Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (February 21, 1946 – January 14, 2016) was an English actor. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he was renowned for his stage and screen roles and for his deep and distinctive voice. He received various accolades, including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards and a Laurence Olivier Award.
He made his film debut in John McTiernan’s Die Hard (1988), with Bruce Willis, Alexander Godunov, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, William Atherton, Paul Gleason, and Hart Bochner. He was next in Pat O’Connor’s The January Man (1989), with Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Harvey Keitel, Danny Aiello, and Rod Steiger.
Films in the early 1990s include Quigley Down Under (1990), with Tom Selleck and Laura San Giacomo; Anthony Minghella’s Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), with Juliet Stevenson; Closet Land (1991), with Madeleine Stowe; Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), with Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Mastrantonio, Christian Slater, Geraldine McEwan, Michael McShane, Brian Blessed, Michael Wincott, Nick Brimble, and an uncredited Sean Connery; Close My Eyes (1991), with Clive Owen, Saskia Reeves, Lesley Sharp, and Karl Johnson; Bob Roberts (1992), with Tim Robbins (who also directed), Giancarlo Esposito, Ray Wise, Gore Vidal, John Cusack, Peter Gallagher, Sarandon, James Spader, and Fred Ward; Roger Spottiswoode’s Mesmer (1994), with Donal Donnelly, Amanda Ooms, and Simon McBurney; Mike Newell’s An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), with Hugh Grant and Georgina Cates; and Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (1995), with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Imogen Stubbs, Greg Wise, Gemma Jones, Hugh Laurie, Imelda Staunton, and Tom Wilkinson.
He made his directorial debut with The Winter Guest (1997), with Phyllida Law, Thompson, Sheila Reid, Sandra Voe, Arlene Cockburn, Gary Hollywood, Sean Biggerstaff, and Douglas Murphy. Other films in the mid to late 1990s include Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins (1996), with Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea, and Julia Roberts; Sebastián Gutiérrez’s Judas Kiss (1998), with Thompson, Roscoe Lee Browne, Carla Gugino, Simon Baker-Denny, Gil Bellows, Richard Riehle, and Til Schweiger; Dark Harbor (1998), with Norman Reedus and Polly Walker: Dogma (1999), with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Salma Hayek, Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith (who also directed), and Chris Rock; and Galaxy Quest (1999), with Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni, Robin Sachs, Patrick Breen, Missi Pyle, Jed Rees, and Justin Long.
In the 2000s he was cast as Severus Snape in the blockbuster Harry Potter franchise (2001-2011), collectively with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Richard Griffiths, Richard Harris, Ian Hart, John Hurt, Fiona Shaw, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Mark Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Jason Isaacs, Gary Oldman, Timothy Spall, David Thewlis, Thompson, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, David Tennant, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Staunton, Jim Broadbent, Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy, and Kelly Macdonald.
Other films in the early 2000s include a voice role in Help! I’m a Fish (2000), with Aaron Paul, Terry Jones, and David Bateson; Blow Dry (2001), with Natasha Richardson, Rachel Griffiths, Rachael Leigh Cook, Josh Hartnett, Nighy, Rosemary Harris, and Heidi Klum; The Search for John Gissing (2001), with Alan Rickman, Janeane Garofalo, and Mike Binder (who also directed); Richard Curtis’s Love Actually (2003), with Grant, Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Thompson, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon, Nighy, Rowan Atkinson, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Chiwetel Ejiofor; and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), with Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Nighy, Anna Chancellor, and John Malkovich, and the voices of Stephen Fry, Helen Mirren, Griffiths, Thomas Lennon, and Ian McNeice.
Films in the mid to late 2000s include Snow Cake (2006), with Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss, Emily Hampshire, and Callum Keith Rennie; Tom Tykwer’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), with Ben Wishaw, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and Dustin Hoffman; Randall Miller’s Nobel Son (2007), with Bryan Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Eliza Dushku, and Danny DeVito; Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), with Johnny Depp, Bonham Carter, Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle and Kelly, Jayne Wisener; and Bottle Shock (2008), with Chris Pine, Pullman, Rachael Taylor, Freddy Rodriguez, Dushku, Dennis Farina, and Bradley Whitford.
He directed his second film A Little Chaos (2014), with Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Stanley Tucci, Helen McCrory, Steven Waddington, Jennifer Ehle and Rupert Penry-Jones. Other films in the 2010s include a voice role in Alice in Wonderland (2010), with Mia Wasikowska, Depp, Anne Hathaway, Matt Lucas, Bonham Carter, and Crispin Glover, and the voices of Fry, Michael Sheen, Spall, Christopher Lee, Paul Whitehouse, Barbara Windsor and Michael Gough; Michael Hoffman’s Gambit (2012), with Firth, Cameron Diaz, Tom Courtenay, Stanley Tucci, Cloris Leachman, and Togo Igawa; Lee Daniels’s The Butler (2013), with Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Mariah Carey, John Cusack, Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Lenny Kravitz, James Marsden, David Oyelowo, Vanessa Redgrave, Liev Schreiber, Robin Williams, and Clarence Williams III; Patrice Leconte’s A Promise (2013), with Rebecca Hall, Richard Madden, Maggie Steed, Shannon Tarbet, and Jean-Louis Sbille; CBGB (2013), with Malin Åkerman, Justin Bartha, Richard de Klerk, Kyle Gallner, Johnny Galecki, Ashley Greene, Grint, Estelle Harris, Taylor Hawkins, Ryan Hurst, Stana Katic, Donal Logue, Joel David Moore, Ahna O’Reilly, Rodriguez, Mickey Sumner, Bradley Whitford, and Josh Zuckerman. His final films were Eye in the Sky (2015), with Mirren, Paul, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, and Iain Glen; and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), the latter being a posthumous release.
His TV work included the miniseries The Barchester Chronicles (1982), with Donald Pleasence, Nigel Hawthorne, David Gwillim, John Ringham, Joseph O’Conor, Clifford Parrish, Angela Pleasence, Geraldine McEwan, Janet Maw, Susan Hampshire, and Barbara Flynn. He was nominated twice for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie: winning for Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996), with Greta Scacchi, Ian McKellen, David Warner, and John Wood; and being nominated for Something the Lord Made (2004), with Mos Def, Kyra Sedgwick, Gabrielle Union, Charles S. Dutton, and Mary Stuart Masterson.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Romeo & Juliet (1979) – directed by Alvin Rakoff – TV movie
- Thérèse Raquin (1980) – directed by Simon Langton – miniseries
- The Barchester Chronicles (1982) – directed by David Giles – miniseries
- Busted (1983) – directed by Jon Amiel – TV movie
- Wetherby (1985) – directed by David Hare – TV movie – uncredited
- Pity in History (1985) – directed by Sarah Pia Anderson – TV movie
- Die Hard (1988)** – directed by John McTiernan
- The January Man (1989) – directed by Pat O’Connor
- Quigley Down Under (1990) – directed by Simon Wincer
- Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990) – directed by Anthony Minghella
- Closet Land (1991) – directed by Radha Bharadwaj
- Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) – directed by Kevin Reynolds
- Close My Eyes (1991) – directed by Stephen Poliakoff
- Bob Roberts (1992) – directed by Tim Robbins
- Murder, Obliquely (1993) – directed by Alfonso Cuarón – TV movie
- Mesmer (1994) – directed by Roger Spottiswoode
- An Awfully Big Adventure (1995) – directed by Mike Newell
- Sense and Sensibility (1995) – directed by Ang Lee
- Rasputin (1996) – directed by Uli Edel – TV movie
- Michael Collins (1996) – directed by Neil Jordan
- The Winter Guest (1997) – uncredited – also director, co-writer
- Judas Kiss (1998) – directed by Sebastian Gutierrez
- Dark Harbor (1998) – directed by Adam Coleman Howard
- Dogma (1999) – directed by Kevin Smith
- Galaxy Quest (1999)* – directed by Dean Parisot
- Help! I’m a Fish (2000) – directed by Stefan Fjeldmark, Greg Manwaring, & Michael Hegner – English dub
- Blow Dry (2001) – directed by Paddy Breathnach
- Play (2001) – directed by Anthony Minghella – short
- The Search for John Gissing (2001) – directed by Mike Binder
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)* – directed by Chris Columbus
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)* – directed by Chris Columbus
- Love Actually (2003)* – directed by Richard Curtis
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)* – directed by Alfonso Cuarón
- Something the Lord Made (2004) – directed by Joseph Sargent – TV movie
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005) – directed by Garth Jennings
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)* – directed by Mike Newell
- Snow Cake (2006) – directed by Marc Evans
- Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) – directed by Tom Tykwer
- Nobel Son (2007) – directed by Randall Miller
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)* – directed by David Yates
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) – directed by Tim Burton
- Bottle Shock (2008) – directed by Randall Miller
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)* – directed by David Yates
- The Wildest Dream (2010) – directed by Anthony Geffen – voice – documentary
- Alice in Wonderland (2010) – directed by Tim Burton
- The Song of Lunch (2010) – directed by Niall MacCormick – TV movie
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010)* – directed by David Yates
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011)* – directed by David Yates
- The Boy in the Bubble (2011) – directed by Kealan O’Rourke – short
- Gambit (2012) – directed by Michael Hoffman
- The Butler (2013)* – directed by Lee Daniels
- A Promise (2013) – directed by Patrice Leconte
- CBGB (2013) – directed by Randall Miller
- Dust (2013) – directed by Ben Ockrent & Jake Russell – short
- A Little Chaos (2014) – also director, co-writer
- Eye in the Sky (2015) – directed by Gavin Hood
- Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) – directed by James Bobins – posthumous release
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