Tony Palmer Movies

In underworld terms, Chas Devlin is a 'performer,' a gangster with a talent for violence and intimidation. Turner is a reclusive rock superstar. When...

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...

Tony Palmer's award-winning feature-length documentary profile of Richard Burton.

The story of the great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his life and career during the rule of Stalin.

Soldier of fortune, Monroe Bieler, is sent to dole out some American-style justice when the wife and child of an African president are kidnapped by...

Originally a BBC documentary, this film by Tony Palmer about the 1960's music scene was later released as a standalone DVD by the BFI

A one-hour documentary on the making of Frank Zappa's bizarre 1971 comic musical. Vintage private footage from Frank's personal archives plus...

In 1945, the new Polish government asked for the heart of Chopin previously buried in Paris. A woman called Paulina Czernika approached the...

"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The...

Rose Sellars is a middle-aged woman who falls in love with a widower. However, his children believe that their father is too old to start a new...

Director Tony Palmer tells the incredible life story of Athol Fugard, the prolific playwright, novelist, and director who exposed the horrors of...

Banned by the BBC in 1971, director Tony Palmer's profile of the late Peter Sellers was, in the words of the film's subject himself, "the only...

In Torre del Lago, by Lake Massaciuccoli, Puccini is writing "The Girl of the Golden West" when his wife Elvira accuses him of a dalliance with their...

A documentary by Tony Palmer on English composer Sir William Walton (1902–1983), made shortly before his death. The film includes the only...

The story of Henry Purcell.

A biographical look at the career of the acclaimed Margot Fonteyn. As a little girl called Peggy Hookham growing up in Shanghai, she told her mother...

Celebrated filmmaker Tony Palmer follows Leonard Cohen on his 1972 European tour. The film, after extensive re-editing from its initial version,...

A run-down hotel room, a piano, a maid and the guests who stay there. Life begins, life ends, and lives are changed forever in the piano room.

A documentary portrait of composer Malcolm Arnold. Broadcast in two parts on The South Bank Show but premiered in its entirety at the Royal Festival...

1969's Apollo 11 mission to the moon is highlighted in this tribute to the history of the United States' space program.