Bill Paterson

An arrogant but charismatic ladies' man finds his life of money, power and casual flings upended when he wakes up in a parallel world dominated by women.

New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.

Beatrix Potter, the author of the beloved children's book "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", struggles for love, happiness and success.

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

While staying at a hotel in England with his grandmother, Helga, a young boy named Luke inadvertently spies on a convention of witches. The Grand High Witch reveals a plan to turn all children into mice via a magical formula. When they discover the eavesdropper, the witches test the formula on him. Now, with the help of Helga and hotel manager Mr Stringer, Luke the mouse must fight back against the witches.

An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences with his band of misfits.

Life for the residents of a tower block begins to run out of control.

Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.

Britain's longest-running comic 'The Dandy', which brought Desperate Dan and Korky the Cat to generations of children is ceasing publication of its paper version on the occasion of its 75th Birthday. This is an affectionate tribute.

A young woman wishes to fulfill her mother's dream of opening her own bakery in Notting Hill, London. To do this, she enlists the help of an old friend and her grandma.

The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.

World-famous pop group the Spice Girls zip around London in their luxurious double-decker tour bus having various adventures and performing for their fans.

The true story of William Wilberforce and his courageous quest to end the British slave trade. Along the way, Wilberforce meets intense opposition, but his minister urges him to see the cause through.

After a whirlwind romance with a wealthy widower, a naïve bride moves to his family estate but can't escape the haunting shadow of his late wife.

The tragic story of world-renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré, as told from the point of view of her sister, flautist Hilary du Pré-Finzi.

A psychological, heart-wrenching love story that provides a unique and inside look at Charles Darwin. Torn between faith and science, he struggles to finish his legendary book "On the Origin of Species," which goes on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology.

It's 1649: Mazarin hires the impoverished D'Artagnan to find the other musketeers: Cromwell has overthrown the English king, so Mazarin fears revolt, particularly from the popular Beaufort. Porthos, bored with riches and wanting a title, signs on, but Aramis, an abbé, and Athos, a brawler raising an intellectual son, assist Beaufort in secret. When they fail to halt Beaufort's escape from prison, the musketeers are expendable, and Mazarin sends them to London to rescue Charles I. They are also pursued by Justine, the avenging daughter of Milady de Winter, their enemy 20 years ago. They must escape England, avoid Justine, serve the Queen, and secure Beauford's political reforms.

A cinema remake of the classic sitcom Dad's Army (1968). The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard platoon deal with a visiting female journalist and a German spy as World War II draws to its conclusion.

This powerful follow-up to “The Gathering Storm” follows Churchill from 1940 to 1945 as he guided his beleaguered nation through the crucible of the war years--even as his marriage was encountering its own struggles.

Having helped his brother King Edward IV take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne, and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed.

With freshly rechristened characters and brand-new dialogue, this British TV production of Othello is a "rethinking" of Shakespeare's play, albeit still retaining the original's power and potency. The story is set in the London of the near future, a crime-ridden metropolis virtually torn apart by racial hostilities. By order of the Prime Minister, black police officer John Othello (Eamonn Walker) is promoted to Commissioner, a post dearly coveted by Othello's friend, mentor and fellow officer Ben Jago (Christopher Eccleston). Seething with jealousy, Jago contrives to discredit Othello in the eyes of the public, and to destroy John's interracial marriage to the lily-white Dessie (Keeley Hawes). Among those used as unwitting dupes to gain Jago's ends are Othello's trusted lieutenant, Michael Cass (Richard Coyle), scrupulously honest police constable Alan Roderick (Del Synnott), and Jago's own wife, Lulu (Rachael Stirling).

American couple Jake and Tina are living in an expensive London hotel above their means, incurring a sizeable debt. When they are asked to pay a lavish dinner bill and Jake's card is declined, he suggests they sell Tina's tiny, expensive Henry Moore sculpture to cover the debt. After they hatch a scheme to claim the sculpture was stolen in order to collect insurance on it, the sculpture mysteriously goes missing.

Poised to attend Oxford University, 19-year-old Charles Highway decides it's high time to have a romantic encounter with an older woman. With the help of a computer program and several eccentric relatives, Highway sets his sights on seducing Rachel Noyce, a stunning American in her 20s. However, Highway has his work cut out for him. Noyce has a boyfriend, DeForest, and is not exactly receptive to Highway's advances — at first, anyway.

Three 40-something women in a small English town meet weekly for a ritual of gin, cigarettes, and sweets -- and swapped stories arguing which of them has the most pathetic love life. Kate is headmistress at the local school; her best friends are the town's police chief and a cynical, thrice-divorced doctor.

In this sophomoric comedy, a lusty adolescent British hockey team heads for Holland where they find something far more interesting than tulips and windmills: gorgeous, lusty women. They are so busy pursuing romance that they forget all about their upcoming match.

Romantic comedy set against the story of a grudge football match between two pubs. The prize for the winner of the centenary match is the the closure of their opponent's bar. The Match was mainly filmed around Straiton in Ayrshire.

In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Charles Swaby, accountant Henry Allardyce and solicitor Frank Lockwood are fattening a black-market pig for the big day. Egged on by his wife, meek Gilbert Chilvers steals the swine, but the couple must conceal it from inspector Morris Wormold.

Colin has rented a stately country home for his extended family’s New Year celebrations. He’s the centre of attention until his estranged brother David unexpectedly arrives, throwing the family dynamic far off orbit.

1941 and the upper class Anna Seaton is hired as part of an allied radio propaganda project, creating disinformation about the Nazi war effort. But tensions between her and brilliant, working class writer Archie MacLean threaten to undermine her work.

A reporter named Mullen 'stumbles' onto a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent and a near-nuclear disaster involving a teenage runaway and a U.S. Air Force base. Has there been a Government cover-up? Mullen teams up with Vernon Bayliss, an old hack, and Nina Beckam, the MP's assistant, to find out the truth.

When Joan’s husband dies, she is shocked to discover he had invented an elixir which makes the drinker look young again. Sharing it with her two friends, the three women paint the town red but soon discover that they are no longer equipped to be young in the modern world.

During the 1930s in England, a group of young socialites dominate the national gossip with extravagant and outlandish antics. Among the group is the aspiring novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes, who is attempting to raise enough money to marry fellow member Nina Blount. However, after customs officials confiscate his first manuscript, Fenwick-Symes must recover from the financial setback and figure out new ways to earn money for a wedding.

A pioneering ceramic artist Clarice Cliff rises to prominence in the 1920s while working in Britain’s Stoke-on-Trent pottery industry.

Madame Ranevsky and her daughter Anya return home from Paris to find their beloved family estate and cherry orchard are to be auctioned off to pay debts. Lopahin, a former serf on the estate who is now a wealthy landowner, proposes razing the home and cherry orchard and dividing the estate into plots that could be leased at great profit. The family, however, continues to hold out hope that their beloved home can somehow be saved from destruction.

A therapist loses her grip on reality when a ten-year-old boy claims he can control her future.

Nina is totally heartbroken at the death of her boyfriend Jamie, but is even more unprepared for his return as a ghost. At first it's almost as good as it used to be – hey, even the rats that infested her house have disappeared. But Jamie starts bringing ghostly friends home and behaving more and more oddly.

Christopher Cowin is in his mid 30s, a family man who owns a small advertising agency. A court case he had recently lost has shown him the rich and powerful always win! That is why Christopher creates the website THE LIST. On this site, users can label corrupt individuals in public life and award them points as to how much of a menace they are. The result is a list of politicians, CEOs and bankers. The website quickly becomes a worldwide success but suddenly, whoever is number one on THE LIST appears murdered and public opinion starts to turn against Christopher.

Boasting an amazing selection of the most watched, most influential and most highly acclaimed programmes ever made, The 50 Greatest Television Dramas presents a long overdue assessment of the rich heritage television drama has to offer. Channel 4 invited over 200 of Britain's top television drama professionals – writers, directors, producers and commissioners – to take part in an exclusive poll to discover what they consider the finest dramas ever produced.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill suffers from a stroke in the summer of 1953 that's kept a secret from the rest of the world.

Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me is a 2011 one-off Christmas special, made by STV Productions and broadcast by ITV on Tuesday 27 December 2011. The special centres around a wealthy car dealer Jonathan Donald who befriends a terminally ill teenager Freddie Copeland and makes his Christmas wish come true.

A portrait of Stanley Baxter, Scotland’s most dazzling TV star of the 1970s and ’80s, whose groundbreaking sketches and lavish specials made him a household name. Behind the fame, Baxter lived a hidden double life as a gay man in a hostile era, balancing public brilliance with private secrecy. Made shortly before his death, the film draws on personal archives and recordings to reveal the man behind the legend.

A suspect is brought to a London police station charged with gross indecency. Police at the station believe he is connected with a murder in the area earlier that night, but the suspect refuses to speak.

When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution nearly 150 years ago, he shattered the dominant belief of his day – that humans were the product of divine creation. Through his observations of nature, Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. This caused uproar. After all, if the story of creation could be doubted, so too could the existence of the creator. Ever since its proposal, this cornerstone of biology has sustained wave after wave of attack. Now some scientists fear it is facing the most formidable challenge yet: a controversial new theory called intelligent design.

Thirteen-year-old Nick and his slightly dense older brother Herbert run the Diamond Private Detective Agency above Camden Town Tube Station in north-central London. When a master criminal called The Falcon dies, they come into possession of his box of chocolate Maltesers, which contains the secret key to a fabulous cache of diamonds. Can they unravel the mystery and avoid the clutches of seedy lowlifes Brenda Von Falkenberg, Gott and Himmell, The Fat Man and the dogmatic Chief Inspector Snape, all of whom want to find the swag first.

Arthur Harris is a happily married man who returns from his job to discover that his wife, Fiona, is leaving him. Devastated he gets really drunk and tries to commit suicide. After a few setbacks and while he is trying to electrocute himself with a lamp, the door bell rings. An odd man in a leather coat asks if there are any odd jobs that he can perform. Arthur hires the man to kill him. The next day his wife returns, but the man he hired is still trying to kill him...

Animation short about a little boy that sets off on a round-the-world night train to dreamland with only his toy dog for company. But soon all sorts of endangered animals are asking if they can jump up and join them on their journey.

Drama illuminating Dr James Niven's efforts to protect the people of Manchester from the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic as millions of soldiers returned home from the Great War.

A documentary exploring the causes of the 1929 Wall Street Crash.Over six terrifying, desperate days in October 1929, shares crashed by a third on the New York Stock Exchange. More than $25 billion in individual wealth was lost. Later, three thousand banks failed, taking people's savings with them. Surviving eyewitnesses describe the biggest financial catastrophe in history.

Radio host Alan 'Dickie' Bird witnesses how an icecream van is attacked and destroyed by angry competitors. This leads him into the struggle between two Italian families over the icecream market of Glasgow.

On 7 May, churches, school halls, and back rooms of community centres will be turned into polling stations, staffed by council workers and volunteers. A church polling station is the backdrop for a real-time play for theatre and TV, called The Vote, staged at the exact moment in which the action is set - the last 90 minutes before polls close.

Strangely-farcical goings-on are in store for a group of unwitting guests, who have all booked adjoining rooms on the ninth floor of the Zanzibar hotel in London

Axel Heyst is an American recluse with a dubious past living in the Dutch East Indies port of Surabaya circa 1913. Staying in a German hotel there, Heyst becomes entranced with a member of the hotel's all-female orchestra.

Fifty years after The Wicker Man, director Robin Hardy’s lost papers resurface, prompting his sons Justin and Dominic to explore the legacy of the cult classic, and their father. Together, they uncover the truth behind Robin’s role in the film and confront the complexities of independent filmmaking, family, and myth.

Local journalist, Cameron Colley writes articles that are idealistic, from the viewpoint of the underdog. A twisted serial killer seems to have some motives. His brutal murders are also committed on behalf of the underdog. The stories begin to merge and Cameron find himself inextricably and inextricably implicated by the brutal killer. The arms dealer that Cameron plans to expose is found literally 'disarmed' before he can put pen to paper. The brewery chief, loathed by Cameron, who sold up at the expense of his workers, finds himself permanently unemployable. The police are convened of Cameron's guilt and so are half his friends and colleagues. Cameron is forced to employ all his investigative skills to find the real killer and his motive.

Incendiary 1981 Play for Today, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé that tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who attempt to organise against persistent rent rises.

As the UK begins its military engagement in the Falklands, a BBC news journalist attempts to climb up from his working-class roots, at any cost, lying to those around him to get what he wants, only to discover that he is the recipient of a deception far more clever than his own.

Cassies Stuart leads the uncooperative Charles Dance into a world of misplaces government secrets, capalistic artists and bungling secret agents. Will the truth be out, or will the attempts of agents suppress the truth hidden within government propaganda films, classified as top secret by complete mistake, be successful. Or is it the mysterious medical records that are the true catch of the spies.

A journalist becomes an independent MP. Loosely based on the election of Martin Bell to the constituency of Tatton between 1997 and 2001.

Documentary about the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary Riots in which 33 inmates were killed.

An eclectic group of people drawn from all walks of life find themselves under one roof for twenty-eight days with one thing in common, addiction.

A woman, plastered in blood, is arrested by a grave, and a tale of loss, lust and jealousy slowly unfolds.

A man dazzles a girl on the perfect first date but why won't she text back? He retraces his steps, reexamining the date.

This is an all new feature length documentary, with interviews from almost everyone involved with the production of the film. Gilliam never shies away from the truth, even when it comes to himself, and so this documentary is self-effacing and refreshingly frank. The documentary details not only the battles Gilliam had with Columbia in getting the film finished and released, but also the imagination and innovation that went into the production.

The Entity is a documentary into the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, the state in which a person cannot move as they pass from sleep to a woken state.

A gang of sharp witted street kids save Sherlock Holmes from an accusation of murder and to help foil an audacious robbery.

A bank employee, Laura Tracey, places herself and her family in mortal danger after reporting irregularities in the firm's overseas accounts to the National Criminal Intelligence Service. She learns that the money belongs to South American drug cartels, and her family are immediately taken into the Witness Protection Program and relocated.

BBC documentary about Franz Kafka played by GREEK TV in 1990. This documentary is one of the ten films of “The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988)”.

A romance that plays out in the splashy, sensational world of British tabloids.

When a bomb explodes in a British RAF base in Germany, MI5 terrorist specialist Bull (Bill Paterson) is called in to investigate. However, the further he begins to dig into the secrets behind the terrorism, the more he finds himself immersed in dodgy goings-on in the corridors of power of NATO itself.

In their songs, comedy and exuberant music, a travelling theatre company give a fiercely polemic account of Scottish history, from the aftermath of Culloden to the oil boom. Their production before a live audience is intercut with filmed reconstructions of the Highland Clearances and the Victorian obsession with hunting stags.

"Why don't you keep that missus o' yours under control? She ain't exactly doin' you a packet o' good, is she? If she was mine I'd bloody put 'er right, I'll tell yer." The marriage of an introverted Scottish army sergeant and his loving, but independent wife is threatened by military life.

A robot messenger is sent to earth to appeal to humans to live in peace. Originally designed to go to MIT, by mistake she ends up in Amman, Jordan during the Black September riots of 1970. Sullivan, a British journalist, comes to her aid when she is found wandering without papers following a bombing and grants her refuge in his hotel room. But there she tells him she is a robot, sent as a peace envoy from another planet. He is not sure whether to believe her story or not, but finds her unusual view of the world appealing. They examine the human condition in a series of incredibly insightful and entertaining conversations.

Britain in the very near future. In an abandoned hotel, a young female doctor and a middle-aged scientist are interrogated separately. The question they are both asked is 'Where is Martin Pitt?'

A student faced with an ultimatum to find £5 by morning - or lose his girlfriend - searches for friends he can tap and discovers that the crises in their lives are even greater than his own.

Displaced by the Second World War, a troop of Polish soldiers form an inseparable bond through an orphaned bear they name Wojtek.

Alan Bennett's play about the mid-life crisis of an estate agent.

Dramatisation of the real-life road-rage killing in 1996 of Stephen Cameron by Kenneth Noye, who was also implicated in the Brinks Mat bullion robbery and the murder of a policeman. The only witness to the killing of Stephen Cameron was his fiancée, Danielle Cable, who was forced to change her identity after giving the evidence which convicted Noye.

On 27 August 1979, Lord Mountbatten, great uncle to Prince Charles, was blown up at sea by the IRA off the west coast of the Republic of Ireland. Three others were killed on the boat that day, including two teenage boys. Later that afternoon, in a second strike, the IRA killed 18 British soldiers, across the border in Northern Ireland. Forty years on, this is the story of that remarkable Bank Holiday Monday – movingly told by those directly affected by it.

Johnny Fortune (Damon Lowry) is no good to anyone, not mean, but just no good. Surrounded by violence and dishonesty, Johnny lives with Kate. Johnny messes up, he loses a lot of money, his girlfriend Kate's money. Alone, desperate and on the run from a couple of hit-men, he applies for a job as an entertainer's assistant becoming a dancing bear. Unwittingly learning of secrets around him, his past catches up with him.

In this diverse and inventive autobiography, painter and author John Byrne travels from his youth, through his art school years to the period of his stage and TV plays, and on to his death, sometime in the future. With him is Robbie Coltrane as himself and as a shamus invented by Byrne, who discovers there are as many aspects to the author as there are actors playing him.

Fragment of a story by Robert Louis Stevenson, completed by Alasdair Gray. A dissolute medical student wakes up in the bedroom of a young woman who fascinates him, in a house where nightly gambling sessions are held.

In the summer of 1931, with Germany on the brink of economic collapse, and the city of Berlin turning into a paramilitary war-zone, audacious young prosecutor Hans Litten (Stoppard) chose to summon a star witness to a trial of Nazi thugs. In spite of the risk to his own safety and against the advice of those who love him, Litten forced rising political star Adolf Hitler (Hart) to make a sensational appearance in the witness stand of Berlin's central criminal court. Litten aimed to expose the true character of Hitler and his politics to the German public, to reveal his hypocrisy and his violent ambitions, and in doing so, halt the electoral success of the Nazi Party. In a humiliating and hostile cross-examination, Hitler was forced to account for his political beliefs, his contempt for the law and his desire to destroy German democracy. For a brief moment, Hitler's political future was genuinely in the balance.

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

Lily is 13, Colin is 39 and a vagrant. They run away together. 'One and a half to the English Lakes, single, because we're never coming back, we're going on.'

A shy, awkward Scottish lad secretly carries a torch for a local lass.

In 1926 Janet ‘Nettie’ Harbison crafted what would become the most valuable bottle of wine or spirit ever sold at auction.

Private investigator Nick Sharman accepts a case which at first seems intriguing, but ends up causing him bitter regret.

Growing up in a household incapable of showing love and affection, Margaret's life is transformed when Lydia, a worldly teenage maid, arrives.

While searching for her estranged father, a young woman breaks into an empty house in the countryside where every visitor disappears. Now she must avoid the man posing as a real estate agent who lures victims inside.

A film about the tall actor who was most famous for playing the quintessential villain for Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character.

An award-winning comedy set in a depressed town in the South Wales Valleys. When the local cinema is closed down, the former projectionist, plagued by money problems, devises an ingenious plan to make money.

A corpse is fished out of a north London canal with stab wounds through the eyes. The victim was a prominent member of the Hasidic Jewish community, and the cause of death one reserved by the Hasidim to punish "moysers" or informers.

A look at the career of Oscar-winning cameraman Chris Menges. Filmed on location of 'Comfort and Joy'. Chris Menges discusses his early career in television and film. Featuring interviews with Bill Forsyth, Bill Paterson, Ken Loach, Neil Jordan, and Jeremy Isaacs.

The touching story of a boy and old man coming to terms with bereavement through their shared love of fishing, and the legend of Goliath, the biggest pike ever caught.

A man shows the gentle and agressive side of Brown and Black Bears living with and around them. After "Grizzly Man" died in Alaska trying to do the same thing, it's truly amazing to watch this documentary.

A journey into the history, pageantry and characters that have shaped a Scottish phenomenon. Acclaimed actor Bill Paterson narrates the astonishing story of the Highland Games. From the battling clans to Queen Victoria's infatuation with her Highland subjects, the games have become a symbol of community and identity in Scotland and all across the world.

Documenting the life in the estuary of the River Aithen in North-East Scotland.

A panorama of the Clyde, from Biggar to Brodick, with Billy Connolly as your guide. Directed by Murray Grigor for the Films of Scotland Committee.