
Peter Watkins
Peter Watkins (29 October 1935 – 30 October 2025) was an English filmmaker, documentarian, writer and film theorist. He is known as a pioneer of the docudrama and the mockumentary genres, typically with heavy political content. His films present pacifist and radical ideas in a nontraditional style. He mainly concentrated his works and ideas around the mass media and viewers' relation/participation to a movie or television documentary. Nearly all of Watkins' films have used a combination of dramatic and documentary elements to dissect historical occurrences or possible near future events. The first of these, Culloden, portrayed the Jacobite uprising of 1745 in a documentary style, as if television reporters were interviewing the participants and accompanying them into battle; a similar device was used in his biographical film Edvard Munch. La Commune (Paris, 1871) reenacts the Paris Commune days using a large cast of French non-actors. In 2004 he also wrote a book, Media Crisis, an engaged essay about the media crisis, the monoform and, foremost, the lack of debate around the construction of new forms of audiovisual media. Description above from the Wikipedia article Peter Watkins, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
10
Films
1
TV Shows
18
Crew Credits
Known For
11 Credits
Reflets de Cannes
as Self
1954

Punishment Park
as Documentarist (uncredited)
1971

The Freethinker
as Policeman
1994

Edvard Munch
as Narrator (voice)
1974

The War Game
as Documentist (uncredited)
1966

The Journey
as Narrator / Self
1987

Culloden
as Field Interviewer (voice) (uncredited)
1964

The Diary of an Unknown Soldier
as Narrator (voice)
1959

The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter Watkins
as Himself
2001

The Role of a Lifetime
as Self
2003

Introduction to Punishment Park
as Himself
2004
Behind the Camera
18 Credits
Punishment Park
Director
1971

The Gladiators
Director, Writer
1969

The Trap
Director, Writer
2012

The Freethinker
Director, Writer
1994

Evening Land
Director
1977

Edvard Munch
Director, Writer
1974

The War Game
Director, Writer, Producer
1966

La Commune (Paris, 1871)
Director, Writer
2000

La Commune (Paris, 1871)
Director, Writer
2003

The Journey
Director, Writer, Producer
1987

Privilege
Director, Writer
1967

Culloden
Director, Writer, Producer
1964