Waris Hussein

Directing

Waris Hussein

Born

1938-12-09 (87)

Place of birth

Lucknow, United Provinces, British India

Known for

Directing

Credits

54 titles

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).

Known for

Doctor Who Confidential poster
8.0

Doctor Who Confidential is a documentary to complement the revival of the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Each episode was broadcast on BBC Three on Saturdays, immediately after the broadcast of the weekly television episode on BBC One. The running time of the first two series was 30 minutes, being extended to 45 minutes in the third. BBC Three also broadcast a cut-down edition of the programme, lasting 15 minutes, shown after the repeats on Sundays and Fridays and after the weekday evening repeats of earlier seasons.

Doctor Who Confidential

2005

Remembers… poster
7.5

What are the secrets of our favourite TV shows? Famous names from both sides of the camera reflect on making some of the most popular and influential programs of all time.

Remembers…

2022

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

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

Melody poster
7.0

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

Melody

1971

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

Film credits

2020s · 3 titles

2000s · 5 titles

Series credits

Behind the camera

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

Melody poster
7.0

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

Melody

1971

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

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

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

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

Daphne Laureola poster
7.5

A young man becomes infatuated with the exotic Lady Pitts whose much older husband is not pleased.

Daphne Laureola

1978

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

Downpayment on Murder poster
6.2

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

Downpayment on Murder

1987

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

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

Fall from Grace poster
5.3

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

When the Bough Breaks poster
6.4

A Los Angeles psychiatrist testifies for the prosecution in the trial of an accused child molester. Later the defendant, who is out on bail, is found dead in the psychiatrist's office, in what appears to be a suicide. Shaken, the psychiatrist moves to the mountains outside of L.A. Not long afterwards a detective he knows comes to him for help. A seven-year-old girl saw someone kill both of her parents, but is so traumatized by the event that she can't remember anything, and the detective wants the doctor to help jar her memory. Soon, however, the doctor and the detective discover that the parents' murder and the pedophiles "suicide" may be linked to a shadowy group of wealthy and influential pedophiles, and that the child isn't the only one whose life is in danger.

When the Bough Breaks

1986

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

The Winter of Our Discontent poster
5.3

This story tells those self-denials of an honest man what necessary to reach his object of life.

The Winter of Our Discontent

1983

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

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

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

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

Death of a Teddy Bear poster
NR

Inspired by a real-life case, a woman encourages her lover to murder her older husband.

Death of a Teddy Bear

1967

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

Doctor Who: Marco Polo poster
7.4

The TARDIS crew lands in the Himalayas of Cathay in 1289, their ship badly damaged, and are picked up by Marco Polo's caravan on its way along the fabled Silk Road to see the Emperor Kublai Khan. The story concerns the Doctor and his companions' attempts to thwart the machinations of Tegana, who attempts to sabotage the caravan along its travels through the Pamir Plateau and across the treacherous Gobi Desert, and ultimately to assassinate Kublai Khan in Peking, at the height of his imperial power.

Doctor Who: Marco Polo

1964

Coming Out of the Ice poster
6.8

A biographical film about Victor Herman, based on the memoir of the same name.

Coming Out of the Ice

1982

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

Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx poster
5.1

In Dublin, a working class family has been unsuccessful in convincing their son to get a real job: the son prefers his job of scooping up horse's dung and selling it for flower gardens. An American exchange student almost runs him over and gets to know him. The dung man has ignored warnings from his family and suddenly the horses have been banned from Dublin. His new love is leaving for America and he must find a way to cope with the new reality.

Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx

1970

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

The Devil a Monk Would Be poster
NR

A community of monks decides to solve its financial predicament through the sale of a potent cure for rheumatism made from rare herbs and one hundred per cent proof alcohol.

The Devil a Monk Would Be

1967

The Face on the Milk Carton poster
6.5

Based on the book by Caroline B. Cooney, a girl happens to look down at a milk carton one day and she sees herself on the back! Could her parents really have kidnapped her?

The Face on the Milk Carton

1995

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

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child poster
7.3

Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, two humble teachers during 1963, discover a genius student's grandfather, simply known as "the Doctor", and his police box time machine. Deciding that the pair knows too much about his otherworldly origins, they are whisked away on a journey through time and space.

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child

1963

Death Penalty poster
8.0

A strong-willed psychologist tries to rehabilitate a member of a Pittsburgh street gang who has been found guilty of the murder of two other teenagers in a playground rumble.

Death Penalty

1980

The Shell Seekers poster
6.5

After a mild heart attack at 63, Penelope Keeling is not ready to be an invalid yet...despite her children's attempts to take control of her life. She's given them everything she could over the years, but now they want Penelope to sell her most prized possession. Torn between the selfish demands of her children and her desire to hold onto cherished mementos of the past, Penelope must learn what is really important to her. She returns to the seashore, the only place she was ever truly free, in an unforgettable odyssey that will take her back to her home, her heart and another chance for happiness.

The Shell Seekers

1989

Love Letters on Blue Paper poster
8.0

Why has Sonia taken to writing letters to her husband, posted to him in the letter-box just outside their house – love letters, on blue paper, recalling with increasing vividness the early days of their courtship and marriage?

Love Letters on Blue Paper

1976

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

Macready's Gala poster
7.0

The Headmaster and governors of a boarding school are accidentally locked in the new memorial room with the convicted Great Train Robbers.

Macready's Gala

1966

The Henderson Monster poster
6.0

A small town becomes gripped by an ethical debate when the community discovers a moody, egotistical scientist is experimenting with DNA and the creation of new life.

The Henderson Monster

1980

Days in the Trees poster
NR

A frail old woman meets a middle-aged man - her estranged son, whom she hasn't seen for five years.

Days in the Trees

1967

Days in the Trees poster
NR

A frail old woman meets a middle-aged man - her estranged son, whom she hasn't seen for five years.

Days in the Trees

1967

And Baby Makes Six poster
10.0

A middle-aged couple with three grown children discovers that they soon will be parents once more and faces a variety of emotional responses from friends and family.

And Baby Makes Six

1979