Philip Glenister
Also Known As: Philip Haywood Glenister
Biography: Philip Haywood Glenister is an English actor, known for his role as DCI Gene Hunt in British television series Life On Mars and its sequel Ashes To Ashes. He also played DCI William Bell in State of Play (2003) and Reverend Anderson in Outcast (2016–2018). Glenister was born on 10 February 1963 in Harrow, Middlesex, and grew up in Hatch End. He is the son of director John Glenister and Joan Fry Lewis, and the younger brother of fellow actor Robert Glenister. He attended Hatch End High School. In his early career, he worked as a runner for the Robert Stigwood Organisation. Following this, he worked until the age of 23 as a film publicist, but developed an interest in acting after watching his brother perform in a student play about the Sex Pistols. With the encouragement of his then-sister-in-law, Amanda Redman, he pursued acting and attended the Central School of Speech and Drama. In the early 1990s, Glenister appeared in various TV series including Minder, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, Heartbeat, The Chief, Dressing for Breakfast and Silent Witness. In 1997, he appeared in Sharpe's Justice as Richard Sharpe's half-brother Matt Truman. He played William Dobbin in the 1998 mini-series Vanity Fair. From 1998 to 1999, Glenister co-starred as a mini-cab driver who aspires to be a rock star in the series Roger Roger. He also played factory boss Mack Mackintosh in the first three series of Clocking Off from 2000 to 2002. In 2001, he appeared in two of the Hornblower TV films as Horatio's antagonist Gunner Hobbs. Glenister played the photographer who took nude photos for a Women's Institute fundraising calendar in the 2003 feature film Calendar Girls. Also in 2003, he appeared in the mini-series State of Play. Glenister played the German commandant, Baron Heinrich von Rheingarten, in the 2004 mini-series Island at War about the Occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II. In April 2006, Glenister read the Bedtime Story for the BBC's children's channel, CBeebies. He returned to the slot in February/March 2007. Glenister played social reformer and estate manager Mr Carter in the 2007 BBC costume drama Cranford, as part of a cast including Judi Dench and Francesca Annis. Glenister is probably best known for his role as DCI Gene Hunt in Life on Mars (2006–07), co-starring with John Simm as Sam Tyler, and its sequel Ashes to Ashes (2008–10), with Keeley Hawes as Alex Drake. Glenister also worked with Simm on State of Play and Clocking Off and the 2008 crime film Tuesday. Upon announcement of the film, Glenister joked that he and Simm were contractually obliged to work with each other once a year. Glenister starred as demon hunter Rupert Galvin in the 2009 ITV drama Demons. He used an American accent for the role, which received some criticism from reviewers. After the series was cancelled, he said he had problems with the role and felt that he may have been miscast. In 2010, Glenister had a small role (credited as 'Poker Friend') in Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and he played Charles Forestier in a 2011 feature film of Guy de Maupassant's Bel Ami. He starred in the 2011 conspiracy thriller Hidden on BBC One.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Harrow, Middlesex, England, UK
Adult: No
Popularity:
Known For:
Calendar Girls
Overview: Members of a Yorkshire branch of the Women's Institute cause controversy when they pose nude for a charity calendar.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-09-02
Popularity:
Sheene
Overview: This documentary from BT Sport Films celebrates the life of two-time world champion biker Barry Sheene, paying homage to his trailblazing career.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2023-03-26
Popularity:
Hornblower: Mutiny
Overview: Hornblower and his comrades come under the command of a revered but mentally unstable captain and are forced to mutiny in order to save their ship, the HMS Renown.
Genres: War Adventure TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2001-04-08
Popularity:
I.D.
Overview: Four policemen go undercover and infiltrate a gang of football hooligans hoping to route out their leaders. For one of the four, the line between 'job' and 'yob' becomes more unclear as time passes . . .
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-05-05
Popularity:
Tu£sday
Overview: Four career criminals, two glamorous bank workers and one over-the-hill has-been all happen to be planning a robbery on a London bank on the same day, by sheer coincidence. The two investigating detectives must try and deduce how these seemingly unrelated people came to be in the area and which were responsible for the lifting a priceless emerald.
Genres: Crime Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-10-10
Popularity:
Sharpe's Justice
Overview: Napoleon has been exiled to Elba, the English have returned from the wars, and Major Richard Sharpe finds himself in a sort of exile to lead a company of Yorkshire Yeomen. His duties include protecting mill owners from restless workers who are on the verge of strike or outright revolt. Meanwhile, Sharpe's faithless wife and her lover fall within range of Sharpe's wrath. Sharpe, with his two of his devoted Chosen Men nearby, must decide whether to continue to protect the mill owners or to take the side of their fiercely downtrodden workers.
Genres: War Action Adventure History TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-05-14
Popularity:
The Other Boleyn Girl
Overview: Based on the controversial novel by Philippa Gregory, "The Other Boleyn Girl" is a fictionalised account of the life of Lady Mary Boleyn who becomes mistress to England's king, Henry VIII, before being ousted by her younger sister, Anne. Mary leaves the Court to marry a commoner, but returns when Anne embarks on a reckless policy to save herself from ruin.
Genres: TV Movie Drama History Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-03-28
Popularity:
Loved Up
Overview: Tells the story of a girl who, while working in a London cafe, meets a "raver" who introduces her to the drug Ecstasy and the whole British drugs scene. The girl falls in love with the raver, played splendidly by Ian Hart, but - when fired from her cafe job - she becomes involved with the seedier world of dealing.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-08-21
Popularity:
Just in Case
Overview: How do you battle an invisible demon? How do you survive the war inside your own head? How do you tell your Dad you're fighting for 30? 'Just in Case' explores the harsh reality of what it's really like to live with bipolar disorder.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2021-01-01
Popularity:
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
Overview: Jennifer Saunders and a host of famous faces star in this hilarious Comic Relief reimagining of the hit movie featuring some of ABBA's biggest hits as well as a peek behind the scenes.
Genres: Comedy Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2019-08-09
Popularity:
London Kills Me
Overview: For want of a nail a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe... a young man's life is almost lost, which is exactly what this film is all about: a man barely twenty who wants desperately to pull out of London's drug world by taking a job as a waiter in a 'normal' restaurant. But to do this he must come up with a "sensible" pair of shoes, an item that his homeless meanderings hasn't provided him.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-12-13
Popularity:
Bel Ami
Overview: Georges Duroy travels through 1890s Paris, from cockroach ridden garrets to opulent salons, using his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth, from a prostitute’s embrace to passionate trysts with wealthy beauties, in a world where politics and media jostle for influence, where sex is power and celebrity an obsession.
Genres: Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-03-09
Popularity:
A Fatal Inversion
Overview: Adaptation of the Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell) novel. After Adam inherits a country house from his great uncle, he and his friend Rufus decide to spend the summer there instead of abroad. An odd assortment of 'house guests' turns up through different means and it's an uneasy mix at best. A decade afterwards, the bodies of a young woman and an infant are discovered in the woods behind the house. As the police investigate, they naturally look to Adam as former owner of the house, and what happened all those years before starts to catch up with him.
Genres: Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1992-05-10
Popularity:
True Love
Overview: Comedy drama about Donna (Emma Wray) who tells her philandering husband Phil (Philip Glenister) to leave, and struggles to raise her two children on her nurse's wages. She unexpectedly meets James (Douglas Hodge), who runs a smallholding in the country, but the course of true love does not run smoothly.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1996-02-24
Popularity:
Tales of Television Centre
Overview: Various actors, presenters, directors and other staff who have worked at the iconic BBC Television Centre at Shepherd's Bush in London reminisce about their time there.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-05-17
Popularity:
Byron
Overview: Life and adventures of lord George Gordon Byron. BBC dramatization of the poet's final thirteen years
Genres: Drama Romance History TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-09-27
Popularity:
Hornblower: Retribution
Overview: Hornblower and the other officers of the Renown must return to Jamaica to face a court-martial and possible execution for their actions in relieving their unstable captain.
Genres: War Adventure TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2001-04-15
Popularity:
Sharpe: The Legend
Overview: Several years after the battle of Waterloo, a former soldier from Shoreditch sits in a London inn reminiscing about the brave and determined officer who took him to hell and back. The narrator is Rifleman Cooper, and the officer whose fame he recalls is the legendary Richard Sharpe.
Genres: War Action Adventure History TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-10-13
Popularity:
Spying on Hitler’s Army: The Secret Recordings
Overview: British intelligence undertook an audacious operation to listen in on the private conversations of 10,000 German prisoners of war without their ever knowing they were being overheard. The prisoners' unguarded reminiscences and unintentional confessions have only just come to light, and prove how closely the German army were involved in the atrocities of the Holocaust. British intelligence requisitioned three stately homes for this epic task, and converted each into an elaborate trap. The 100,000 hours of conversation they captured provided crucial intelligence that changed the course of the war, and revealed some of its worst horrors, from rape to mass executions to one of the earliest bulletins from the concentration camps. But when the fighting ended, the recordings were destroyed and the transcripts locked away for half a century. Only now have they been declassified, researched and cross-referenced.
Genres: Drama Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2013-06-02
Popularity:
The Perfect Blue
Overview: When Sunny and Tom are reunited shortly before their respective weddings, the former lovers realize how much they still love each other. The pair must decide whether to turn their backs on the safe and sensible futures they had planned for themselves.
Genres: TV Movie Romance Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-12-19
Popularity:
The Walk
Overview: Charity walkers raising funds for cancer research by crossing the Sahara Desert argue and squabble over their relationships in the past. However when one of their number gets lost each walker begins to put their life in perspective and make decisions on where their real priorities lie.
Genres: TV Movie Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-02-27
Popularity:
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Overview: Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2010-09-22
Popularity:
Kingdom of Heaven
Overview: After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.
Genres: Drama Action Adventure History War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-05-03
Popularity:
Pavlopetri: The City Beneath the Waves
Overview: Just off the southern coast of mainland Greece lies the oldest submerged city in the world. It thrived for 2,000 years during the time that saw the birth of western civilisation. An international team of experts is using cutting-edge technology to prise age-old secrets from the complex of streets and stone buildings that lie less than five metres below the surface of the ocean. State-of-the-art CGI helps to raise the city from the seabed, revealing for the first time in 3,500 years how Pavlopetri would once have looked and operated.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2011-10-09
Popularity:
The Making of... Ashes to Ashes
Overview: The documentary about the making of the critically acclaimed British TV sequel series to the show Life on Mars, featuring behind the scenes interviews with the cast and crew, ahead of the final season.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-05-06
Popularity:
Lloyd & Hill
Overview: Just transferring into a squad run by her ex-Lover, DI Judy Hill is assigned to the case of a strangled schoolgirl.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-07-01
Popularity:
The End of 'Life on Mars'
Overview: A documentary about the conclusion of Life on Mars
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-04-16
Popularity:
The Bill
Overview: A group of friends go out for tapas after a game of badminton; but tempers escalate quickly when they can't agree on how to settle the bill. Who will pay the ultimate price?
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2017-02-21
Popularity: