---
name: "Terence Young"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/terence-young"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "20 June 1915"
died: "7 September 1994"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 76
average_as: "director"
average_over: 3
updated: "2026-09-18T10:58:11.950467+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."
---

# Terence Young

Director. Born 20 June 1915 in Shanghai, China. Died 7 September 1994.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 20 June 1915, Shanghai, China
- **Died:** 7 September 1994
- **Active:** 1962–1965
- **Also known as:**  Shaun Terence Young , Shaun Young, Теренс Янг
- **Frequently works with:** [Richard Maibaum](https://film.one/person/richard-maibaum.md), [Sean Connery](https://film.one/person/sean-connery.md), [Albert R. Broccoli](https://film.one/person/albert-r-broccoli.md), [Harry Saltzman](https://film.one/person/harry-saltzman.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 76, as director, over 3 titles
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 76 to 75 across 3 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Action 3, Adventure 3, Thriller 3
- **Screen time:** 6 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $279m across 3 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Young_(director), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q314882, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0950109/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/9855

## Fi1m on Terence Young

> Terence Young's three Bond films gave the series its manners: violence taken lightly, glamour taken seriously, and a leading man he had walked round tailors and restaurants until the suit fitted. Outside them, he directed for forty years and left almost no fingerprints.

A man sits with his back to us at a chemin de fer table while a woman loses and doubles. Young keeps the camera there, on the back of his head, and only turns it round when he lights a cigarette and gives his name. The trick in *Dr. No* (1962) is cheap and it works completely, and it is Young's method in miniature: hold off, let the other actor do the work, then land the line.

He had been at it a long time by then. He started as a screenwriter in the late 1930s, served in the British Army through the war, and made his first film as director, *Corridor of Mirrors*, in 1948. *They Were Not Divided* (1950) took its material from his own war. Through the 1950s he made action pictures for Warwick Films, three with Victor Mature, and that is the trade he brought to Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli. He made *Dr. No*, *From Russia with Love* (1963) and *Thunderball* (1965), and then he left.

What he brought was tone. He said of *Dr. No* that the sex and violence, played straight, would never get past the censors, but "the moment you take the mickey out, put the tongue out in the cheek, it seems to disarm". He also took Connery in hand, to tailors and restaurants. Connery's Bond, who finds most things slightly funny and nothing frightening, is Young's as much as anyone's. The tarantula in *Dr. No* still makes us go rigid, several viewings on, because Young and his editor Peter R. Hunt hold on Connery's sweating face and take Monty Norman's music away entirely. Hunt's hard, short cutting of the fights is the other half of the style.

The rest is thinner. Our review of *Dr. No* says the middle third sags and the next film is better; Young thought so too, calling *From Russia with Love* the best of the series and crediting the subject rather than himself. *Wait Until Dark* (1967), with Audrey Hepburn, was noticed on its own account. After that come European co-productions and Hollywood jobs, *The Klansman* (1974), *Inchon* (1981), and it is hard to find Young in any of them. The usual complaint, that he took the work for the money and had no style to call his own, is largely fair. His style was the series' style, and once he stopped making Bonds it had nowhere else to go.

Start with *Dr. No*, go on to *From Russia with Love*, and stop there unless *Wait Until Dark* tempts you. Young is remembered as the man who set Bond going, and on the evidence that is about right, and it is not a small thing to be.

## Biography

Terence Young was a British film director and screenwriter. Born in Shanghai in 1915, he was educated at Harrow School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He began his career as a scriptwriter in the late 1930s and made his directorial debut with Corridor of Mirrors (1948).

Young is best known for directing the first two James Bond films, Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963), and the later entry Thunderball (1965). He also directed Wait Until Dark (1967), Mayerling (1968) and several international co-productions featuring stars such as Charles Bronson. He died in Cannes in 1994.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, screenonline.org.uk.*

## On Fi1m (3)

- *Thunderball* (1965), Fi1m 66, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/thunderball.md)
- *From Russia with Love* (1963), Fi1m 84, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/from-russia-with-love.md)
- *Dr. No* (1962), Fi1m 77, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/dr-no.md)

## Complete filmography (50)

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

- *Run for Your Life* (1988), Director
- *Where Is Parsifal?* (1984), Executive Producer
- *The Jigsaw Man* (1983), Director
- *Inchon* (1981), Director
- *Long Days* (1980), Co-Director, Director
- *Bloodline* (1979), Director
- *Foxbat* (1977), Script Consultant
- *The Klansman* (1974), Director
- *War Goddess* (1973), Director
- *The Valachi Papers* (1972), Director
- *Red Sun* (1971), Director
- *Cold Sweat* (1970), Director
- *The Christmas Tree* (1969), Director, Writer
- *Mayerling* (1968), Director, Screenplay
- *Wait Until Dark* (1967), Director
- *The Rover* (1967), Director
- *Triple Cross* (1966), Director
- *O.S.S. 117: Mission to Tokyo* (1966), Writer
- *The Poppy Is Also a Flower* (1966), Director
- *Thunderball* (1965), Director — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/thunderball.md)
- *The Dirty Game* (1965), Director
- *The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders* (1965), Director
- *From Russia with Love* (1963), Director — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/from-russia-with-love.md)
- *Dr. No* (1962), Director — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/dr-no.md)
- *Duel of Champions* (1961), Director
- *Black Tights* (1961), Director
- *Too Hot to Handle* (1960), Director
- *Serious Charge* (1959), Director
- *Tank Force!* (1958), Director, Writer
- *Action of the Tiger* (1957), Director
- *Zarak* (1956), Director
- *Safari* (1956), Director
- *Storm Over the Nile* (1955), Director
- *That Lady* (1955), Director
- *The Red Beret* (1953), Director
- *Tall Headlines* (1952), Director
- *Valley of the Eagles* (1951), Writer, Director
- *They Were Not Divided* (1950), Director, Screenplay
- *The Bad Lord Byron* (1949), Writer
- *Woman Hater* (1948), Director
- *One Night with You* (1948), Director
- *Corridor of Mirrors* (1948), Director
- *Hungry Hill* (1947), Screenplay
- *Theirs Is the Glory* (1946), Writer
- *On Approval* (1944), Writer
- *A Letter from Ulster* (1943), Screenplay
- *Secret Mission* (1942), Story
- *Dangerous Moonlight* (1941), Original Story, Screenplay
- *A Call for Arms!* (1940), Story
- *On the Night of the Fire* (1939), Writer

## Gallery

- ![Terence Young](https://film.one/media/person/1025240/gallery-5b90cc395d22.jpg) Terence Young — Image via TMDB
- ![Terence Young](https://film.one/media/person/1025240/gallery-fca2a1853d59.jpg) Terence Young — Image via TMDB
- ![Terence Young](https://film.one/media/person/1025240/gallery-06c16de464a8.jpg) Terence Young — Image via TMDB
- ![Terence Young](https://film.one/media/person/1025240/gallery-c8c7a9b5f56e.jpg) Terence Young — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Other awards — 1 won

- Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director 1983: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director (won), for *Inchon*

*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/terence-young