Frances de la Tour in the film "The Book of Eli", directed by the Hughes brothers. In 2012, she appeared in the film "Hugo". Until 2012, she was also a patron for the performing arts group Theatretrain. From 2013 to 2016, de la Tour played the role of Violet Crosby in ITV sitcom "Vicious" with Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. From 2013 to 2014, she portrayed headmistress Ms Baron in the BBC One sitcom "Big School". In April 2016, she joined the second series of "Outlander" as Mother Hildegarde. Politically, de la Tour is a socialist and was a member of the Workers' Revolutionary
Frances de la Tour 2009, she appeared in Alan Bennett's new play "The Habit of Art" at the National. In 2012, she returned to the National in her third Bennett premiere, "People". Her many television appearances during the 1980s and 1990s include the 1980 miniseries "Flickers" opposite Bob Hoskins, the TV version of "Duet for One", for which she received a BAFTA nomination, the series "A Kind of Living" (1988–89), Dennis Potter's "Cold Lazarus" (1996), and "Tom Jones" (1997). Of all her TV roles, however, she is best known for playing spinster Ruth Jones in the successful Yorkshire television comedy "Rising Damp", from 1974