David Thewlis

David Thewlis

David Wheeler (born March 20, 1963), better known as David Thewlis, is an English actor and filmmaker. He is known as a character actor and has appeared in a wide variety of genres in both film and television. He has received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and nominations for two BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Award, Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Thewlis made his film debut in Little Dorrit (1987) and acted in the Mike Leigh films Life is Sweet (1990) and Naked (1993), winning the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for the latter. He then appeared in films such as Black Beauty (1994), Restoration (1995), James and the Giant Peach (1996), Dragonheart (1996), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997). He became more widely known to film audiences for his roles as Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter franchise (2004–2011) and Ares / Sir Patrick Morgan in Wonder Woman (2017). Other film roles include Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), War Horse (2011), The Theory of Everything (2014), Anomalisa (2015), I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020), and Enola Holmes 2 (2022).

Thewlis’ most notable television roles include V. M. Varga in the third season of FX’s Fargo (2017), the voice of the Shame Wizard in the Netflix animated sitcoms Big Mouth (2017–present) and Human Resources (2022–present), Christopher Edwards in the HBO miniseries Landscapers (2021), and John Dee in the Netflix drama series The Sandman (2022). His performance in Fargo earned him nominations for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Critics’ Choice Award.

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David Thewlis Movies

Discover the best David Thewlis movies. Explore the complete filmography, including top-rated classics, newest releases, and highest-grossing films starring David Thewlis ranked by year and score.

1

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

Adventure Fantasy Science Fiction
Still grieving the death of their eldest son, Jake Sully and Neytiri find no peace on a Pandora scarred by war. A new enemy emerges from the volcanic margins of...
Score 7.5
2

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)

Action Adventure Fantasy
Superman is gone, and the void he left behind is enormous. Bruce Wayne knows it, and so does the enemy already moving toward Earth. Partnering with Diana Prince, Wayne goes...
Score 8.1
3

I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

Drama Mystery Thriller
A young woman rides through a snowstorm with a boyfriend she is already reconsidering, headed toward a farmhouse dinner with his parents that keeps slipping out of time. Charlie Kaufman's...
Score 6.6
4

Justice League (2017)

Action Adventure Science Fiction
Superman's sacrifice leaves a void that no single hero can fill, and Bruce Wayne knows it. Partnering with Diana Prince, he goes looking for extraordinary people willing to stand against...
Score 6.1
5

Wonder Woman (2017)

Action Adventure Fantasy
Diana has spent her life on the hidden island of Themyscira, trained as a warrior among Amazons who exist apart from the outside world. When a crashed pilot brings news...
Score 7.2
6

Anomalisa (2015)

Animation Comedy Drama
A burned-out motivational speaker arrives in Cincinnati for a corporate gig, trapped in a gray hotel room where everyone around him seems identical, speaking with the same voice. Then he...
Score 7.1
7

Macbeth (2015)

Drama War
Scotland, blood-soaked and beautiful, becomes the backdrop for one soldier's unraveling. After battlefield prophecies plant a poisonous idea in General Macbeth's mind, his fiercely ambitious wife fans the ember into...
Score 6.4
8

Legend (2015)

Crime Thriller
Tom Hardy plays both Kray twins, and the casting choice alone tells you everything about the film's ambitions. Set in 1960s London, it charts how Reggie and Ronnie built a...
Score 7.1
9

The Theory of Everything (2014)

Drama Romance
At Cambridge in the early 1960s, a brilliant physics student named Stephen Hawking meets Jane Wilde, and what begins as intellectual courtship quietly deepens into something neither anticipated. When Stephen...
Score 7.8
10

War Horse (2011)

Adventure Drama History
A farmer's son watches helplessly as his horse is conscripted into World War One's cavalry. Across the scarred French countryside, the animal witnesses the war's brutality firsthand, moving between soldiers...
Score 7.3
11

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

Adventure Fantasy
The war for the wizarding world reaches Hogwarts itself, and the school that once felt like home becomes a battlefield. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have been hunting Horcruxes in the...
Score 8.1
12

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

Adventure Fantasy
Without the shelter of Hogwarts, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are truly on their own. Grieving, hunted, and increasingly fractured by paranoia, the three friends set out across a bleak and...
Score 7.7
13

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Adventure Fantasy
Voldemort is no longer a distant threat. His shadow falls across both wizarding and Muggle worlds, and even Hogwarts feels compromised from within. Dumbledore, sensing the clock running out, pulls...
Score 7.7
14

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Adventure Fantasy
Back at Hogwarts for his fifth year, Harry finds the wizarding establishment has chosen denial over truth. The Ministry refuses to acknowledge Voldemort's return, and the school has been handed...
Score 7.7
15

The Omen (2006)

Horror Mystery Thriller
When a young boy enters the lives of a rising ambassador and his wife, their world begins to unravel in ways that defy explanation. Strange deaths accumulate around the child....
Score 5.7
16

Basic Instinct 2 (2006)

Crime Mystery Thriller
Catherine Tramell resurfaces in London, ensnared in another murder investigation. Scotland Yard assigns a psychiatrist to assess her psychological profile, but the brilliant novelist proves more dangerous than any case...
Score 5.0
17

The New World (2005)

Drama History Romance
Terrence Malick turns the story of John Smith and the Powhatan people into something closer to a poem than a period piece. Set against the Virginia coastline of 1607, the...
Score 6.5
18

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Action Adventure Drama
Grief sends a French blacksmith named Balian on a journey he never sought. Traveling to Jerusalem in the twelfth century, he discovers a birthright he barely understands and a city...
Score 7.0
19

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Adventure Fantasy
Third year at Hogwarts arrives with a darker mood than Harry has known before. Dementors patrol the school grounds, draining joy from anyone who wanders too close. A convicted murderer...
Score 8.0
20

Timeline (2003)

Action Adventure Science Fiction
When a team of archaeology students follows their missing professor back through a quantum teleportation device, they land squarely in the middle of the Hundred Years War. Medieval France is...
Score 5.7
21

Gangster No. 1 (2000)

Action Crime Drama
Decades of power have done nothing to quiet the old gangster's demons. When word arrives that Freddie Mays is finally walking free after thirty years inside, the past comes flooding...
Score 6.4
22

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Comedy Crime
Jeff Lebowski wants nothing more from life than a good bowling lane and a cold White Russian. When a pair of thugs mistake him for a wheelchair-bound millionaire who shares...
Score 7.8
23

DragonHeart (1996)

Action Adventure Drama
A dragon-slaying knight and the last living dragon make for an improbable partnership, but shared hatred of a vicious king has a way of bridging old grudges. The complication runs...
Score 6.6
24

Naked (1993)

Comedy Drama
Mike arrives in London with nothing but contempt for the world around him. Over the course of a single night, his savage wit and bitter intelligence become weapons he deploys...
Score 7.3

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the highest-rated movies starring David Thewlis? +
According to aggregate user scores, the absolute best titles starring David Thewlis are Avatar: Fire and Ash, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
How many movies and TV shows has David Thewlis starred in? +
Our database currently features a comprehensive filmography of 24 titles starring David Thewlis, ranging from their earliest roles to the newest releases.
Are the movies starring David Thewlis worth watching? +
Yes! The overall filmography starring David Thewlis maintains a strong average user rating of 7 out of 10 across all tracked titles.