The best Ken Russell’s movies

Ken Russell

Ken Russell

03/07/1927- 27/11/2011
We present our ranking of the best Ken Russell’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Ken Russell.
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Whore

Whore
5.6/10
  • Genre: Drama
  • Release: 21/06/1991
  • Character: Waiter (uncredited)
This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.

The Lair of the White Worm

The Lair of the White Worm
6/10
In a remote corner of England's Peak District, a mysterious skull is unearthed. But even weirder is that Lady Sylvia steals the skull for use in worshiping - very erotically - her pagan god, The White Worm, who hungers for the taste of virginal flesh.

The Russia House

The Russia House
6.1/10
Barley Scott Blair, a Lisbon-based editor of Russian literature who unexpectedly begins working for British intelligence, is commissioned to investigate the purposes of Dante, a dissident scientist trapped in the decaying Soviet Union that is crumbling under the new open-minded policies.

Tommy

Tommy
6.6/10
  • Genre: DramaMusic
  • Release: 19/03/1975
  • Character: Cripple (uncredited)
A psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.

Gothic

Gothic
5.7/10
The year is 1816. A sprawling villa in Switzerland is the setting for a stormy night of madness. On this night of the "Haunted Summer," five famous friends gather around an ancient skull to conjure up their darkest fears. Poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, Shelley's fiancée Mary Godwin, Mary's stepsister Claire Clairemont and Byron's friend John Polidori spend a hallucinogenic evening confronting their fears in a frenzy of shocking lunacy. Horrifying visions invade the castle - realizations of Byron's fear of leeches, Shelley's fear of premature burial, Mary's fear of birthing a stillborn child - all brought forth in a bizarre dreamscape. They share the terrifying fantasies that chase them through the castle that night. The events of that night later inspired Mary Shelley to write the classic "Frankenstein" and Dr. Polidori to pen "The Vampyre," which became the basis for the creation of Dracula..

Mr. Nice

Mr. Nice
6.3/10
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.

Colour Me Kubrick

Colour Me Kubrick
6.1/10
  • Genre: ComedyDrama
  • Release: 06/10/2005
  • Character: The Man In Nightgown
The true story of a man who posed as director Stanley Kubrick during the production of Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut, despite knowing very little about his work and looking nothing like him.

Trapped Ashes

Trapped Ashes
4.7/10
  • Genre: Horror
  • Release: 12/09/2006
  • Character: Dr. Lucy
Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.

Salome's Last Dance

Salome's Last Dance
6.4/10
  • Genre: Drama
  • Release: 06/05/1988
  • Character: Cappadocian
London, England, November 5th, 1892, Guy Fawkes Night. The famous playwright Oscar Wilde and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas discreetly go to a luxury brothel where the owner, Alfred Taylor, has prepared a surprise for the renowned author: a private and very special performance of his play Salome, banned by the authorities, in which Taylor himself and the peculiar inhabitants of the exclusive establishment will participate.

Savage Messiah

Savage Messiah
7/10
  • Genre: Drama
  • Release: 27/06/1972
  • Character: Passenger getting off train in station (uncredited)
The film fictionalizes the real relationship between French sculptor Henri Gaudier and Polish writer Sophie Brzeska, twenty years his senior, who came to Paris, she says, for its “creative atmosphere.”

The Kids Are Alright

The Kids Are Alright
8/10
Through concert performances and interviews, this film offers us an "inside look" at this famous rock group, "The Who". It captures their zany craziness and outrageous antics from the initial formation of the group to its major hit "Who Are You", and features the last performance of drummer Keith Moon just prior to his death.

Tales of Erotica

Tales of Erotica
4.5/10
A series of erotic short films, all with similar unexpected endings.

Brothers of the Head

Brothers of the Head
6.2/10
  • Genre: DramaMusic
  • Release: 01/01/2005
  • Character: Himself
In the 1970s a music promoter plucks Siamese twins from obscurity and grooms them into a freakish rock'n'roll act. A dark tale of sex, strangeness and rock music.

The Aristofrogs

The Aristofrogs
7.3/10
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Release: 19/08/2010
A short promotional film for the 2010 Oldenburg Film Festival consisting of various actors and film personalities telling a joke about an exceptionally talented frog.

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch
4.9/10
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Release: 01/01/1995
  • Character: Mr. Kirsch
A short directed by Ken Russell.

The Fall of the Louse of Usher: A Gothic Tale for the 21st Century

The Fall of the Louse of Usher: A Gothic Tale for the 21st Century
4.3/10
  • Release: 02/02/2002
  • Character: Dr. Calahari
Rock star Roddy Usher's wife is murdered and Rod is sent to a lunatic asylum in this gothic-comedy-horror-musical.

Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil

Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil
7/10
  • Genre: Documentary
  • Release: 14/01/2012
  • Character: Himself
Following the recent death of Ken Russell, Alan Yentob looks back over the career of the flamboyant film director responsible for Women In Love, Tommy and The Devils. Friends and admirers - including Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey - recall a pioneering documentary-maker, talented photographer and fearless film director.

The Secret Life of Arnold Bax

The Secret Life of Arnold Bax
7.4/10
  • Genre: TV Movie
  • Release: 22/11/1992
  • Character: Sir Arnold Bax
A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.

Song of Summer

Song of Summer
8/10
  • Genre: DramaMusic
  • Release: 15/09/1968
  • Character: Priest
The last five years of Frederick Delius's life through the eyes of a young composer and aide, Eric Fenby.

A British Picture

A British Picture
6.7/10
The updated autobiography of Britain’s most controversial film director, the maker of Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers, Tommy and The Rainbow, is as unconventional and brilliant as his best films. Moving with astonishing assurance through time and space, Russell recreates his life in a series of interconnected episodes – his thirties childhood in Southampton, his first sexual experience (watching Disney’s Pinocchio), his schooldays at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, early careers in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Air Force, dancing days at the Shepherds Bush Ballet Club and of course his career as a film-maker, beginning with an extraordinary interview with Huw Weldon for a job on Monitor. Full of marvellously funny anecdotes and fascinating insights into the realities of the film director's life, A British Picture is a remarkable autobiography.

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