
Acting
Jan 7, 1980
Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, UK
Sam Riley
Acting
Biography
He is best known for playing the lead role of Ian Curtis in the movie Control, a biopic about the lead singer of the 1970s post-punk band Joy Division. His performance in the role won him the British Independent Film Award for "Most Promising Newcomer". He also won a Kermode for Best Actor 2007 for the film. Prior to his portrayal of Ian Curtis, Riley played The Fall frontman Mark E. Smith in the Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, which details the Factory Records era. His scenes, however, were omitted from the final cut. In September 2007, Riley was cast in Gerald McMorrow's British science fiction film Franklyn. He will play a lead role in 13, an English-language remake of the French thriller 13 Tzameti. He is currently playing the role of Pinkie Brown in a remake of Brighton Rock alongside Helen Mirren.
Feature Films (30)

The story of Joy Division’s lead singer Ian Curtis, from his schoolboy days in 1973 to his suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980.
Control

Set between the parallel worlds of contemporary London and the futuristic faith dominated metropolis of Meanwhile City, Franklyn weaves a tale of four souls, whose lives are intertwined by fate, romance and tragedy. As these worlds collide, a single bullet determines the destiny of these four characters.
Franklyn

Charts the headlong fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish.
Brighton Rock

A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.
13

One day, robot Robby enters into a life of the most creative little boy, Toby. Robby had been separated from his robot parents when his spaceship crashed. Toby decides to offer his help and the two of them become friends.
Robby and Toby's Fantastic Voyager

In this twisty thriller, a tennis coach at a tropical resort finds himself at the center of a missing persons mystery. Tom teaches tennis during the day and parties at night. When an enigmatic tourist arrives, Tom is unable to shake the feeling he has met her before. Tension and attraction grow, until her husband disappears, and the police suspect Tom.
Islands

Sal Paradise is a young writer whose life is shaken and ultimately redefined by the arrival of Dean Moriarty, a free-spirited, fearless, fast talking Westerner and his girl, Marylou. Traveling cross-country, Sal and Dean venture out on a personal quest for freedom from the conformity and conservatism engulfing them in search of the unknown, themselves, and the pursuit of “it” -- the pure essence of experience.
On the Road

A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. She rises to be the land's fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal – an act that begins to turn her heart into stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces an epic battle with the invading King's successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom – and to Maleficent's true happiness as well.
Maleficent

Residents of a coastal town learn, with deadly consequences, the secret shared by the two mysterious women who have sought refuge at a local boarding house, the Byzantium.
Byzantium

After oversleeping yet again, Alfons manages to catch the bus to his class trip to the Baltic Sea at the last minute. In his luggage: lots of adventure, funny pranks and - wait a minute - his mother's clothes?
Alfons Jitterbit – Class Trip Chaos!

Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.
Firebrand

The gifted, charismatic artist John Cranko moves to the Swabian province from London, where he is attacked for his homosexuality, and after many crises becomes the great sensation as the new pop star of the arts: the Stuttgart Ballet Miracle.
John Cranko
Television & Series (5)

In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Adapted from Len Deighton’s 1978 alternate history novel. A British detective investigates a murder in German-occupied Britain during World War II.
SS-GB

Shannon is the only daughter of an infamous crime family that rules the region, a real-life princess who has never wanted for anything. But when she meets Arran, a member of a rival gang, their whirlwind romance begins to unravel the world she’s always known.
Mint

Two years after the events of Tough Love, Lenny Milton has been transferred, but still finds that he is hated by his colleagues, who have branded him a grass. Meanwhile, when a friend of his Lenny's son dies during a heroin-related overdose, a drug-related gang war breaks out, and Lenny seizes his opportunity to re-ignite his feud with drug trafficker Barry Hindes. Obsessed with bring Hindes to justice, Lenny ignores the advice of his colleagues as he sees a chance for vengeance.

