University of Oxford in Popular Culture - in Films

In Films

Films set in the University include:

  • A Yank at Oxford (1938), starring Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh
  • A Chump at Oxford (1940) starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
  • Accident (1967), film about an Oxford don, co-written by Harold Pinter
  • May Morning (1970), a critique of social mores in early 1970s Oxford
  • Incense for the Damned (1972), starring Peter Cushing, Patrick Macnee and Edward Woodward (based on the novel Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven)
  • Brideshead Revisited (1981), based on Waugh's novel; a miniseries enormously popular in Britain and America, the film has sometimes been seen as drawing unwanted attention to Oxford's stereotypical reputation as a playground of the upper classes. It stars Jeremy Irons, and most college shots are of Christ Church and Hertford.
  • Oxford Blues (1984), starring Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy and Amanda Pays
  • American Friends (1991), starring Michael Palin
  • Shadowlands (1993), starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, about the life of C. S. Lewis
  • The Madness of King George (1994), with Nigel Hawthorne
  • Tom & Viv (1994), a film which explores the troubled relationship between T. S. Eliot (played by Willem Dafoe) and his mentally ill wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood (Miranda Richardson)
  • True Blue (1996), about the mutiny at the time of the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race of 1987
  • Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), a James Bond sequel starring Pierce Brosnan (Bond returns to Oxford to brush up on his Danish.)
  • The Saint (1997), film starring Val Kilmer as the sleuth Simon Templar
  • Wilde (1997), film about the outlandish playwright starring Stephen Fry, Jude Law and Vanessa Redgrave
  • The Red Violin (1998), the violin arrives in Oxford after being given to an English lord
  • Iris (2001), starring Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent and Kate Winslet, about the life of Iris Murdoch
  • National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: Rise of Taj (2006), under the name of "Camford"
  • What A Girl Wants (2003), movie about a vivacious teenager called Daphne who goes to visit her father in London, only to learn he is a lord. Eventually she attends Oxford University, just like her father.
  • The History Boys (film) (2008) movie about a group of boys applying to do history at Oxford. Set in 1983 and based on the play by Alan Bennett.
  • The Oxford Murders (film) (2007) starring Elijah Wood and John Hurt.
  • Blue Blood (2007)
  • The Golden Compass (film) (2007)
  • An Education (2009)

This list does not include movies in which university buildings appeared as a backdrop but were not depicted as the University of Oxford, such as the Harry Potter movies and the earlier Young Sherlock Holmes.

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