernarda. Jealousy and envy ensues among the other daughters.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-12-18
Popularity:
The Return of the Native
Overview: Eustacia Vye, an exquisite beauty despairing at her boring life on an English moor, sets up a fateful lovers' triangle when she uses her wiles to entice two men, a dashing suitor and a successful man who made his name abroad and returned to his home on the heath.
Genres: Drama Romance TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-12-04
Popularity:
Surviving Picasso
Overview: The passionate Merchant-Ivory drama tells the story of Francoise Gilot, the only lover of Pablo Picasso who was strong enough to withstand his ferocious cruelty and move on with her life.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1996-09-04
Popularity:
Daphne Laureola
Overview: A young man becomes infatuated with the exotic Lady Pitts whose much older husband is not pleased.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-01-15
Popularity:
Frankie & Hazel
Overview: Actress JoBeth Williams directed this Showtime family feature starring The Sixth Sense's Mischa Barton for Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films. Barton is Frankie and Ingrid Uribe is Hazel, Frankie's neighbor and best friend. Frankie is an orphan who lives with her imperious grandmother, Phoebe (Joan Plowright), while Hazel lives with her father and older brother. Frankie's mother was a prima ballerina--killed in a car crash along with her father--and Frankie's been following in her toe shoes ever since. Although she's the best dancer in her class, she'd rather play baseball, whereas Hazel's a local activist who'd rather be mayor. The story strains credibility when 13-year-old Hazel runs for office against the middle-aged incumbent, but Frankie's goal is more understandable, and both actresses make their characters sympathetic and believable. It's as hard not to like them as it is not to root for them to succeed.
Genres: Drama Family TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2000-10-08
Popularity:
Tom's Midnight Garden
Overview: When Tom's brother Peter gets measles, he is sent to stay with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen in a flat with no garden and an elderly landlady, Mrs Bartholomew, living upstairs. Because he may be infectious, he is not allowed to play outside and feels lonely. Without exercise he is less sleepy at night and when he hears the communal grandfather clock strangely strike 13, he investigates and finds the small back yard is now a large sunlit garden.
Genres: Family Mystery Adventure Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1999-07-02
Popularity:
Curious George
Overview: When The Man in the Yellow Hat befriends Curious George in the jungle, they set off on a non-stop, fun-filled journey through the wonders of the big city toward the warmth of true friendship.
Genres: Adventure Animation Comedy Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-02-10
Popularity:
Saturday, Sunday, Monday
Overview: One Saturday evening Rosa Priore is preparing a magnificent Sunday lunch for her family and their friends. By Sunday afternoon her life and marriage are in ruins.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-01-01
Popularity:
Nothing Like a Dame
Overview: BBC Arena's documentary on the Dames of British Theatre and film featuring Maggie Smith, Elieen Atkins, Judi Dench and Joan Plowright on screen together for the first time as they reminisce over a long summer weekend in a house Joan once shared with Sir Laurence Olivier.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2018-05-02
Popularity:
On Promised Land
Overview: In the 1950s, the Ween family live and work on land that was promised to their family. The landowners, the Appletree family, use the promise of the land to keep the family working for them, putting the transfer of the land in doubt.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-04-17
Popularity:
The Birthday Party
Overview: It is Stanley's birthday, but the party he is given is not quite what he expects. [A BBC production broadcast on the Theatre Night series.]
Genres: TV Movie Drama Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1987-06-21
Popularity:
The Importance of Being Earnest
Overview: Filled with wit and wisdom, The Importance of Being Earnest tells the tale of Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff. Jack has invented an imaginary brother, Earnest, whom he uses as an excuse to escape from his dull home in the country and frolic in town. Algernon uses a similar technique, only in reverse: His imaginary friend, Bunbury, provides a convenient and frequent method of taking adventures in the country. However, their deceptions eventually cross paths, resulting in a series of crises that threaten to spoil their romantic pursuits; Jack of his love Gwendolen Fairfax, and Algernon of his belle Cecily Cardew.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1988-05-29
Popularity:
Uncle Vanya
Overview: Adaptation of Chekhov's play from the Chichester Festival.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-11-20
Popularity:
A Dedicated Man
Overview: Edith is a hotel waitress, single and in her mid-forties, with a major infatuation on Maurice Silcox, the hotel's head waiter. But Edith becomes distraught when she learns that Maurice has been offered a more prestigious job at a luxury hotel. Maurice explains to Edith that he can only take the position if he is married. Unaware Edith's crush, Maurice proposes. She accepts and they set up a household for business purposes only -- complete with a photograph of a make-believe son. As Edith continues to live with this charade, her obsession with Maurice and the "son" grows, leading to a shocking and disturbing outcome!
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-03-31
Popularity:
Franco Zeffirelli: Directing from Life
Overview: Franco Zeffirelli passed away on 15th June 2019. Chris Hunt's biography explores how Zeffirelli's sense of drama was born out of his own experience and how his life inspired his productions. Chris Hunt interviewed him and other famous actors, friends and associates, had a camera at Zeffirelli's 94th birthday and during the opening of his foundation in Florence. This documentary, including clips from operas, films and plays aims to be the definitive portrait of a Renaissance man larger than life.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2018-11-15
Popularity: