The Tichborne Claimant is a 1998 British dramatic film directed by David Yates and starring Robert Pugh, Stephen Fry, and Robert Hardy. The film is based on the Tichborne case, a historical case of identity theft. In 1854, Roger Tichborne, then-heir to the Tichborne Baronetcy disappeared while traveling in South America. He was thought likely to have set sail with the ship Bella, which was shipwrecked off the coast of the Empire of Brazil, with no known survivors. In 1865, Thomas Castro (an Australian butcher), started claiming to be the missing heir. The dispute over his identity lasted to his death in 1898, and he is mostly known as "the Claimant". While Castro is currently considered an impostor, doubts considering his real identity have persisted to the present.