List of Ian McShane’s movies and TV shows​

English actor Ian McShane began his film career in 1962 with The Wild and the Willing, playing Harry Brown. His path to professional acting started earlier, when a teacher took notice of his talents and convinced him to participate in a school play. He later trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London; however, he left a semester before graduation to take on his first film role. As Harry Brown, McShane portrayed a rebellious student prone to getting inebriated and getting into conflicts with professors. He also appeared in Joe Orton’s Loot (1965) and later made his Broadway debut in a production of The Promise. For his performance in Larry Atlas’ Yield of the Long Bond, he received the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1984.

Since then, he has worked extensively in film, television, stage, and voiceover. His filmography includes productions such as Kung Fu Panda (2008), Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and John Wick (2014). His television credits include Lovejoy (1986-1994), Deadwood (2004-2006), Kings (2009), and The Pillars of the Earth (2010). For his portrayal of the brutal brothel operator Al Swearengen in Deadwood, he secured a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama in 2005. His role in the series also earned him the title of People Magazine’s “TV’s Sexiest Villain.”

List of Ian McShane’s movies

Ian McShane has appeared in more than fifty films across his career. In Gypsy Girl (1966), he portrayed Roinin, a young Romani man who falls for a woman from the countryside. He appeared alongside Michael Caine, Harry Andrews, and Trevor Howard in The Battle of Britain (1969). In The Last of Sheila (1973), he played Anthony Woods, sharing the screen with James Coburn and James Mason. McShane took on the role of gangster Teddy Bass in the 2000 crime thriller Sexy Beast, and in Woody Allen’s Scoop (2006), he played a journalist caught between life and death, who reaches out to a student journalist (Scarlett Johansson) and an amateur magician (Woody Allen) to help uncover the identity of the mysterious Tarot Card Killer.

McShane appeared with Renée Zellweger in the 2009 psychological thriller Case 39. The same year, he starred in 44 Inch Chest, as a man struggling to navigate life following his wife’s infidelity. His friends intervene by orchestrating the abduction of the wife's lover. In the 2011 fantasy adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, he portrays Blackbeard and in the John Wick franchise (2014-2023), he plays the hotel owner and manager, Winston. He voiced villains like Captain Hook in Shrek the Third (2007) and the snow leopard Tai Lung in several Kung Fu Panda films (2008-2014). He features in the upcoming 2025 thriller, Ballerina, as Winston, and the crime comedy, Deep Cover, as Metcalfe.

Here is a list of Ian McShane’s movies, along with their years of release:

List of Ian McShane’s TV shows​

Ian McShane portrayed Judas Iscariot, the disciple known for betraying Jesus, in CBS’s Jesus of Nazareth (1977). In NBC’s A.D. (1985), a follow-up to Jesus of Nazareth, he played Sejanus, an officer in the Praetorian Guard during Emperor Tiberius’ rule, who plays a part in the political climate following Jesus’ death. In the historical epic Marco Polo (1982), McShane played Ali Ben Youssef, and in Grace Kelly (1983), he appeared as Prince Rainier of Monaco. He later took on the role of Roger Bushell in The Great Escape II: The Untold Story (1988), a television miniseries that focuses on the later events of Paul Brickhill’s non-fiction that inspired The Great Escape (1963).

Ian McShane starred as an antiques dealer with a knack for solving mysteries in the BBC series Lovejoy (1986-1994). He portrayed the corrupt churchman Waleran Bigod in The Pillars of the Earth (2010), and also appeared as Brother Ray, a pacifist former soldier, in HBO’s Game of Thrones (2016). In American Horror Story: Apocalypse (2012), he featured as the serial killer Leigh Emerson, and in the crime drama Ray Donovan (2015), he played Andrew Finney. He also starred as Mr. Wednesday (Odin in disguise) in Starz’s American Gods (2017-2021), a mysterious conman gathering old gods for war.

Here is a list of Ian McShane’s TV shows, along with their years of release: