Phyllida Law

Acting

Phyllida Law

Born — Died

1932-05-08 — 2026-07-27

Place of birth

Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Known for

Acting

Credits

90 titles

Phyllida Law OBE (8 May 1932 — 27th July 2026) was a Scottish actress of screen and stage, and the mother of actresses Emma and Sophie Thompson.

Known for

Film credits

2010s · 6 titles

2000s · 22 titles

Nanny McPhee poster
6.7

Widower Cedric Brown hires Nanny McPhee to care for his seven rambunctious children, who have chased away all previous nannies. Taunted by Simon and his siblings, Nanny McPhee uses mystical powers to instill discipline. And when the children's great-aunt and benefactor, Lady Adelaide Stitch, threatens to separate the kids, the family pulls together under the guidance of Nanny McPhee.

Nanny McPhee

2005

Miss Potter poster
6.7

Beatrix Potter, the author of the beloved children's book "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", struggles for love, happiness and success.

Miss Potter

2006

Unleashed poster
7.0

Raised as a slave, Danny is used to fighting for his survival. In fact, his "master," Bart, thinks of him as a pet and goes as far as leashing him with a collar so they can make money in fight clubs, where Danny is the main contender. When Bart's crew is in a car accident, Danny escapes and meets a blind, kindhearted piano tuner who takes him in and uses music to free the fighter's long-buried heart.

Unleashed

2005

The Time Machine poster
6.4

Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th-century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds mankind divided into two warring races.

The Time Machine

2002

Saving Grace poster
6.5

Unexpectedly widowed, prim and proper housewife Grace Trevethyn finds herself in dire financial straits when she inherits massive debts her late husband had been accruing for years. Faced with losing her house, she decides to use her talent for horticulture and hatches a plan to grow potent marijuana which can be sold at an astronomical price, thus solving her financial crisis.

Saving Grace

2000

Day of Wrath poster
4.5

At the height of the Spanish Inquisition, high-ranking noblemen begin dropping like flies, with alarming frequency and unexplained violence. But can local 16th-century sheriff Ruy de Mendoza discern who's responsible when no one wants to cooperate? After all, before Mendoza can even identify the bodies, the crime scenes are mysteriously cleared - and the villagers pretend the murders never happened.

Day of Wrath

2006

I'll Be There poster
5.4

A has-been rock star that discovers he has a teenage daughter from a long forgotten love affair.

I'll Be There

2003

A Little Trip to Heaven poster
5.4

Insurance investigator Abraham Holt travels to a tiny town in rural Minnesota to look into a particularly unusual insurance claim stemming from a horrific car accident. As Holt examines the scene of the wreck, it all seems a bit too perfect. And when he interviews Isold Mcbride and her shifty husband, Fred -- the impoverished beneficiaries of the massive, recently initiated life-insurance policy -- he begins to suspect that something is amiss.

A Little Trip to Heaven

2005

Copying Beethoven poster
6.5

Serving as Ludwig van Beethoven's copyist gives a conservatory student access to the composer's musical genius, but also exposes her to his cruelty.

Copying Beethoven

2006

Miss Austen Regrets poster
6.1

Jane Austen is about to turn 40, but she still hasn't found her ideal man. When Jane is approached by her niece Fanny and asked to help select the perfect husband for the young girl, the aging spinster begins to wonder why it is that she never found a man to share her own life with.

Miss Austen Regrets

2008

Tooth poster
4.1

Tooth is a young, feisty Tooth Fairy, who lives in a world called Fairytopia that has lost its ability to use magic. Fed up with the way most fairies have forgotten about magic, she decides to give away all of its money. When Tooth begins to understand how much trouble she is in, she realizes the only person who can help is the legendary Mrs. C, who disappeared, along with magic over 100 years ago. Teaming up with two human children and a number of fairies, who are living incognito amongst humans she sets off on the adventure of a lifetime. Pursued by the evil Plug, a terrifying fairy hunter and his posse, the race is on to save the world before Christmas, Easter and all the holidays are ruined forever.

Tooth

2004

Two Men Went To War poster
6.7

Comedy drama based on the true story of two British Army dentists who in 1942, eager to see action, go AWOL and invade occupied France on their own.

Two Men Went To War

2002

Mee-Shee: The Water Giant poster
5.5

A New York City oil company troubleshooter is brought to a remote B.C. lake to look for some lost machinery. Cancelling a trip to Disney World with his son, he decides to bring the boy along. They both end up experiencing more excitement than Mickey could ever conjure in Orlando, when they meet up with bad guys and a legendary creature

Mee-Shee: The Water Giant

2005

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: The Perils of Cupid poster
5.8

First love - or first infatuation - overwhelms Indy in Vienna, where he is smitten with the daughter of Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Needing emotional guidance, Indy consults Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to discover what love is all about. In Florence, when Indy's mother is equally smitten with Giacomo Puccini, composer of Romantic operas La Boheme and Tosca, Indy must guide his parent safely back to her spouse.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: The Perils of Cupid

2000

How Proust Can Change Your Life poster
6.2

A docu-drama portrait of the early-20th-century French author Marcel Proust, based on Alain de Botton's updated analysis of his work as a modern-day self-help guide. Ralph Fiennes plays Proust, with Phyllida Law and Donald Sinden as his contemporaries, while commentators including de Botton, Louis de Bernières and Doris Lessing explain their enthusiasm for his work.

How Proust Can Change Your Life

2000

Brush with Fate poster
6.0

A mystery hidden for generations. Now the truth will finally be revealed.

Brush with Fate

2003

Lecture 21 poster
6.1

A student takes a bizarre trip through the Italian Alps after being inspired by a professor's lecture on Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from his Ninth Symphony.

Lecture 21

2008

Pinochet in Suburbia poster
5.3

In 1998 former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet visits Britain for medical treatment. On being tipped off, Amnesty International seize the chance to bring to justice a man they insist is guilty of multiple human rights violations. The newly-elected Labour government is initially amenable, and soon Pinochet is under house arrest (albeit in a detached house in leafy suburbia) and awaiting extradition to Spain. However, Amnesty are up against the complexities of British law, the vacillations of Home Secretary Jack Straw, Pinochet's former ally Margaret Thatcher - and the Senator's own vast reserves of cunning.

Pinochet in Suburbia

2006

The Waiting Room poster
5.4

Two complete strangers, ANNA and STEPHEN, are brought together by chance by an elderly man who waits for his wife on a station platform. Their fateful meeting acts as a catalyst for them to examine and challenge what's going on in their different relationships, and make hard but positive decisions for themselves. If they can change their lives maybe they can meet again.

The Waiting Room

2007

Blinded poster
8.0

While doing her rounds in the Scottish countryside, Doctor Caroline Lamar comes upon a hitchhiker, and offers him a lift. Young Danish backpacker Mike Hammershoi explains that he is looking for work in the area, and so she points him in the direction of Black's farm, an isolated steading. Francis Black, the owner, who is blind, and lives there with his ailing mother Bella, and enigmatic young wife Rachel, tells Mike he can work in the yard. But put off by the foreboding atmosphere, Mike declines. A chance encounter with Rachel, however, persuades him to stay and settle in. Since the accident that blinded him two years earlier, Francis has become incresingly bitter, and sensing hs young wife's attraction to the stranger, orders him to leave. But rather than force them apart, Mike's imminent departure only serves to bind teh two in a passionate relationship that will ultimately have dark consequences for them all.

Blinded

2004

The Swap poster
6.5

British Tv Movie Thriller

The Swap

2002

Mia Sarah poster
7.0

In the half-light of a an old stately home, Samuel Davila and his grandfather Paul, once a revered writer, create schemes to repel the latest in a long line of psychologists come to cure the grandson of his severe agoraphobia: some delicious biscuits with added spice, a refreshing glass of water with added laxative

Mia Sarah

2006

1990s · 12 titles

Much Ado About Nothing poster
7.0

In this Shakespearean farce, Hero and her groom-to-be, Claudio, team up with Claudio's commanding officer, Don Pedro, the week before their wedding to hatch a matchmaking scheme. Their targets are sharp-witted duo Benedick and Beatrice -- a tough task indeed, considering their corresponding distaste for love and each other. Meanwhile, meddling Don John plots to ruin the wedding.

Much Ado About Nothing

1993

Emma poster
6.6

Emma Woodhouse is a congenial young lady who delights in meddling in other people’s affairs. She is perpetually trying to unite men and women who are utterly wrong for each other. Despite her interest in romance, Emma is clueless about her own feelings, and her relationship with gentle Mr. Knightley.

Emma

1996

The Winter Guest poster
6.5

It's winter in a small Scottish village near the sea, and multiple lives intersect in a day. Frances has just lost her husband to an early death, so her mother, Elspeth, travels to Frances' house to reconnect with her daughter and grandson, Alex. Meanwhile, old women Chloe and Lily go to a funeral, youngsters Sam and Tom cut class, and Alex gets a crush on tomboy Nita.

The Winter Guest

1997

Before the Rain poster
7.3

The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during the war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.

Before the Rain

1994

Anna Karenina poster
6.1

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.

Anna Karenina

1997

Judas Kiss poster
5.7

The shooting of a U.S. senator's wife raises the stakes for kidnappers seeking a hefty ransom for a computer magnate.

Judas Kiss

1998

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

Peter's Friends poster
6.6

After inheriting a large country estate from his late father, Peter invites his friends from college: married couple Roger and Mary, the lonely Maggie, fashionable Sarah, and writer Andrew, who brings his American TV star wife, Carol. Sarah's new boyfriend, Brian, also attends. It has been 10 years since college, and they find their lives are very different.

Peter's Friends

1992

The Blue Boy poster
6.2

Marie is an insecure housewife whose husband, Joe, is having an affair. The two of them take a holiday to rural Scotland, but by sheer bad luck, end up at the hotel Joe uses for his "getaways." There, Marie is told the story of a young boy who drowned in a nearby lake long ago, and finds herself becoming more and more obsessed with his ghost.

The Blue Boy

1994

The Lost Lover poster
3.7

After their son dies, a Jewish family moves from London to Israel in an attempt to piece their lives back together. The mother finds a way out of her depression through a relationship with a younger man—which doesn't seem to bother her husband. Meanwhile, their daughter begins dating a Palestinian handyman.

The Lost Lover

1999

Mad Cows poster
4.4

When her TV star husband Alex decides to divorce her so that he can start a career in politics, newly single mother Maddy goes shoplifting and ends up in jail. Losing custody of her infant child, Maddy hatches a scheme to break out of prison with the assistance of her friend Gillian, who's avoiding the law herself for credit card fraud. Now Maddy has to find the couple who have adopted her son and avoid falling in love with selfish Alex all over again.

Mad Cows

1999

Milk poster
4.0

Forty-five-year-old Adrian has been living with his mother Lucy and running their Wiltshire dairy farm all his adult life. When Lucy unexpectedly dies of a heart attack, a rogue's gallery of family members show up at the farm to argue over the execution of Ruth's will. The one object that everyone seems to want, and several people try to steal, is Ruth's valuable Modigliani painting. In the midst of all this confusion over Ruth's death, a mysterious visitor named Ilaria inserts herself onto the scene and has a surprising effect on those gathered.

Milk

1999

1970s · 5 titles

Series credits

Midsomer Murders poster
7.5

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

Midsomer Murders

1997

Midsomer Murders poster
7.5

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

Midsomer Murders

1997

Agatha Christie's Poirot poster
8.2

From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.

Agatha Christie's Poirot

1989

Agatha Christie's Poirot poster
8.2

From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.

Agatha Christie's Poirot

1989

Ready, Steady, Cook poster
8.0

Talented chefs battle it out against the clock, creating delicious dishes in 20 minutes

Ready, Steady, Cook

1994

Play for Today poster
6.6

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

Play for Today

1970

Play for Today poster
6.6

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

Play for Today

1970

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

Minder poster
7.2

Roguish comedy drama following the misadventures of small-time crook Arthur Daley.

Minder

1979

Tales of the Unexpected poster
6.8

A British television anthology of stories, often with sinister and wryly comedic undertones, and a twist at the end. With early episodes written and presented by Roald Dahl, the series featured a plethora of big name guest stars.

Tales of the Unexpected

1979

Waking the Dead poster
7.2

A detective team apply new techniques to old crimes as they solve cold cases.

Waking the Dead

2001

Screen Two poster
7.1

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Screen Two

1985

No artwork available
4.5

The Alan Titchmarsh Show is a British daytime chat show presented by Alan Titchmarsh. It was first broadcast on ITV on 3 September 2007 and currently airs on weekday afternoons. The show's main focus is the "Best of British" theme with many of the shows' segments focusing on fashion, health, nature, cookery and animals.

The Alan Titchmarsh Show

2007

Foyle's War poster
7.9

As WW2 rages around the world, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front as he investigates crimes on the south coast of England. Foyle's War opens in southern England in the year 1940. Later series sees the retired detective working as an MI5 agent operating in the aftermath of the war.

Foyle's War

2002

Upstairs, Downstairs poster
7.8

Upstairs: the wealthy, aristocratic Bellamys. Downstairs: their loyal and lively servants. For nearly 30 years, they share a fashionable townhouse at 165 Eaton Place in London’s posh Belgravia neighborhood, surviving social change, political upheaval, scandals, and the horrors of the First World War.

Upstairs, Downstairs

1971

Taggart poster
6.6

Taggart is a Scottish detective television program. The series revolves around a group of detectives initially in the Maryhill CID of Strathclyde Police, though various storylines have happened in other parts of the Greater Glasgow area, and as of the most recent series the team have operated out of the fictional John Street police station across the street from the City Chambers.

Taggart

1983

ITV Saturday Night Theatre poster
7.0

Anthology series of dramatic works.

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

1969

Rumpole of the Bailey poster
7.1

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.

Rumpole of the Bailey

1975

Rumpole of the Bailey poster
7.1

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It stars Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients, and has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.

Rumpole of the Bailey

1975

Timeshift poster
7.0

Documentary series which ranges widely over Britain's social and cultural history, its narrative-led storytelling offering a richly immersive and varied window onto the past.

Timeshift

2002

The Sarah Jane Adventures poster
7.1

Sarah Jane Smith is a truly remarkable woman who inhabits a world of mystery, danger and wonder; a world where aliens are commonplace and the Earth is under constant threat. A world that Maria Jackson, a seemingly ordinary girl, can only dream of – until she moves in next door. Nothing will ever be ordinary again.

The Sarah Jane Adventures

2007

Monarch of the Glen poster
7.3

Archie MacDonald, a young restaurateur is called back to his childhood home of Glenbogle where he is told he is the new Laird of Glenbogle.

Monarch of the Glen

2000

BBC2 Play of the Week poster
7.0

An anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.

BBC2 Play of the Week

1977

Dixon of Dock Green poster
6.0

Dixon of Dock Green was a BBC television series following the activities of police officers at a fictional Metropolitan Police station in the East End of London from 1955 to 1976. Some episodes were later remade as a BBC radio series in 2005 and 2006.

Dixon of Dock Green

1955

The House of Eliott poster
6.6

Two sisters who set up a London fashion house for society of the early 1920s.

The House of Eliott

1991

No artwork available
NR

Drama 61-67 is anthology drama series which took a different title, based on year of transmission, each year. It alternated with Armchair Theatre from ABC in the Sunday evening slot. The series was described at the time as epitomising ATV drama.

Drama 61-67

1961

Hamish Macbeth poster
7.7

Hamish Macbeth is a comedy-drama series made by BBC Scotland and first aired in 1995. It is loosely based on a series of mystery novels by M. C. Beaton. The series concerns a local police officer, Constable Hamish Macbeth in the fictitious town of Lochdubh on the west coast of Scotland. The titular character was played by Robert Carlyle. It ran for three series from 1995 to 1997, with the first two series having six episodes and the third having eight.

Hamish Macbeth

1995

Kingdom poster
7.1

Looks can be deceiving. Peter Kingdom seems to have everything — a man of some standing in the seaside town of Market Shipborough, he dresses well and has all the trappings of success. Why, then, does he wander along the beach and stare out to sea for hours at a time? Despite Peter's thriving legal practice, he must deal with his dysfunctional family (which includes his unstable sister) and his grief over his missing half-brother and law partner, Simon.

Kingdom

2007

The Main Chance poster
8.2

The Main Chance was a British television series which first aired on ITV between 1969,1970,1972 and 1975. A drama, it depicts the sudden transformation in the life of solicitor David Main who relocates from London to Leeds.

The Main Chance

1969

A Bit of Fry & Laurie poster
7.9

A British comedy television series with turns of phrase and elaborate wordplay, written by and starring former Cambridge Footlights members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

A Bit of Fry & Laurie

1989

The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns poster
7.0

In a land of myth and magic, a forbidden love affair ignites an ancient war between the leprechauns and the trooping fairies. Jack Woods is appointed to restore harmony...but will peace prevail before the unthinkable happens?

The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns

1999

Hallmark Hall of Fame poster
8.8

Long-running anthology program sponsored by Hallmark Cards. Beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2019, the series received 80 Emmy Awards, 24 Christopher Awards, 11 Peabody Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 4 Humanitas Prizes. Early seasons were a weekly live drama, eventually transitioning to videotaped and then filmed productions broadcast as occasional specials.

Hallmark Hall of Fame

1951

Judith Krantz's Till We Meet Again poster
7.0

Judith Krantz's Till We Meet Again was a 1989 TV mini-series based on the Judith Krantz novel, Till We Meet Again. It starred Mia Sara, Bruce Boxleitner, Hugh Grant and Courteney Cox.

Judith Krantz's Till We Meet Again

1989

No artwork available
NR

An anthology of 1920s set plays and musicals, transmissioned from 10 September to 10 December 1968 on BBC One.

The Jazz Age

1968

When the Boat Comes In poster
7.7

When the Boat Comes In is a British television period drama produced by the BBC between 8 January 1976 and 21 April 1981. Taking place between 1919 to 1937, Jack Ford is a veteran of The Great War who returns to his poverty-stricken (fictional) town of Gallowshield in the North East of England. It dramatises the interwar political struggles of the 1920s and 1930s, and explores the impact of national and international politics upon Ford and those around him.

When the Boat Comes In

1976

Afterlife poster
7.2

University lecturer Robert Bridge becomes involved in a series of supernatural events surrounding medium Alison Mundy.

Afterlife

2005

No artwork available
NR

Dramatisations of three different women, three different cases—Constance Kent (episodes 1–8), Mary Blandy (9–14), and Adelaide Bartlett (15–22)—all 18th- and 19th-century murderesses.

A Question of Guilt

1980

No artwork available
NR

This is a series of thrillers designed to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

Menace

1970

The Barchester Chronicles poster
7.3

The Barchester Chronicles is a 1982 BBC television serial produced by Jonathan Powell and dramatised by Alan Plater, based on Anthony Trollope's first two Chronicles of Barsetshire, The Warden (1855) and Barchester Towers (1857). Against the sumptuous background of Peterborough Cathedral and its environs, one is carried into Trollope's world of the intriguing machinations of the clerical establishment of Barchester. Backed by the authenticity of the period detail, the portrayal of all the characters accurately conveys the whole range of human emotions within the stories.

The Barchester Chronicles

1982

No artwork available
6.3

That's love! is a British television sitcom about the domestic problems of a young married couple, lawyer Donald and designer Patsy.

That's Love

1988