Known for Acting
Anna Theodora Chancellor (born 27 April 1965) is an English actress who has appeared widely on TV, film and in the theatre. She received a nomination for BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Lix Storm in The Hour (2011–2012), and has twice been nominated for Olivier Awards, in 1997 for her performances in Stanley at the National Theatre, and again in 2014 for Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre. She was also nominated for an award at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival in 2007 and for one at the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards in 2013. On television, she is also known for her roles in the ITV series Kavanagh QC (1995-1997) and Grantchester (2016); the BBC series Pride and Prejudice (1995), Tipping the Velvet (2002), Spooks (2005-2007), Pramface (2012–2014), Ordeal by Innocence (2018) and Rain Dogs (2023); the Channel 5 series Suburban Shootout (2006–2007); the Netflix series The Crown (2017); the Epix series Pennyworth (2019–2021); and the BritBox series Hotel Portofino (2022). Her films include Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), and How I Live Now (2013).
Born
April 27, 1965 (age 61)
Birthplace
Richmond, Surrey, England, UK
Filmography
54 films, 55 shows


Box of Frogs
2026 · 25m · UK
Rob's lived with obsessive-compulsive disorder since he was a kid, and it's worn him down to the bone. He turns to a support group to reach out to others in similar situations.


Playhouse Creatures
2025 · 1h 48m
It’s the swinging (16)60s, and ‘the merry monarch’ Charles II is on the throne. After violent civil war, England’s theatres have finally reopened and, for the first time, women are allowed to perform in public. In the West End, grande dame Mrs Betterton (Anna Chancellor) rules the roost. But there’s a new face in town: an orange-seller with dreams of stardom. From dressing-room camaraderie to bitter rivalry, April De Angelis’ gloriously exuberant, bawdily funny and deeply poignant play celebrates five women grabbing this newfound freedom and making their way in an unfamiliar world. But at what price?
Brighton Storeys
Brighton Storeys
2025 · UK
In Brighton on the South coast of England, sharpened by the sting of sea spray, and mellowed by numinous light, a tight-knit community of oddballs and heart-felts live together in a tatty old mansion, the Fletcher Apartments. When a golden feather, the priceless antique mascot of the building, unexpectedly disappears, the residents have a mystery to solve. Will they find the talisman that previously bound them together, or will their community, now divided against itself, irrevocably unravel?


Stromboli
2022 · 1h 26m · NL
Haunted by memories of her broken marriage and a fight with her daughter, a woman joins an intense self-help retreat when her vacation goes awry.


Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
2022 · 1h 56m · BE
A 1950s London cleaning lady falls in love with an haute couture dress by Christian Dior and decides to gamble everything for the sake of this folly.


Come Away
2020 · 1h 34m · BS
Before Alice went to Wonderland, and before Peter became Pan, they were brother and sister. When their eldest brother dies in a tragic accident, they each seek to save their parents from their downward spirals of despair until finally they are forced to choose between home and imagination, setting the stage for their iconic journeys into Wonderland and Neverland.


The Importance of Being Oscar
2019 · 1h 24m · UK
A star-studded BBC film of Oscar Wilde’s glittering and controversial career before his trial for homosexual crimes and tragic fall from grace. Highlights from Oscar’s brilliant comedies such as The Importance of Being Earnest and stories such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost are adapted and performed by a cast including Freddie Fox, Claire Skinner, Anna Chancellor and James Fleet. Wilde enthusiasts and experts, including Stephen Fry, Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland and his latest biographers, provide revelatory accounts of how his own life informed his work. His Irish roots, his early career, his marriage and the importance of women as well as men in his life all combine in a complex and compelling characterisation and celebration that adds flesh to the bones of a man who is too often caricatured.


For Love or Money
2019 · 1h 35m · UK
What started off as a whirlwind romance takes an unexpected turn when Mark discovers his beautiful bride-to-be is plotting against him. In cahoots with an old school buddy, they hatch a plan to take half of Mark’s £20 million fortune and use it for their own happy ending. What they don’t realize is that Mark is one step ahead of them.


Benjamin
2019 · 1h 25m · UK
Benjamin, a rising star filmmaker, is on the brink of premiering his difficult second film No Self at the London Film Festival when Billie, his hard drinking publicist, introduces him to a mesmeric French musician called Noah.


One Red Nose Day and a Wedding
2019 · 14m · UK
You’re invited to the wedding of the year, as the original cast of Four Weddings and a Funeral reunite in this one-off sequel. Twenty-five years after the events of Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Charles, Carrie, Fiona, Tom, David, Matthew, Bernard, Lydia and Father Gerald are back in church. But whose wedding is it - and will there be any more familiar faces?


Nativity Rocks!
2018 · 1h 40m · CA
The staff and students at St. Bernadette's Primary School audition for a coveted place in a spectacular rock musical competition.


The Happy Prince
2018 · 1h 41m · IT
In 1895, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was the most famous writer in London, and Bosie Douglas, son of the notorious Marquess of Queensberry, was his lover. Accused and convicted of gross indecency, he was imprisoned for two years and subjected to hard labor. Once free, he abandons England to live in France, where he will spend his last years, haunted by memories of the past, poverty and immense sadness.


Love of My Life
2017 · 1h 46m · CA
What if you had only five days to figure out... everything.


The Last Dragonslayer
2016 · 1h 41m · UK
In a fantasy world where magic is being superceded by technology, an orphaned teen discovers her destiny to become a dragonslayer.


This Beautiful Fantastic
2016 · 1h 40m · UK
Set against the backdrop of a beautiful garden in the heart of London, this contemporary fairy tale revolves around the unlikely friendship between a reclusive young woman and a cantankerous old widower. Bella Brown is a beautifully quirky young woman who dreams of writing and illustrating a successful children’s book. After she is forced by her landlord to deal with her neglected garden or face eviction, she meets her match, nemesis, and unlikely mentor in Alfie Stephenson, a grumpy, loveless, old man who lives next door who happens to be an amazing horticulturalist.


National Theatre Live: The Seagull
2016 · 2h 30m
On a summer's day in a makeshift theatre by a lake, Konstantin's cutting-edge new play is performed, changing the lives of everyone involved forever. Chekhov's masterly meditation on how the old takes revenge on the young is both comic and tragic, and marks the birth of the modern stage. Adapted by David Hare whose stage plays include Skylight, Pravada, and screenplays include The Hours and The Reader, directed by Jonathan Kent (Gypsy, Private Lives).


The Carer
2016 · 1h 29m · BE
Dorottya is a young Hungarian actress with a burning desire: to make it on the English stage. Legendary actor, Sir Michael Gifford suffers from an incurable disease, and has one desire: be left alone. When Dorottya becomes his carer they both hope their wish will be fulfilled.


Testament of Youth
2015 · 2h 9m · DK
Testament of Youth is a powerful story of love, war and remembrance, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain, which has become the classic testimony of that war from a woman’s point of view. A searing journey from youthful hopes and dreams to the edge of despair and back again, it’s a film about young love, the futility of war and how to make sense of the darkest times.


Queen Victoria's Letters: A Monarch Unveiled
2014 · 1h 58m · UK
This is the story of Queen Victoria as never heard before; a psychological insight of the woman told through her own words, her experiences recounted solely through her personal diaries and letters.


Sardines
2014 · 30m · UK
It is the day of Rebecca and Jeremy's engagement party, and everyone (well, nearly everyone) has turned up to the old house to wish them well. Except that one of the bedrooms, the one with all the old baggage in it, has been left unlocked...


Private Lives
2013 · 1h 53m · UK
Elyot Chase and Amanda Prynne are glamorous, rich, reckless…and divorced. Five years later, their love for one another is unexpectedly rekindled when they take adjoining suites of a French hotel while honeymooning with their new spouses. This chance encounter instantly reignites their passion, and they fling themselves headlong into a whirlwind of love and lust once more, without a thought for partners present or turbulences past. This Chichester Festival Theatre production of Noël Coward’s Privates Lives was filmed live at London's Gielgud Theatre.


How I Live Now
2013 · 1h 41m · CA
An American girl, sent to the English countryside to stay with relatives, finds love and purpose while fighting for her survival as war envelops the world around her.


Confessions of an Alien Abductee
2013 · 50m
Interviews with extraterrestrial abductees.


We'll Take Manhattan
2012 · 1h 30m · UK
We’ll Take Manhattan explores the explosive love affair between sixties supermodel Jean Shrimpton and photographer David Bailey. Focusing on a wild and unpredictable 1962 Vogue photo shoot in New York, the drama brings to life the story of two young people falling in love, misbehaving and inadvertently defining the style of the Sixties along the way.


Hysteria
2011 · 1h 40m · UK
Two doctors in Victorian England use manual stimulation of female genitalia to cure their patients' ills, leading to the invention of the vibrator.


Critical Eye
2010 · 12m · UK
Miserable critic, Brian Tanner, is famous for his vicious film reviews on his TV show Critical Eye. Over the years, he's grown to hate pretty much everything he sees, including his wife.


Christmas at the Riviera
2007 · 1h 34m · UK
The assistant manager of a seaside hotel is left to run the building over the Christmas period.


St Trinian's
2007 · 1h 41m · UK
When their beloved school is threatened with closure should the powers that be fail to raise the proper funds, the girls scheme to steal a priceless painting and use the profits to pull St. Trinian's out of the red.


Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars
2007 · 57m · IE
A gang of sharp witted street kids save Sherlock Holmes from an accusation of murder and to help foil an audacious robbery.


Breaking and Entering
2006 · 2h 9m · UK
Set in a blighted, inner-city neighbourhood of London, Breaking and Entering examines an affair which unfolds between a successful British landscape architect and Amira, a Bosnian woman – the mother of a troubled teen son – who was widowed by the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.


The Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton
2006 · 1h 25m · UK
In 19th century Victorian England, Mrs. Isabella Beeton produced what became an essential book for housewives of the day. She was married at a relatively young age to Sam Beeton, a publisher of books and magazines on a variety of subjects. Not someone to sit at home in the traditional role of a housewife, Mrs. Beeton started work in her husband's business, initially as an editor correcting English but then writing some of the columns herself. It as at this point that she developed an idea for a cookbook and Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management was born. Her life was not an easy one however. The publishing business went bankrupt, she lost two children at a young age and had several miscarriages. She died at the age of 28.


A Waste of Shame: The Mystery of Shakespeare and His Sonnets
2005 · 1h 26m · UK
In 1609, William Shakespeare published a collection of 154 sonnets, creating what is arguably the greatest lyric sequence in English literature - and at the center of this masterpiece lies a mystery that has endured for centuries. What are the identities of “the young man” and “the dark lady” to whom all but two of the sonnets allude? This moving performance brings to life the gritty reality of Shakespeare’s England, bits of the Bard’s plays and poems, and the consummate poet and dramatist himself as it exposes these personages unseen but so keenly felt in Shakespeare’s sonnets and in his life. Rupert Graves, Tom Sturridge, Indira Varma, Anna Chancellor, and Zoë Wanamaker star. Contains mature themes and explicit language. Some content may be objectionable. Produced by the Open University.


Don't Crash: The Documentary of the Making of the Movie of the Book of the Radio Series of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'
2005 · 1h 8m · UK
An in-depth examination of the complete production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005).


The Best Man
2005 · 1h 36m · DE
When writer's block derails the literary dreams of Olly Pickering, he has to move in with his friend Murray after losing all his money. Things start to look up when Olly's college pal James asks him to be the best man at his wedding. Prior to the nuptials, Olly is drawn to a woman whom he thinks is the bride's sister -- only she turns out to be the bride, Sarah. Can Murray, who dislikes James, help get Sarah and Olly together?


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2005 · 1h 49m · UK
Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."


Roman Road
2004 · 1h 31m · UK
Vince is a writer who suddenly decides to visit his old college friend Matt (who knows more than a bit about map-reading) to join him on an expedition. They both set off to walk the Roman road from Chichester to London, but it doesn't take long for it to become apparent that they're being chased by a mystery man in a fast car. It seems Vince has something in his backpack that someone wants very badly indeed.


Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
2004 · 1h 40m · US
With all-new gadgets, high-flying action, exciting chases and a wisecracking new handler, Derek (Anthony Anderson), Cody has to retrieve the device before the world's leaders fall under the evil control of a diabolical villain.


Wilde Stories: The Nightingale and the Rose
2003 · 24m
A nightingale sings for a lovesick student. The student is pining for a girl who will only dance with him if he presents her with a red rose. The nightingale fetches a rose, but at a terrible price...


100 Greatest Sexy Moments
2003 · 3h 24m · UK
Documentary, based on a British poll, listing the 100 sexiest movie and TV moments. Supplemented by new interviews with performers, filmmakers, and authors/critics.


The Dreamers
2003 · 1h 55m · FR
When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and everything is possible.


Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie
2003 · 1h 15m · UK
Doctor Bamford has had enough of village life and is desperate for some distance from inquisitive Cornish neighbours. When the local estate agent shows him Tregunnt Farm # derelict and miles from anywhere # it's love at first sight. But the Bowden family from London also have their eye on the property with a view to developing the surrounding land into ugly holiday cottages. After being gazumped, the Doc decides to try and spook the family into leaving by pretending to be the Beast of Bodmin.


What a Girl Wants
2003 · 1h 45m · US
American Daphne Reynolds heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her boho mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost father is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.


The Real Jane Austen
2002 · 1h
Drama-documentary exploring the life of Jane Austen. Actor Anna Chancellor, a distant relative of Jane Austen, discovers the woman behind the acclaimed novels through readings and reconstructions. Location shots of her homes in Steventon and Chawton and extracts from adaptations of her work are also featured.


Crush
2002 · 1h 52m · DE
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.


Longitude
2000 · 3h 18m · UK
Parallel stories: 18th century Harrison builds the marine chronometer for safe navigation at sea; 20th century Gould is obsessed with restoring it.


Heart
1999 · 1h 25m · UK
A woman, plastered in blood, is arrested by a grave, and a tale of loss, lust and jealousy slowly unfolds.


The Man Who Knew Too Little
1997 · 1h 34m · US
An American gets a ticket for an audience participation game in London, then gets involved in a case of mistaken identity. As an international plot unravels around him, he thinks it's all part of the act.


FairyTale: A True Story
1997 · 1h 39m · US
In 1917, two children take a photograph, which is soon believed by some to be the first scientific evidence of the existence of fairies. Based on the true story of the Cottingley Fairies.


Princess Caraboo
1994 · 1h 37m · UK
Bristol, England, early 19th century. A beautiful young stranger who speaks a weird language is tried for the crime of begging. But when a man claims that he can translate her dialect, it is understood that the woman is a princess from a far away land. She is then welcomed by a family of haughty aristocrats that only wants to heighten their prestige. However, the local reporter is not at all convinced she is what she claims to be and investigates. Is Caraboo really a princess?


Staggered
1994 · 1h 35m · UK
Very much in love, Neil's wedding plans are sabotaged, beginning when he is abandoned, naked, on a Scottish island. A road trip ensues, with Neil encountering many obstacles as he makes his way to London for what he believes is to be his wedding day. Or is it?


Tom & Viv
1994 · 1h 55m · UK
The story of the marriage of the poet T. S. Eliot to socialite Vivienne Haigh-Wood, which had to cope with her gynaecological and emotional problems and his growing fame.


Four Weddings and a Funeral
1994 · 1h 57m · UK
Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.


Century
1993 · 1h 52m · UK
Turn-of-the-century love story centered around a young doctor and the emergence of modern science.


Killing Dad
1989 · 1h 33m · UK
A man, always very devoted to his mother, decides to look for his father whom he never met. He meets a seducing older woman prone to drinking and her aged boyfriend whom she grew tired of.