Karel Reisz

Directing

Karel Reisz

Born 1926-07-21 · Ostrava, Czechoslovakia

Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema. Description above from the Wikipedia article Karel Reisz, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.​

Acting credits

Behind the camera

The Gambler poster
6.7

New York City English professor Axel Freed outwardly seems like an upstanding citizen. But privately Freed is in the clutches of a severe gambling addiction that threatens to destroy him.

The Gambler

1974

The French Lieutenant's Woman poster
6.5

In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.

The French Lieutenant's Woman

1981

Everybody Wins poster
4.1

A seemingly good Samaritan hires a private detective to prove a teen sitting in prison on a murder charge is innocent. His investigation discovers deep corruption in a Connecticut town and finds the woman isn't everything she is pretending to be either.

Everybody Wins

1990

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning poster
7.0

A 22-year-old factory worker lets loose on the weekends: drinking, brawling, and dating two women, one of whom is older and married.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

1960

Who'll Stop the Rain poster
6.5

John, a disillusioned Vietnam War journalist, turns to heroin smuggling. He cons Ray, an equally burnt out veteran into delivering the drugs stateside to his wife. Everything soon falls apart and Ray ends up on the run with John's wife trying to evade crooked narcotics agents.

Who'll Stop the Rain

1978

Sweet Dreams poster
6.4

The story of Patsy Cline, the velvet-voiced country music singer who died in a tragic plane crash at the height of her fame.

Sweet Dreams

1985

This Sporting Life poster
7.0

In early 1960s Northern England, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.

This Sporting Life

1963

Isadora poster
6.2

A biography of the dancer Isadora Duncan, the 1920s dancer who forever changed people's ideas of ballet. Her nude, semi-nude, and pro-Soviet dance projects as well as her attitudes on free love, debt, dress, and lifestyle shocked the public of her time.

Isadora

1968

The Deep Blue Sea poster
5.0

Hester Collyer is rescued by a neighbor after attempting suicide in the flat she shares with her young lover, ex-RAF pilot Freddie Page. The neighbors alert her husband, who arrives at the flat only to find her fully recovered...

The Deep Blue Sea

1994

Night Must Fall poster
6.5

A psychotic killer gets in the good graces of his aging invalid employer, and worms his way into the affection of her beautiful daughter, with unpleasant results for all.

Night Must Fall

1964

Night Must Fall poster
6.5

A psychotic killer gets in the good graces of his aging invalid employer, and worms his way into the affection of her beautiful daughter, with unpleasant results for all.

Night Must Fall

1964

Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment poster
6.3

Morgan, an aggressive and self-admitted dreamer, a fantasist who uses his flights of fancy as refuge from external reality, where his unconventional behavior lands him in a divorce from his wife, Leonie, trouble with the police and, ultimately, incarceration in a lunatic asylum.

Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment

1966

Momma Don't Allow poster
6.5

A Free Cinema short documenting a night at the Wood Green Jazz Club, observing youth culture, music, and social dynamics through an unobtrusive, non-narrated style.

Momma Don't Allow

1956

Momma Don't Allow poster
6.5

A Free Cinema short documenting a night at the Wood Green Jazz Club, observing youth culture, music, and social dynamics through an unobtrusive, non-narrated style.

Momma Don't Allow

1956

March to Aldermaston poster
8.0

Collaborative documentary (credited to a committee rather than to individual filmmakers) detailing the CND march from London to Aldermaston at Easter 1958.

March to Aldermaston

1959

We Are the Lambeth Boys poster
6.8

Seminal piece of documentary filmmaking by New Wave director Karel Reisz following the daily activities of members of the Lambeth Youth club in late-1950s London.

We Are the Lambeth Boys

1959

Every Day Except Christmas poster
6.6

A short documentary filmed in 1957 at the Covent Garden fruit, vegetable and flower market, then located in the Covent Garden area of East central London. It was directed by Lindsay Anderson and produced by Karel Reisz and Leon Clore under the sponsorship of Ford of Britain, the first of the company's "Look At Britain" series.

Every Day Except Christmas

1957

No artwork available
6.2

A hot, thirsty man in the desert is tormented when the things he needs drop from the sky only to disappear again or hover out of his reach.

Act Without Words I

2001