---
name: "Charles Laughton"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/charles-laughton"
fi1m_id: "charles-laughton"
imdb_id: "nm0001452"
tmdb_id: 10921
wikidata_id: "Q55264"
roles: ["Actor","Director"]
born: "30 June 1899"
died: "15 December 1962"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 6
average_fi1m_score: 80
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-09-19T22:59:33.851547+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Charles Laughton

## Identity

Charles Laughton

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/charles-laughton
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** charles-laughton
- **IMDb ID:** nm0001452
- **TMDB ID:** 10921
- **Wikidata ID:** Q55264
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Laughton, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55264, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001452/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/10921

Actor and director. Born 30 June 1899 in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, UK. Died 15 December 1962.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor, Director
- **Born:** 30 June 1899, Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, UK
- **Died:** 15 December 1962
- **Active:** 1933–1957
- **Also known as:** Чарльз Лотон, 찰스 로턴, 찰스 로튼, Чарльз Лаутон, 查尔斯·劳顿
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 6: 5 acting, 1 directing
- **Frequently works with:** [Arthur Hornblow Jr.](https://film.one/person/arthur-hornblow-jr.md), [Fredric March](https://film.one/person/fredric-march.md), [Irving Thalberg](https://film.one/person/irving-thalberg.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar (1 won · 2 nominated)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 80, as actor, over 5 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 78 (4), 1950s 89 (2)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 85 to 83 across 3 titles
- **Score spread:** 3 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Lead roles:** 3 of 5 acting credits billed first or second
- **Genres:** Drama 4, History 2, Romance 2, Adventure 1, Comedy 1, Crime 1
- **Screen time:** 9 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $15m across 3 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Laughton, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55264, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001452/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/10921

## Streaming the US now

- **The Criterion Channel:** [*The Night of the Hunter*](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md) (91)
- **Tubi:** [*Witness for the Prosecution*](https://film.one/film/witness-for-the-prosecution.md) (87)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Charles Laughton

> Charles Laughton could be the largest thing in any room, and often was. His best work is quieter: a father who waits rather than shouts, and the one film he directed, which has him nowhere on screen and everywhere in it.

Watch what Charles Laughton does when he is not talking. In *The Barretts of Wimpole Street* (1934) he brings his invalid daughter a tankard of porter she has said she cannot face, and instead of arguing he waits, and prays over her, and tells her she will drink it because he asks. Everyone else in that upstairs room sits. He stands, in the doorway or over the sofa, and William H. Daniels keeps him at the edge of the frame so that Elizabeth's bedroom seems smaller once he is in it. We were frightened of him, more than a frock coat and a costume drama had any right to manage, and it was the patience that did it. Of that film's censored script he said, "They can't censor the gleam in my eye," and he was right.

He came to films from the London stage, where he first appeared professionally in 1926, and to Hollywood in 1932. The title part in *The Private Life of Henry VIII* (1933) made his name, and for a decade he was the man you sent for when a script called for a king, a tyrant or a monster: Captain Bligh in *Mutiny on the Bounty* (1935), Quasimodo in *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939). The complaint against him has always been the same, that he could not leave a scene alone, and there are films from the 1940s where colleagues and critics found him hammy. We would not defend all of it. The fault is the other side of the gift; a man who can shrink a room by standing in it will sometimes stand in it too long.

The fifties were his best years, and he spent them on both sides of the camera. There was a comic turn for David Lean in *Hobson's Choice* (1954), and then, in 1955, he directed *The Night of the Hunter* and never directed again. Stanley Cortez shot it in black and white with almost nothing in between, Lillian Gish was used as the face of silent cinema she had been, and Billy Chapin carried the middle of the film on a child's face that had learned to give nothing away. We would send a stranger to see it. Two years later Billy Wilder gave him Sir Wilfrid in *Witness for the Prosecution* (1957), and the old habits came out to play: the performance is broad, sometimes insistently so, and the vanity is funny because the mind behind it never stops working. It helps that Elsa Lanchester, who made ten films with him, is on hand as Miss Plimsoll to refuse to be impressed. Laughton was always better with someone prepared to argue back. By *Spartacus* (1960) and *Advise & Consent* (1962) he had found a measured restraint that the younger man rarely bothered with.

Start with *Witness for the Prosecution* if you want the show, and *The Barretts of Wimpole Street* if you want to know why the show was worth sitting through. Then see the one film he directed, and wonder, as we do, what the second would have been.

## Biography

Charles Laughton (1899–1962) was an English actor, director and screenwriter. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and made his professional stage debut in 1926. In 1927 he appeared in a play with Elsa Lanchester, whom he later married; the couple worked together until his death.

Laughton appeared in numerous British and Hollywood films, including *Mutiny on the Bounty* (1935) and *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939). He directed and co-wrote the screenplay for *The Night of the Hunter* (1955) and played Sir Wilfrid in *Witness for the Prosecution* (1957). He also directed stage productions such as *The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial*.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, bfi.org.uk, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (6)

### Performed in (5) — the average rests on these

- *Witness for the Prosecution* (1957), Fi1m 87, as Sir Wilfrid — [page](https://film.one/film/witness-for-the-prosecution.md)
- *Les Misérables* (1935), Fi1m 74, as Inspector Emile Javert — [page](https://film.one/film/les-miserables-1935.md)
- *Mutiny on the Bounty* (1935), Fi1m 83, as Captaine Bligh — [page](https://film.one/film/mutiny-on-the-bounty.md)
- *Ruggles of Red Gap* (1935), Fi1m 84, as Marmaduke Ruggles — [page](https://film.one/film/ruggles-of-red-gap.md)
- *The Barretts of Wimpole Street* (1934), Fi1m 72, as Edward Moulton-Barrett — [page](https://film.one/film/the-barretts-of-wimpole-street.md)

### Directed (1)

- *The Night of the Hunter* (1955), Fi1m 91, Director, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md)

## Complete filmography (66)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Monster Madness: The Golden Age of the Horror Film* (2014), as Dr. Moreau (archive footage)
- *Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker* (1991), as actor 'Advise and 'Consent' (archive footage) (uncredited)
- *Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies* (1988), as (archive footage) (uncredited)
- *Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid* (1982), as (in "The Bribe") (archive footage)
- *The Horror Show* (1979), as (archive footage)
- *The Epic That Never Was* (1969), as Tiberius Claudius (archive footage)
- *The Life of Galileo* (1964), Translator
- *Advise & Consent* (1962), as Senator Seabright Cooley
- *Spartacus* (1960), as Sempronius Gracchus
- *Under Ten Flags* (1960), as Admiral Russell
- *In the Presence of Mine Enemies* (1960), as Rabbi Adam Heller
- *Witness for the Prosecution* (1957), as Sir Wilfrid — Fi1m 87, [page](https://film.one/film/witness-for-the-prosecution.md)
- *The Night of the Hunter* (1955), Screenplay, Director — Fi1m 91, [page](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md)
- *Hobson's Choice* (1954), as Henry Horatio Hobson
- *Young Bess* (1953), as King Henry VIII
- *Salome* (1953), as King Herod
- *General Electric Theater* (1953), series, as Edwin Kensington, Henry Denry, M. Hamel
- *Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd* (1952), as Capt. William Kidd
- *O. Henry's Full House* (1952), as Soapy (segment "The Cop and the Anthem")
- *The Strange Door* (1951), as Sire Alain de Maletroit
- *The Blue Veil* (1951), as Fred K. Begley
- *The Man on the Eiffel Tower* (1949), as Inspector Jules Maigret
- *The Bribe* (1949), as J.J. Bealer
- *The Girl from Manhattan* (1948), as The Bishop
- *The Big Clock* (1948), as Earl Janoth
- *Arch of Triumph* (1948), as Ivon Haake
- *On Our Merry Way* (1948), as Reverend
- *The Paradine Case* (1947), as Judge Lord Thomas Horfield
- *Leben des Galilei* (1947), as Galileo Galilei · Writer
- *Because of Him* (1946), as John Sheridan
- *Captain Kidd* (1945), as Captain Kidd
- *The Suspect* (1945), as Philip Marshall
- *The Canterville Ghost* (1944), as Sir Simon de Canterville / The Ghost
- *The Man from Down Under* (1943), as Jocko Wilson
- *This Land Is Mine* (1943), as Albert Lory
- *Forever and a Day* (1943), as Bellamy
- *Stand by for Action* (1942), as Rear Admiral Stephen Thomas
- *Tales of Manhattan* (1942), as Charles Smith
- *The Tuttles of Tahiti* (1942), as Jonas
- *It Started with Eve* (1941), as Jonathan Reynolds
- *They Knew What They Wanted* (1940), as Tony Patucci
- *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (1939), as The Hunchback Quasimodo
- *Jamaica Inn* (1939), as Sir Humphrey Pengallan · Producer
- *St. Martin's Lane* (1938), as Charles Staggers, Additional Writing · Producer
- *Vessel of Wrath* (1938), as Ginger Ted · Producer
- *I, Claudius* (1937), as Claudius
- *Rembrandt* (1936), as Rembrandt van Rijn
- *Mutiny on the Bounty* (1935), as Captaine Bligh — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/film/mutiny-on-the-bounty.md)
- *Les Misérables* (1935), as Inspector Emile Javert — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/les-miserables-1935.md)
- *Ruggles of Red Gap* (1935), as Marmaduke Ruggles — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/ruggles-of-red-gap.md)
- *The Barretts of Wimpole Street* (1934), as Edward Moulton-Barrett — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/film/the-barretts-of-wimpole-street.md)
- *White Woman* (1933), as Horace H. Prin
- *The Private Life of Henry VIII* (1933), as Henry VIII
- *The Clerk* (1933), as Phineas V. Lambert
- *Island of Lost Souls* (1932), as Dr. Moreau
- *The Sign of the Cross* (1932), as Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar
- *If I Had a Million* (1932), as Phineas V. Lambert
- *Payment Deferred* (1932), as William Marble
- *The Old Dark House* (1932), as Sir William Porterhouse
- *Devil and the Deep* (1932), as Cmdr. Charles Sturm
- *Down River* (1931), as Captain Grossman
- *Wolves* (1930), as Captain Job
- *Piccadilly* (1929), as A Continental Visitor
- *Blue Bottles* (1928), as Burglar
- *The Tonic* (1928), as Father of the Family
- *Daydreams* (1928), as Lecherous Boarder / Ram Das in Dream Sequence

## Gallery

- ![Charles Laughton as Sir Wilfrid in Witness for the Prosecution (1957)](https://film.one/media/title/5602/still-5eeb0360280c.jpg) Charles Laughton as Sir Wilfrid in *Witness for the Prosecution* (1957) — Image via TMDB
- ![Charles Laughton](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-9630c2456baa.jpg) Charles Laughton — Clarence Sinclair Bull, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Charles_Laughton-publicity2.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Portrait of Charles Laughton (1940)](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-f35b5129b285.jpg) Portrait of Charles Laughton (1940) — Carl Van Vechten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Charles_Laughton01.jpg/1280px-Charles_Laughton01.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Publicity still of Charles Laughton in the 1944 film, The Suspect (1945)](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-93fd498a65b9.jpg) Publicity still of Charles Laughton in the 1944 film, The Suspect (1945) — Universal Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/The-Suspect-3.jpg/1280px-The-Suspect-3.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Charles Laughton and John Carradine in Captain Kidd (1945) - cropped screenshot](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-09660f6c7864.jpg) Charles Laughton and John Carradine in Captain Kidd (1945) - cropped screenshot — film screenshot (Benedict Bogeaus Productions), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Captain_Kidd_%281945%29_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Charles Laughton](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-17f6ff8f9fdb.jpg) Charles Laughton — Image via TMDB
- ![Charles Laughton](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-a8feb98ba226.jpg) Charles Laughton — Image via TMDB
- ![Charles Laughton](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-8a55b5a33788.jpg) Charles Laughton — Image via TMDB
- ![Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton in American romantic-drama film They Knew What They Wanted (1940).](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-ff4fb32e6f90.jpg) Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton in American romantic-drama film They Knew What They Wanted (1940). — Unknown authorUnknown author, distributed by: RKO Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Carole_Lombard_and_Charles_Laughton_They_Knew_What_They_Wanted.jpg/1280px-Carole_Lombard_and_Charles_Laughton_They_Knew_What_They_Wanted.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Actors Charles Laughton and wife, Elsa Lanchester after taking the United States oath of citizenship. (1950)](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-4a5719881d5f.jpg) Actors Charles Laughton and wife, Elsa Lanchester after taking the United States oath of citizenship. (1950) — Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Charles_Laughton_and_Elsa_Lanchester_becoming_US_citizens.jpg/1280px-Charles_Laughton_and_Elsa_Lanchester_becoming_US_citizens.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Charles Laughton](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-04a964862475.jpg) Charles Laughton — Image via TMDB
- ![Charles Laughton](https://film.one/media/person/95277/gallery-1ae8742ca8f0.jpg) Charles Laughton — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 1 won, 2 nominated

- 1958: Best Actor (nominated), for *Witness for the Prosecution*
- 1936: Best Actor (nominated), for *Mutiny on the Bounty*
- 1934: Best Actor (won), for *The Private Life of Henry VIII*

### Other awards — 1 won

- Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording 1962: Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/charles-laughton