FrameThrower · Actors · Alun Armstrong
Alun Armstrong
4 films · 428 frames · top-billed in 1 · 1977–2018
Born 17 July 1946 · Annfield Plain, County Durham, England, UK
Alun Armstrong is a prolific English character actor.
Armstrong grew up in County Durham in North East England. He first became interested in acting through Shakespeare productions at his grammar school. Since his career began in the early 1970s, he has played, in his words, "the full spectrum of characters from the grotesque to musicals... I always play very colourful characters, often a bit crazy, despotic, psychotic."
His numerous credits include six different Dickens adaptations and seven series as eccentric ex-detective Brian Lane in New Tricks.
Armstrong is also an accomplished stage actor who spent nine years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He originated the role of Thénardier in the London production of Les Misérables and he won an Olivier Award for playing the title role in Sweeney Todd.
Awards
On FrameThrower we have: 4 films · 428 frames · top-billed in 1 · 1977–2018
- Laurence Olivier Awards
- Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical
How their films are shot
Measured across 428 frames from the 4 films we hold. This is the look of the work Alun takes, not a claim about any single frame — we index the cast of a film, never the people in a shot.
Across the 4 films we hold, 60% of their frames are night, 62% low key — the look of the work Alun takes.
Time of day
Lighting
Shot size
Camera angle
Mood
Films in the library
Every poster opens that film — stills, cinematography notes and colour palette.
A reference database for filmmakers
FrameThrower is a fully machine-searchable film database and visual reference library — all 428 frames from Alun Armstrong's 4 films, and 5,000+ films besides, indexed frame by frame and readable by AI. Search it in plain language, from a reference image, or by colour; call it from an API, an MCP server or an SDK. It's the reference layer for making the next movie.