Basil Dearden (January 1 1911 - March 23 1971), was an English film director, born Basil Dear in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex.

Dearden graduated from theatre direction to film, working as an assistant to Basil Dean. He later changed his own name to Dearden to avoid confusion with his mentor.

He first began working as a director at Ealing Studios, co-directing comedy films with Will Hay, including The Goose Steps Out (1942) and My Learned Friend (1943). In 1945, he co-directed the influential chiller compendium Dead of Night. One of his last Ealing films was The Blue Lamp (1950), a police drama which first introduced audiences to "Dixon of Dock Green".

In later years he became associated with the writer and producer Michael Relph, and the two made films on subjects not generally tackled by films in the 1950s and early-1960s. These included homosexuality (Victim) and race relations (Pool of London, Sapphire). In the late 1960s Dearden also made some big-scale epics including Khartoum, with Charlton Heston, and the Victorian era black comedy The Assassination Bureau, again for Michael Relph.

His last film was The Man Who Haunted Himself with Roger Moore, with whom he had also made some episodes of the television series The Persuaders!. Dearden was killed in a car accident in 1971.

He has two sons, Torquil Dearden and the screenwriter and director James Dearden.

A former stage director, Basil Dearden entered films as an assistant to director Basil Dean (he changed his name from Dear to avoid being confused with Dean). Dearden worked his way up the ladder and directed (with Will Hay) his first film in 1941; two years later he directed his first film on his own. He eventually became associated with writer/producer Michael Relph, and together the two made films on themes not often tackled in British films, such as homosexuality and race relations. In the '60s Dearden embarked on a new phase of his career by directing large-scale action pictures, the best of which was Khartoum (1966), which was a critical and financial success. Not long after completing Man Who Haunted Himself, The (1970), Dearden was killed in an automobile accident.