Des McAleer

Acting

Des McAleer

Born

1952-05-25 (74)

Place of birth

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Known for

Acting

Credits

49 titles

Des McAleer is a Belfast born actor of film, TV and stage.

Known for

Film credits

2010s · 7 titles

How I Live Now poster
6.6

An American girl, sent to the English countryside to stay with relatives, finds love and purpose while fighting for her survival as war envelops the world around her.

How I Live Now

2013

My Week with Marilyn poster
6.7

London, 1956. Genius actor and film director Laurence Olivier is about to begin the shooting of his upcoming movie, premiered in 1957 as The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe. Young Colin Clark, who dreams on having a career in movie business, manages to get a job on the set as third assistant director.

My Week with Marilyn

2011

The Children Act poster
6.6

In the midst of a marital crisis, a High Court judge must decide if she should order a life-saving blood transfusion for a teen with cancer despite his family's refusal to accept medical treatment for religious reasons.

The Children Act

2018

North poster
6.4

Isolated on a farm and fighting against his family's decision, Aaron struggles to be heard as he watches his mother willingly die.

North

2014

Lost Lives poster
6.0

This poignant testament to the physical and emotional cost of war, centres on the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Lost Lives

2019

National Theatre Live: The Seagull poster
NR

On a summer's day in a makeshift theatre by a lake, Konstantin's cutting-edge new play is performed, changing the lives of everyone involved forever. Chekhov's masterly meditation on how the old takes revenge on the young is both comic and tragic, and marks the birth of the modern stage. Adapted by David Hare whose stage plays include Skylight, Pravada, and screenplays include The Hours and The Reader, directed by Jonathan Kent (Gypsy, Private Lives).

National Theatre Live: The Seagull

2016

Out of Innocence poster
6.6

After a police investigation, a young mother, confused and scared, confesses to a crime she did not commit and is charged with murder.

Out of Innocence

2019

2000s · 6 titles

Hunger poster
7.2

The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.

Hunger

2008

An Everlasting Piece poster
5.9

Colin is a Catholic and George is a poetry-loving Protestant. In Belfast in the 1980s, they could have been enemies, but instead they became business partners. After persuading a mad wig salesman, known as the Scalper, to sell them his leads, the two embark on a series of house calls

An Everlasting Piece

2000

When the Sky Falls poster
5.0

Fact-based story about Irish crime-investigating reporter Sinead Hamilton, who invaded the Irish underworld and attempted to expose the illegitimate activities she found. Hampered by the system, a police consort is ineffectual at aiding her despite trying to step outside of the normal bounds. Kevin McNally plays her husband, who hates her activities and the danger in which she places herself. Nonetheless, he grudgingly admires her persistence and encourages her investigation.

When the Sky Falls

2000

Nuremberg: Goering's Last Stand poster
7.0

The Nuremberg trials, 1946 Goering and the Nazi high command stand trial. Within the prison a dangerous mind game is being conducted by Goering and the prison guards who stand watch over the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

Nuremberg: Goering's Last Stand

2006

Deadlines poster
9.0

Alex Randal (Stephen Moyer), a young reporter on the make, decides, without knowing anything about the situation, to go to Beirut on October 23, 1983, when he hears a radio report about suicide trucks exploding on both an American base and a French base, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of soldiers. Seduced by a gifted and enigmatic photographer, Julia Muller (Anne Parillaud), Randal finds a capitol torn by civil war, where political, financial and strategic interests intertwine.

Deadlines

2005

The Penalty King poster
6.7

Lee, a soccer player who descends into depression when he goes blind, is encouraged to take up the game again by a maverick American and the inspiration of Leeds Utd legend, Billy Bremner.

The Penalty King

2006

1990s · 9 titles

Angela's Ashes poster
7.3

An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.

Angela's Ashes

1999

I Want You poster
5.6

A young boy and his sister are drawn into one man's obsessive pursuit of his former lover.

I Want You

1998

Hidden Agenda poster
7.0

In Ireland, American lawyer Ingrid Jessner and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against the Northern Irish during the "Troubles." But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jessner teams up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan's colleagues.

Hidden Agenda

1990

Butterfly Kiss poster
6.4

Deeply mentally unbalanced drifter Eunice roams grim northern Britain committing psychosexual serial murders of both men and women while ostensibly searching for an unknown woman named Judith. She spares the life of lonely but kind-hearted gas station cashier Miriam, who abandons her dismal life to follow her damaged new lover. While attempting to hide the evidence of her multiple crimes, Miriam tries to understand Eunice's bizarre quest.

Butterfly Kiss

1995

This Is the Sea poster
6.0

The film is set in Northern Ireland shortly after 1994 cease-fire. Hazel is a Protestant and Malachy a Catholic. Romance between them is threatened by Rohan (leader in militant underground and pal of Malachy's brother Padhar), who wants Malachy to be recruited and fight for the cause and by Hazel's brother Jef, who spies on her meetings.

This Is the Sea

1997

Titanic Town poster
5.3

Belfast 1972: The politically naive Bernie is trying to bring up a normal family in less than normal surroundings. Her best friend is accidentally shot dead by the IRA, and her neighbours are constantly raided by the army. In this climate of fear she stands up and condemns the murders. Criticising both factions, her call for a ceasefire is interpreted as an attack against the IRA, and as her peace movement takes momentum, she and her family are placed in the frontline.

Titanic Town

1998

Life After Life poster
10.0

Leo Doyle, a convicted IRA murderer, is released into the community after 14 years in prison on a scheme to rehabilitate former terrorists. He soon finds that the ceasefire has robbed him of both purpose and identity. Relationships with his family are difficult and reach boiling point when they find that he has rekindled his affair with a former fiancee Roisin, now married with three children.

Life After Life

1995

Family poster
8.0

This four-part made-for-TV drama focuses up close on a Dublin couple with four children. Charlo is a hustler, a head-first footballer, a thief, abusive. Paula drinks, objects to Charlie's thievery and adultery without the will to chuck him out. John Paul worships his father who's initiating him into the world of beer and football but recoils at Charlo's treatment of mum; asthma and misbehavior at school follow. Daughter Nicola is a young woman, starting work in a garment factory. When Charlo begins to stare at her, she's frightened and Paula's furious.

Family

1994

Shoot to Kill poster
NR

Shoot to Kill is a four-hour drama documentary reconstruction of the events that led to the 1984–86 Stalker Inquiry into the shooting of six terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland in 1982 by a specialist unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), allegedly without warning (the so-called shoot-to-kill policy); the organised fabrication of false accounts of the events; and the difficulties created for the inquiry team in their investigation.

Shoot to Kill

1990

1980s · 8 titles

No artwork available
NR

8-year-old Terry comes to stay with his uncle and aunt on their farm on one of the magical Irish isles. But this is a lonely place for a little boy whose mother has just died... A movie of Celtic pathos, "The Schooner" will remain in the memory long after its viewing.

The Schooner

1983

Four Days in July poster
6.6

Two couples, one Catholic, one Protestant, exist on two sides of the chasm that is everyday life in Northern Ireland.

Four Days in July

1984

The Writing on the Wall poster
10.0

A youth workshop in Derry is mounting various projects, including a dramatized enquiry into the death of a soldier. But when a squaddie is shot on the doorstep, then real life intrudes in the shape of the police and security forces.

The Writing on the Wall

1983

Coppers poster
7.0

Two bored twentysomethings buy a Vauxhall Cavalier kit it out with a siren and spend their evenings masquerading as police officers in this Screen One TV movie

Coppers

1988

Juno and the Paycock poster
NR

During the Irish Civil War in 1922, a family earns a big inheritance. They start leading a rich life, forgetting what the most important values are. In the 1980 BBC adaptation of "Juno and the Paycock," Dudley Sutton played the role of Captain Jack Boyle, alongside Frances Tomelty as Juno. The play, written by Seán O'Casey, is set in Dublin during the Irish Civil War and centers on the Boyle family's experiences with an anticipated inheritance and the subsequent fallout.

Juno and the Paycock

1980

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

No Man's Land

1986

Anne Devlin poster
7.0

The story of Anne Devlin, who was caught up in the revolt of the Irish under Robert Emmett in 1803, told exclusively from the woman's point of view.

Anne Devlin

1984

Crossfire poster
NR

A police computer expert is seconded to Belfast to track down the identity of an IRA mole.

Crossfire

1988

Series credits

Casualty poster
6.2

Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.

Casualty

1986

The Crown poster
8.2

The gripping, decades-spanning inside story of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Prime Ministers who shaped Britain's post-war destiny. The Crown tells the inside story of two of the most famous addresses in the world – Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street – and the intrigues, love lives and machinations behind the great events that shaped the second half of the 20th century. Two houses, two courts, one Crown.

The Crown

2016

Silent Witness poster
7.6

A team of exceptional forensic pathologists and scientists investigate heinous crimes and use their skills to catch the people responsible.

Silent Witness

1996

Heartbeat poster
7.1

Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

Heartbeat

1992

The Bill poster
6.8

The daily lives of the men and women at Sun Hill Police Station as they fight crime on the streets of London. From bomb threats to armed robbery and drug raids to the routine demands of policing this ground-breaking series focuses as much on crime as it does on the personal lives of its characters.

The Bill

1984

Screen Two poster
7.1

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Screen Two

1985

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast poster
7.1

Three lifelong pals embark on a chaotic quest to solve the mystery of their old friend's suspicious death and keep their own dark secret under wraps.

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast

2026

Between the Lines poster
5.5

Detective Superintendent Tony Clark is an ambitious member of the Complaints Investigation Bureau, an internal organisation that investigates claims of corruption inside the police in England and Wales. Along the way Clark overcomes strong influence from his superiors and problems in his private life, most notably the break-up of his marriage following an affair with WPC Jenny Dean.

Between the Lines

1992

Hope Street poster
5.2

Port Devine, a small town in Northern Ireland, sees the mysterious arrival of English detective Leila Hussain, the first Muslim police officer in the town's history. Her entrance opens the door for a variety of cases among the locals.

Hope Street

2021

The Paradise Club poster
6.2

Focuses on brothers Frank and Danny Kane. Their mother is the matriarch of a South London criminal gang, assisted by Danny. Frank has become a priest but leaves the church; he inherits The Paradise Club following the death of their mother and returns to London to try and steer Danny away from crime.

The Paradise Club

1989

Death and Nightingales poster
6.4

Fermanagh, Irish countryside, 1885. On her 23rd birthday, Beth, who lives on a remote farm with Billy Winters, her tyrannical stepfather, whom she can barely stand, prepares to flee from such a suffocating life with the help of the seductive Liam Ward, without being aware that her decision will unearth deeply buried secrets a long time ago.

Death and Nightingales

2018

Wuthering Heights poster
7.1

Young orphan Heathcliff is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Edgar Linton, a man of means who befits her stature. Heathcliff vows to win her back.

Wuthering Heights

2009

Touching Evil poster
7.6

Follow the exploits of the Organized and Serial Crime Unit (OSC). Maverick Detective Inspector Dave Creegan is the newest member of the unit, an elite, rapid-response crime squad. The OSC uses their diverse crime-fighting skills to bring justice to society.

Touching Evil

1997

My Mother and Other Strangers poster
6.4

Drama series set in 1943 following the Coyne family and their neighbours as they struggle to maintain a normal life after a US Army Air Force base is set up in the middle of their rural parish.

My Mother and Other Strangers

2016

Trainer poster
6.0

Trainer was a British television series transmitted by the BBC between 1991 and 1992. Filmed in and around the village of Compton near Newbury, the series was set in the world of horse racing. It starred Mark Greenstreet as Mike Hardy, an aspiring horse trainer keen to set up his own stables. Other major characters included local gambler John Grey and widow Rachel Ware. Trainer lasted for two series and was the last TV project for producer Gerard Glaister. The theme song, "More to Life", was performed by Cliff Richard. The song was written by Simon May and Mike Read. The first series of 13 episodes was given the prime time Sunday night slot on BBC1 which had previously been occupied by another Glaister creation Howards' Way and a horse-racing storyline from that earlier programme provided much of the inspiration for Trainer. However, with ratings of around 6 million, the second series was reduced to ten episodes and shown on Wednesday evenings.

Trainer

1991

No artwork available
7.0

Belfast-set comedy series about best mates and colleagues, Catholic Tommy and protestant Dougy, who own and run the Safe And Sound garage.

Safe And Sound

1996

No artwork available
10.0

The series follows the lives of a team of paramedics and emergency medical technicians with the North Area Ambulance Service, facing life and death situations in the fictional city of Matherton.

Picking Up the Pieces

1998

No artwork available
NR

Short lived sitcom about an inept and run down motorbike courier business.

Roy's Raiders

1991