Tony Palmer Movies

Director Tony Palmer exposes the harsh underbelly of the famed Miss World beauty contest, going beneath the glamour to reveal a hotbed of bullying,...

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...

An oral history story of the making of Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece "The Shining" focusing on new interviews with key crew members.

Narrated by cinema legend Franco Zeffirelli, this intimate made-for-television documentary traces the life and times of the mercurial Maria Callas,...

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...

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

Tony Palmer appeared at Harrogate Film Festival on 12 March 2020 as part of a celebration of his work which included a screening of Mighty Good, his...

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

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

This emotional film by the award-winning director Tony Palmer includes a performance of the “Third Symphony” by The London Sinfonietta...

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

The story of the last years of Handel.

No musical group has had as profound an impact on pop music as The Beatles. Tony Palmer's groundbreaking documentary gives us an intimate look at one...

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

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...

The great composer of The Planets, Gustav Holst also taught himself Sanskrit, lived in a street of brothels in Algiers, cycled into the Sahara...

Tony Palmer directs this 1970 documentary about Scottish bass player and former Cream member Jack Bruce. The film tracks Bruce's life from his...

This is Palmer's highly controversial portrait of Brahms - a film that exploded the familiar image of 'stodgy old bearded Brahms' - a man whose...

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.

Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there meets a young man by whose beauty he becomes...