FrameThrower · Actors · Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
2 films · 124 frames · top-billed in 2 · 1938–1966
Born 13 June 1892 · Johannesburg, South African Republic · died 21 July 1967
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt, was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films. He frequently portrayed suave villains or morally ambiguous characters, such as Murdstone in David Copperfield (1935) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). His most famous role, however, was heroic—that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series. His later career included Broadway and television work; he received a Tony Award in 1948 as Best Actor in a Play.
Awards
On FrameThrower we have: 2 films · 124 frames · top-billed in 2 · 1938–1966
- Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play1948
- Military Cross1918
- star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
How their films are shot
Measured across 124 frames from the 2 films we hold. This is the look of the work Basil takes, not a claim about any single frame — we index the cast of a film, never the people in a shot.
Across the 2 films we hold, 46% of their frames are night, 40% low key — the look of the work Basil 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 124 frames from Basil Rathbone's 2 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.