Waris Hussein

Directing

Waris Hussein

Born 1938-12-09 · Lucknow, United Provinces, British India

Waris Hussein (né Habibullah; born 9 December 1938) is a British-Indian television and film director. At the beginning of his career, he was employed by the BBC as its youngest drama director. He directed early episodes of Doctor Who, including the first serial, An Unearthly Child (1963), and later directed the multiple-award-winning Thames Television serial Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978).

Acting credits

Mrs. Henderson Presents poster
6.7

Recently widowed well-to-do Laura Henderson purchases the Windmill Theatre in London as a post-widowhood hobby. After starting an innovative continuous variety review, which is copied by other theaters, they begin to lose money. Mrs Henderson suggests they add risqué burlesque acts similar to the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

Mrs. Henderson Presents

2005

Mr. Nice poster
6.1

Biopic about 1970s Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.

Mr. Nice

2010

Richard Burton: Wild Genius poster
7.5

The son of a Welsh miner, Richard Burton became a Hollywood star and is considered one of the greatest British actors ever. He lived a big life in a short time. This is his epic story, from the village of Pontrhydyfen to global icon, and from the teacher in Port Talbot spotting his talents and transforming his life to being offered $7 million for seven movies and a scandalous love affair with Elizabeth Taylor that captivated the world.

Richard Burton: Wild Genius

2025

Cult People poster
7.0

In interviews, various actors and directors discuss their careers and their involvement in the making of what has come to be known as "cult" films. Included are such well-known genre figures as Russ Meyer, Curtis Harrington, Cameron Mitchell and James Karen.

Cult People

1989

Verity Lambert: Drama Queen poster
NR

A tribute to Verity Lambert, the BBC's first female producer and one of the country's most influential pioneers of television drama.

Verity Lambert: Drama Queen

2008

Doctor Who: 60 Years of Secrets & Scandals poster
4.7

Behind-the-scenes stories from the long-running sci-fi drama. There are tales of stunts that went dangerously wrong and secrets of how the crew brought monsters to life, as well as revelations about how some storylines proved to be so scary the BBC were forced to re-edit episodes.

Doctor Who: 60 Years of Secrets & Scandals

2023

Doctor Who: Origins poster
8.5

A 55-minute documentary, detailing the creation of Doctor Who, including a rare interview with creator Sydney Newman, and new interviews with producer Verity Lambert, directors Waris Hussein and Richard Martin, actors William Russell and Carole Ann Ford, title sequence designer Bernard Lodge, and TARDIS sound effect creator Brian Hodgson

Doctor Who: Origins

2006

Tales of Television Centre poster
8.0

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.

Tales of Television Centre

2012

Over the Edge: The Story of 'The Edge of Destruction' poster
7.0

Documents the making of the Doctor Who Serial, 'The Edge of Destruction'. It was released on the DVD of the serial and hence in The Beginning box set.

Over the Edge: The Story of 'The Edge of Destruction'

2006

Inside the Spaceship: The Story of the TARDIS poster
8.0

A feature on Doctor Who: The Beginning box set which tells the stories of the Doctor's time machine - the TARDIS.

Inside the Spaceship: The Story of the TARDIS

2006

Behind the camera

Forbidden Nights poster
6.3

Judith Shapiro's dream has come true. Due to the process of opening to the west in China she has been invited to stay for two years in Shang Sa, Hunan as a school teacher. As soon as she arrives she has to deal with problems such as only cold water to wash, an unlockable door at her room and so on. All these problems are nothing compared to the difficulties she has in understanding chinese social interacting. When she falls in love with one of her students, things are going to get really weird.

Forbidden Nights

1990

Melody poster
7.1

Two youngsters declare to their parents that they want to get married. Not sometime in the future but as soon as possible.

Melody

1971

Sleeping Dog poster
NR

A black barman upsets a colonial Governor who has just retired and returned to England. He locks the barman in the cellar and treats him like an animal.

Sleeping Dog

1967

The Possession of Joel Delaney poster
5.6

An upper-class Manhattan divorcee comes to believe that her brother is possessed by the spirit of a serial killer who beheaded young women in Spanish Harlem.

The Possession of Joel Delaney

1972

The Clothes in the Wardrobe poster
6.0

Margaret is a shy, pale, middle-class Englishwoman who is reluctantly engaged to her older, twittish neighbor Syl. 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. She secretly despises Syl, but does not resist when her mother, who has repressed the failure of her own matrimony, insists on marriage for the sake of social convention.

The Clothes in the Wardrobe

1993

Copacabana poster
7.2

In 1948, aspiring songwriter Tony works as a bar pianist; he meets aspiring star Lola, and is immediately smitten. At Manhattan's Copacabana lounge, they both start finding fame. However, fate steps in and she is swept to Havana to work in a splashy nightclub act where she is convinced she will find her stardom. Instead, she finds Rico, a suave gangster and the club owner.

Copacabana

1985

Henry VIII and His Six Wives poster
5.8

Adapted from the BBC2 serial The Six Wives of Henry VIII. 1547, King Henry VIII's life has taken a turn for the worse and he is forced to look back over his life and the many loves which had brought him his three children, only one of which was the desired male heir to secure the Tudor dynasty.

Henry VIII and His Six Wives

1972

Surviving poster
5.0

Lonnie and Rick seem to be complete opposites, at first glance. A survivor of suicide, Lonnie is introverted and ill at ease around her parents, Lois and Harvey. Rick, meanwhile, is sunny and charismatic. But appearances can be deceiving, as their families learn when the teens begin a romance. Upset about Lonnie's influence on Rick, his parents forbid the pair to see each other -- with tragic consequences.

Surviving

1985

A Touch of Love poster
6.6

Intellectually driven doctoral student Rosamund Stacey, while undertaking graduate work at the British Museum, becomes pregnant after a brief affair with a television newsreader. Against the advice of her best friend, Lydia, Rosamund chooses to keep the baby and adjusts her life to include both her studies and her pregnancy. However, when the baby is born, an unforeseen complication threatens the self-sufficient life Rosamund plans for herself.

A Touch of Love

1969

Sixth Happiness poster
4.8

Waris Hussein’s acclaimed drama is based on the autobiography of Firdaus Kanga, who stars in the lead role of Brit, a young man born with brittle bone disease, which causes him to have never grown beyond four feet tall. The film follows his sexual awakening whilst his family simultaneously disintegrates all around him. An extremely moving drama confronting stereotypes around disability, sexuality and race, featuring a powerhouse performance from Kanga.

Sixth Happiness

1997

Onassis: The Richest Man in the World poster
6.6

Biography of the life of Aristotle Onassis, a Greek who rose to become one of the world's most wealthiest men, detailing his rise to power and unhappy marriages.

Onassis: The Richest Man in the World

1988

A Child's Wish poster
6.3

A family discovers their youngest daughter has cancer. But the real struggle has yet to start.

A Child's Wish

1997

Arch of Triumph poster
5.2

A 1985 British made-for-television film based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, which was previously adapted in 1948 for a film of the same name with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Dr. Ravic (Anthony Hopkins) is an Austrian doctor who helps Jews escape from the Nazis. In 1939, he meets Joan Madou (Lesley-Anne Down), a woman he saves from suicide, and their relationship flourishes until he is arrested as a refugee without documentation and realizes he has some unfinished business with the Nazis. After a prolonged separation, without explanation, the two are finally reunited and struggle to put their relationship back on the right course as mayhem breaks out all around them.

Arch of Triumph

1984

Her Best Friend's Husband poster
5.1

Would you betray your best friend for your own happiness? This is the moral dilemma one woman faces after she is called upon to help save her best friend's marriage, and the unthinkable happens. She and the husband find themselves falling in love.

Her Best Friend's Husband

2002

Callie & Son poster
6.7

A fictional drama, covering a 30-year period, about a poverty-stricken teenager forced to give up her illegitimate son at birth, and the climb to wealth and power as the wife of a newspaper publisher who helps her locate her son, in whose future she becomes obsessed.

Callie & Son

1981

A Passage to India poster
8.0

The BBC's 1965 adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, screened as part of their Play of the Month strand, adapted by Santha Ramu Rau and John Maynard, and directed by Waris Hussein.

A Passage to India

1965

Downpayment on Murder poster
6.3

About an estranged husband who, in an explosive rage, decides to have his wife murdered by a hired killer.

Downpayment on Murder

1987

No artwork available
10.0

An adopted child's world falls apart when his mother decides to walk out on her marriage.

Toggle

1968

Fall from Grace poster
4.0

Fall from Grace describes the war of the young English-French Catherine, her mother is killed in 1940 during the German campaign against France, Catherine escapes to England where she eventually volunteers to become a spy. The Movie is based on a book by Larry Collins.

Fall from Grace

1994

Spoiled poster
NR

A schoolmaster invites a nineteen-year-old student to stay with him and his wife to cram for imminent exams.

Spoiled

1968

She Woke Up poster
5.7

A socialite comes out of a coma determined to identify her assailant who may be a family member with a motive to strike again.

She Woke Up

1992

Maggie poster
NR

Following the death of her husband, Maggie Webb finds herself left with numerous debts and back taxes. Her wealthy sister-in-law, Diane, hires her to her London-based PR firm.

Maggie

1986

Killer Instinct poster
6.2

Woody Harrelson stars in the story of psychiatrist Lisa DaVito and her battle to save a tortured man whose past has turned him to violence. One tragic incident seals his fate and shakes Lisa's faith in her profession.

Killer Instinct

1988

Edward & Mrs. Simpson poster
10.0

While still the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII meets the married American socialite, Wallis Simpson. Their relationship causes furor in the palace and in parliament, especially when King George V dies, Mrs. Simpson gets divorced, and King Edward announces his intentions to marry her.

Edward & Mrs. Simpson

1978