David Leland

David Leland (20 April 1947 - 24 December 2023) was a director, screenwriter and actor who came to international fame with his directorial debut Wish You Were Here in 1987.

Works

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

At the dawn of the 20th century, Indiana Jones discovered the world. From globetrotting family expeditions as a 9-year-old to the battlefields of World War I as a teenager, Indy’s experiences shaped the heroic, whip-cracking archaeologist he would become. At every turn, Indy encounters history in the making, meeting true-life activists, soldiers, writers, artists, and thinkers who helped influence the world we live in today.

Release Date1992-03-04

Charactersd Costume Designer

Episode Count1

Vote Count130

Van der Valk

Van der Valk is a British television series that was produced by Thames Television for the ITV network. It starred Barry Foster in the title role as Dutch detective Commissaris "Piet" van der Valk. Based on the characters and atmosphere of the novels of Nicolas Freeling, the first series was shown in 1972.

Release Date1972-09-13

Charactersd Madame Arthur

Episode Count1

Vote Count9

Julius Caesar

All-star cast glamorizes this lavish 1970 remake of the classic William Shakespeare play, which portrays the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, and the resulting war between the faction led by the assassins and the faction led by Mark Anthony.

Release Date1970-06-04

Charactersd Plebian

Vote Count34

The Missionary

In 1905, after 10 years of missionary work in Africa, the Rev. Charles Fortesque is recalled to England, where his bishop gives him his new assignment - to minister to London's prostitutes.

Release Date1982-11-02

Charactersd Long Haired Man at Gin Palace

Vote Count52

The Pied Piper

Greed, corruption, ignorance, and disease. Midsummer, 1349: the Black Death reaches northern Germany. Minstrels go to Hamelin for the Mayor's daughter's wedding to the Baron's son. He wants her dowry to pay his army while his father taxes the people to build a cathedral he thinks will save his soul. A local apothecary who's a Jew seeks a treatment for the plague; the priests charge him with witchcraft. One of the minstrels, who has soothed the Mayor's daughter with his music, promises to rid the town of rats for the fee. The Mayor agrees, then renigs. In the morning, the plague, the Jew's trial, and the Piper's revenge come at once.

Release Date1972-12-27

Charactersd Officer

Vote Count33

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Don't Panic! The story of Arthur Dent, an average Englishman who life was spared by his friend, who turned out to be an alien, while the planet Earth is destroyed. His friend tells him about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a guide with anything you ever needed, and wanted to know. They travel across the galaxy, meeting friendly, and not so friendly characters in order to find the great question (the answer being 42).

Release Date1981-01-05

Charactersd Majikthise

Episode Count1

Vote Count37

Gawain and the Green Knight

The medieval legend of a supernatural knight who challenges the king's men to kill him.

Release Date1973-06-01

Charactersd Humphrey

Vote Count5

Time Bandits

Young history buff Kevin can scarcely believe it when six dwarfs emerge from his closet one night. Former employees of the Supreme Being, they've purloined a map charting all of the holes in the fabric of time and are using it to steal treasures from different historical eras. Taking Kevin with them, they variously drop in on Napoleon, Robin Hood and King Agamemnon before the Supreme Being catches up with them.

Release Date1981-07-13

Charactersd Puppeteer

Vote Count1102

Target

A crime drama set in Southampton following a team of detectives and the cases they solve.

Release Date1977-09-09

Charactersd Murray

Episode Count1

Vote Count3

Scars of Dracula

The Prince of Darkness casts his undead shadow once more over the cursed village of Kleinenberg when his ashes are splashed with bat's blood and Dracula is resurrected. And two innocent victims search for a missing loved one... loved to death by Dracula's mistress. But after they discover his blood-drained corpse in Dracula's castle necropolis, the Vampire Lord's lustful vengeance begins.

Release Date1970-11-08

Charactersd First Officer

Vote Count185

When Saturday Comes

Jimmy Muir comes from a typical gritty, northern town where there are only two options: working down the pit or in a factory. But Jimmy has other ideas — he dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Confronted by a bitter and unsupportive father, hard-drinking friends and a lifetime of bad habits...has Jimmy the will to achieve his ultimate goal?

Release Date1996-03-01

Charactersd Priest

Vote Count27

1917

A British short film about World War I, directed by Stephen Weeks and starring Timothy Bateson, David Leland, and Geoffrey Davies.

Release Date1970-01-01

Charactersd Felix, the Cook

Vote Count1

Personal Services

Fed up with working hard just to scrape by, Christine Painter comes up with a bold plan to become the madam of a brothel and earn her financial freedom: she opens a house of spanking to fabulous reviews.

Release Date1987-02-12

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Charactersd Mr. Pilkington / Danielle

Vote Count44

The White River Kid

Two con men are traveling through the American South when they are held hostage by a serial killer who is running from the authorities.

Release Date1999-01-01

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Charactersd Socrates Storekeeper

Vote Count24

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Espionage Escapades

Posing as a dancer for the Ballets Russes in Barcelona, Indy meets old friend Pablo Picasso, and narrowly outwits inept German spies. Dashing off to Prague, he then arranges for a telephone installation to await an important call, which becomes a bureaucratic nightmare until Franz Kafka intervenes.

Release Date2000-07-13

Charactersd Costume Designer

Vote Count16

Ligmalion: Or How to Help Yourself in Self-Help Britain

Drama documentary which takes the form of an up-dated version of Pygmalion. With a special music score by jazz group Working Week, with real "society" characters and locations from 1984.

Release Date1985-04-08

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Charactersd Driver

Golden Gordon

Barnestoneworth United is the worst football team of 1935, who lose every match. Gordon Ottershaw is, however, their loyal fan, determined to prevent them from being disbanded after their final game. To this end he recruits the players from the renowned winning team of 1922 who turn up to defeat rivals Denley Moor.

Release Date1979-10-17

Charactersd Football Manager

Vote Count1

The Love-Girl and the Innocent

A BBC television adaptation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel. The prisoner Nemov is an honest man serving a term of 10 years for violations of Article 58. Nemov falls in love with Lyuba, who is having sex with the camp doctor Mereshchun, in exchange for better food and living conditions.

Release Date1973-09-16

Charactersd Nemov

Vote Count5

An Accidental Studio

Charts the early years of HandMade Films seen through the eyes of the filmmakers, key personnel, and the man who started it all: former Beatle George Harrison.

Release Date2019-07-12

Charactersd Self

Vote Count9

The Making of 'Band of Brothers'

Interviews made of the various actors and cast members that provide the knowledge and production skills and sets required to make the film a success.

Release Date2001-09-09

Charactersd Self

Vote Count1

Reel Britannia

Comedian Nick Helm narrates this bold new documentary series exploring the dramatic history of British cinema. Discover how cinema held a mirror up to society from 1960 through to the 00s.

Release Date2022-06-09

Charactersd Self

Episode Count4

Vote Count3

The 50 Greatest Television Dramas

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.

Release Date2007-02-03

Charactersd Self

Alan Clarke: Out of His Own Light

A multi-part documentary about Alan Clarke, featuring interviews with various actors, writers and producers.

Release Date2016-06-13

Charactersd Self

Band of Brothers

Drawn from interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as their journals and letters, Band of Brothers chronicles the experiences of these men from paratrooper training in Georgia through the end of the war. As an elite rifle company parachuting into Normandy early on D-Day morning, participants in the Battle of the Bulge, and witness to the horrors of war, the men of Easy knew extraordinary bravery and extraordinary fear - and became the stuff of legend. Based on Stephen E. Ambrose's acclaimed book of the same name.

Release Date2001-09-09

DepartmentDirecting

JobDirector

Episode Count1

Vote Count3950

Virgin Territory

In Black Death era Tuscany, as in the Decameron, ten young Florentines take refuge from the plague. But instead of telling stories, they have lusty adventures, bawdy exchanges, romance, swordplay, randy nuns, Saracen pirates, and a sexy cow.

Release Date2007-12-17

DepartmentDirecting

JobDirector

Vote Count355

The Borgias

Set in 15th century Italy at the height of the Renaissance, The Borgias chronicles the corrupt rise of patriarch Rodrigo Borgia to the papacy, where he proceeds to commit every sin in the book to amass and retain power, influence and enormous wealth for himself and his family.

A forensic psychologist is enlisted to delve into the circumstances surrounding the brutal murder of thirty-two adults in an exclusive gated community in the desert outside Los Angeles and the disappearance of their children. Based on the controversial novella of the same name by J.G. Ballard

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Flying Into the Wind

The Wyatts wish to educate their children at home, but the education authorities have other ideas. Moving between 1969 and 1980, we see how this affects the various individuals and attitudes.

Release Date1983-06-26

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Vote Count3

Birth of a Nation

A new teacher at a highly problematic comprehensive school feels that corporal punishment may just be inflaming the problems, and so begins to campaign against it.

Release Date1983-06-19

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Vote Count7

R.H.I.N.O.; Really Here in Name Only

An isolated, overweight girl with a penchant for shoplifting, gets pushed from pillar to post as the authorities struggle to know what to do with her.

Release Date1983-07-03

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Vote Count9

Beloved Enemy

A cool hard study of 'the art of the deal' on a global scale. Sir Peter, the chillingly affable chief exec of big British multi-national UKM, learns that the Soviet Union's chief scientists are in London with government credit to spend. He's keen to flog them a tyre-production plant. based in the Ukraine, which will unshackle UKM from bothersome unions at home. But at the negotiating table, it fast becomes apparent that the Soviets are more interested in the laser technology UKM employs to vulcanise their tyres; and Peter starts to foresee a new future in military aerospace for his ever fiexible firm.

Release Date1981-02-10

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Callan

Callan is the title of a British television series set in the murky world of espionage. Originally produced by ABC Weekend Television and later Thames Television, it was aired on the ITV network over four seasons spread out between 1967 and 1972. The series starred Edward Woodward as David Callan, a reluctant professional killer for a shadowy branch of the British Government's intelligence services known as 'the Section'.

Release Date1967-07-08

Episode Count1

Vote Count9

One Brief Summer

The story deals with the situation of a mature man, his mistress, his daughter and a young girl who comes into their lives.

Release Date1971-02-25

Vote Count1

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by British television company BBC between 1965 and 1968. This was the second screen adaption of Sherlock Holmes for BBC Television.

Release Date1964-05-17

Episode Count1

Vote Count17

The Last of the Mohicans

The adventures of Natty 'Hawkeye' Bumppo and his Indian companions, caught in a war between the French and English in upstate New York in 1757.

Release Date1971-01-17

Episode Count7

Vote Count3

Victoria Wood: Seen on TV

A look back at Victoria Wood's hugely successful television career. Featuring sketches, stand-up, characters and songs from her incredible repertoire as well as exclusive interviews with Victoria and friends and fans, including Dawn French, Julie Walters and Sir Roger Moore.

Release Date2009-12-21