Anne Bancroft Filmography

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Actors: Helen Mirren, Olivier Martinez, Anne Bancroft, Brian Dennehy, Roger Allam

Synopsis: Tennessee Williams' 1958 novella The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone was first filmed in 1961, with Vivien Leigh as the middle-aged title character and Warren Beatty as the callow gigolo with whom she falls in love. Since the "shocking" aspects of a May-December romance in which the woman is December Read More

Heartbreakers

Actors: Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee, Gene Hackman

Synopsis: After the little white lies of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), director David Mirkin focuses on scheming of a different sort in Heartbreakers. Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt play Max and Page Conners, a mother and daughter who share everything with each other Read More

Haven

Actors: Natasha Richardson, Hal Holbrook, Martin Landau, Anne Bancroft, Bruce Greenwood

Synopsis: An American journalist takes on the dangerous responsibility of rescuing nearly a thousand refugees from a Nazi concentration camp in this two-part made-for-TV movie based on a true story. In the early days of America's involvement in World War II, Ruth Gruber (Natasha Richardson) is a reporter Read More

In Search of Peace Part One: 1948-1967

Synopsis: The difficult birth of the nation of Israel is the subject of this documentary feature, the first in a projected three-part series that explores how the nation came to be formed in the wake of World War II, and the frequent skirmishes between Arab and Israeli forces, leading up to the Six-Day War Read More

Up at the Villa

Actors: Kristin Scott Thomas, Sean Penn, Anne Bancroft, James Fox, Jeremy Davies

Synopsis: A woman left alone by the death of her husband finds her love life has become suddenly and dangerously complicated in this drama. Mary Panton (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a British woman living in Italy in 1938 who has been financially ruined by the death of her husband. Edgar (James Fox), an aging Read More

Keeping the Faith

Actors: Edward Norton, Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman, Anne Bancroft, Eli Wallach

Synopsis: Actor Edward Norton debuts as a director with this comedy-drama about love, friendship, and faith. Priest Brian Finn (Norton) and rabbi Jacob Schram (Ben Stiller) have known each other since childhood. When Anna Reilly (Jenna Elfman), whom they both knew as children, returns to New York, both men Read More

The Living Edens: Costa Rica - Land of Pure Life

Synopsis: This video is part of a PBS series, hosted by Anne Bancroft, that visits some of the most beautiful and remote places on the planet. This episode travels to Costa Rica, where the rainforests contain more species of birds than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere. Abundant exotic wildlife Read More

The Living Edens: Anamalai - India's Elephant Mountain

Synopsis: This video is part of a PBS series, narrated by Anne Bancroft, which showcases some of the most remote and beautiful places on earth. This volume visits the Anamalai Mountains in India. The verdant forests of this mountainous region are inhabited by elephants. The program examines the religious Read More

Antz

Actors: Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken

Synopsis: DreamWorks and Pacific Data Images collaborated on this all computer-animated comedy-adventure about the ant angst of misfit worker ant, Z (voice of Woody Allen), who feels trapped by the conformist confines of his totalitarian ant civilization and eventually sets forth in search of Insectopia. Read More

Great Expectations

Actors: Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hank Azaria, Chris Cooper, Anne Bancroft, Robert De Niro

Synopsis: Alfonso Cuaron (The Little Princess) directed this Mitch Glazer screenplay, a modernization of the 1860-61 classic by Charles Dickens. Some situations in the film are presented as memories -- the way the central figure, Finnegan Bell (Ethan Hawke) recalls events many years later. At a Florida Read More

Mark Twain's America In 3D

Synopsis: Anne Bancroft narrates this 52-minute documentary, a 3-D Imax view of 19th-century America as seen from the viewpoint of author Mark Twain. Writer/director Stephen Low combined black-and-white photographs of the humorist, historic 19th century stereo photographs, and contemporary color footage of Read More

Deep in My Heart

Synopsis: Given up for adoption in infancy, 34-year-old Barbara Ann Williams (Gloria Reuben) launches a desperate search for her biological mother when she is diagnosed with a severe medical condition. Painfully assembling the pieces of her fragmented life, Barbara learns that her mom, a white woman named Read More

Middle East: Israel - Echoes From the Ancients

Living with Cancer: A Message of Hope

Actors: Anne Bancroft

Synopsis: Narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Anne Bancroft, this video serves as an inspiration for anyone battling cancer. There are more than ten million Americans currently suffering from cancer, and this documentation aims to provide comfort and solace in its portrayal of a few ordinary people's Read More

G.I. Jane

Actors: Demi Moore, Viggo Mortensen, Anne Bancroft, Jason Beghe, Scott Wilson

Synopsis: Ridley Scott directed this flawed but involving study of Lt. Jordan O'Neil (Demi Moore), a Navy topographic analyst who is chosen as a test case for the presence of women in combat. Aware that she is making history and knowing that 60% of all male trainees will fail the rigorous training, Lt. Read More

Critical Care

Actors: James Spader, Kyra Sedgwick, Helen Mirren, Margo Martindale, Jeffrey Wright

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet filmed this hospital satire at a Canadian studio. Alcoholic Dr. Butz (Albert Brooks in old-age makeup) advises younger Dr. Werner Ernst (James Spader) to only treat patients with much insurance. "When the lawyers start crawling all over you," says Butz, "that's when you know you're a Read More

The Sunchaser

Actors: Woody Harrelson, Jon Seda, Anne Bancroft, Alexandra Tydings, Matt Mulhern

Synopsis: Michael Cimino, the director of The Deer Hunter and the ill-fated Heaven's Gate, helmed this bizarre New Age action picture in 1996. Based on a screenplay by Charles Leavitt, the film stars Woody Harrelson as Dr. Michael Reynolds, a rich, young L.A. physician who worries more about promotions and Read More

Homecoming

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Kimberlee Peterson, Bonnie Bedelia, Hanna R. Hall, Anna Louise Richardson

Synopsis: In this tender made-for-TV drama, four children are effectively orphaned when they are deserted by their mother. With nowhere else to go but some institution, the kids manage to locate their estranged grandmother. A bitter, and seemingly cold-hearted loner, the woman reluctantly takes the waifs Read More

Home for the Holidays

Actors: Holly Hunter, Robert Downey, Jr., Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Geraldine Chaplin

Synopsis: It's been said that while most people love their families, they don't always like them very much, and that emotional dividing line is the heart of this comedy directed by Jodie Foster. Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) usually approaches family reunions with a certain trepidation, but as she prepares Read More

How to Make an American Quilt

Actors: Winona Ryder, Anne Bancroft, Maya Angelou, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Nelligan, Jean Simmons

Synopsis: A young woman at a crossroads in her life finds herself receiving plenty of advice from her older and wiser counterparts in this drama. Finn Dodd (Winona Ryder) is a graduate student trying to finish up her doctoral thesis on women's folk art while deciding if she should marry her fiancé Sam (Dermot Mulroney Read More

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

Actors: Diane Lane, Donald Sutherland, Cicely Tyson

Synopsis: Originally a television mini-series, this drama chronicles the painful and lively reminiscences of a 100 year old woman. Much of the story centers on her tumultuous marriage to a Civil War vet. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Mother

Malice

Actors: Joshua Malina, Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman, Bill Pullman, Bebe Neuwirth, George C. Scott

Synopsis: Alec Baldwin stars in this thriller as Dr. Jed Hill, a brilliant young trauma specialist who begins to believe he can do no wrong after he saves the life of a patient given up for dead by another doctor. Jed runs into an old classmate, Andy Safian (Bill Pullman), who is now a college dean. Andy Read More

Mr. Jones

Actors: Richard Gere, Lena Olin, Anne Bancroft, Tom Irwin, Delroy Lindo, Bruce Altman

Synopsis: The title character, a manic depressive prone to very irrational behavior (Richard Gere), is hospitalized for treatment. While there, the psychiatrist responsible for his rehabilitation (Lena Olin) becomes involved with him and cannot stand to allow his check-out. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Point of No Return

Actors: Bridget Fonda, Gabriel Byrne, Dermot Mulroney, Miguel Ferrer, Anne Bancroft

Synopsis: Director John Badham's remake of French action thriller La Femme Nikita moves the action to the U.S., where Maggie (Bridget Fonda) is a strung-out Washington, D.C. drug addict who kills a policeman in a pharmaceutical-induced haze. Sentenced to death, Maggie is rescued by a shady operative, Bob (Gabriel Byrne Read More

Love Potion No. 9

Actors: Tate Donovan, Sandra Bullock, Dale Midkiff, Mary Mara, Adrian Paul

Synopsis: When it comes to love, Paul Matthews and Diane Farrow, two highly educated and talented scientists don't know a thing. Looking at their geeky demeanor's it's easy to see why. Despite the fact that both are neighbors, share the same interests and both are psychobiologists who study primates Read More

Honeymoon in Vegas

Actors: James Caan, Nicolas Cage, Sarah Jessica Parker, Noriyuki "Pat" Morita, Anne Bancroft, Johnny Williams

Synopsis: After making a deathbed promise to his mother that he would never marry, Jack Singer (Nicolas Cage) finds that resolve challenged when his girlfriend, Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker), begins making noise about wanting to start a family. Worried he might lose her, Jack makes the rash decision that Read More

Mrs. Cage

Synopsis: When a seemingly well-adjusted homemaker murders a fellow supermarket shopper, a police lieutenant decides to find out what caused her to snap. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Broadway Bound

Actors: Corey Parker, Jonathan Silverman, Anne Bancroft, Michele Lee, Hume Cronyn

Synopsis: The 1986 stage hit Broadway Bound is the third entry in playwright Neil Simon's "autobiography trilogy". Unlike the cinemadaptations of Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound was filmed for television, where it debuted March 23, 1992. Brighton Beach Memoirs star Jonathan Silverman Read More

Bert Rigby, You're a Fool

Actors: Robert Lindsay, Cathryn Bradshaw, Robbie Coltrane, Anne Bancroft, Corbin Bernsen

Synopsis: Tony award-winning British musical comedy star Robert Lindsay makes his first important American film appearance in Bert Rigby, You're a Fool. Lindsay, of course, plays the title character, a coal miner who dreams of becoming a big showbiz star. Only problem is, there's very little demand for Bert Read More

Torch Song Trilogy

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Matthew Broderick, Harvey Fierstein, Brian Kerwin, Karen Young

Synopsis: Harvey Fierstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit was adapted for the screen by Fierstein himself. The playwright also repeats his stage role of female impersonator Arnold Beckoff, aka nightclub entertainer "Virginia Hamm." The three-part plotline, whittled down to accommodate the film's Read More

84 Charing Cross Road

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench, Jean de Baer, Maurice Denham, Mercedes Ruehl

Synopsis: Helene Hanff's book 84 Charing Cross Road had previously been a TV program and a stage play before it was converted into this 1986 film. The scene is New York, 1949: Anne Bancroft plays a struggling writer and passionate bibliophile, who answers an advertisement from a rare-volumes bookshop at 84 Read More

'Night, Mother

Actors: Sissy Spacek, Anne Bancroft, Ed Berke, Carol Robbins, Jennifer Rosendahl

Synopsis: 'Night. Mother was adapted by Marsha Norman from her own harrowing Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Outwardly normal Sissy Spacek calmly informs her mother Anne Bancroft that she's about to commit suicide. Thus the stage is set for a war of nerves between the determined Spacek and the distraught Bancroft Read More

Agnes of God

Actors: Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Meg Tilly, Anne Pitoniak, Winston Rekert

Synopsis: Agnes of God is an "opened up" adaptation of the minimalist stage play by John Pielmeier. Meg Tilly plays a young nun who secretly gives birth to a baby; the child's body is later found strangled to death. Court-appointed psychiatrist Jane Fonda is sent to the convent to investigate, a task made Read More

Garbo Talks

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Ron Silver, Carrie Fisher, Catherine Hicks, Steven Hill, Howard Da Silva

Synopsis: This bittersweet comedy is, among many other things, a tour de force for the marvelous Anne Bancroft. The star is cast as Estelle Rolfe, an unconventional divorcee who resides in New York, in close proximity to her grown son Gilbert (Ron Silver) and his wife Lisa (Carrie Fisher). Though his wife Read More

Mel Brooks: An Audience

Synopsis: This live appearance by Mel Brooks includes songs, skits and jokes. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

To Be or Not to Be

Actors: Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Tim Matheson, José Ferrer

Synopsis: Mel Brooks and his real-life wife Anne Bancroft play Frederick and Anna Bronski, musical comedy stars in 1939 Poland. The highlight of the Bronskis' act is Frederick's imitation of Adolf Hitler, but he is forced to eliminate this turn for fear of offending the Nazis. Meanwhile, Anna enters into a Read More

Marco Polo

Actors: Ken Marshall, Denholm Elliott, Tony Vogel, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud

Synopsis: Thirteen months and ten million dollars were lavished upon this ten-hour, four-part TV miniseries about legendary globetrotter Marco Polo. Newcomer Ken Marshall played the title character, a 14th century Venetian explorer who, among other accomplishments, firmly established the "silk route" Read More

Fatso

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Dom DeLuise, Anne Bancroft, Ron Carey, Candice Azzara, Michael Lombard

Synopsis: In this dark and sometimes sad comedy, Dominick -- an extremely obese man -- is pushed by his sister Antoinette to shed a few pounds lest he end up dead like his cousin. To do so, she helps him enroll in the fanatical weight-loss group, the Chubby Checkers, who will do anything to keep fellow Read More

The Elephant Man

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller

Synopsis: John Hurt stars as John Merrick, the hideously deformed 19th century Londoner known as "The Elephant Man". Treated as a sideshow freak, Merrick is assumed to be retarded as well as misshapen because of his inability to speak coherently. In fact, he is highly intelligent and sensitive, a fact made Read More

The Bell Jar

Actors: Marilyn Hassett, Julie Harris, Anne Jackson, Barbara Barrie, Donna Mitchell

Synopsis: Poet Sylvia Plath wrote an immensely popular roman à clef, The Bell Jar, which chronicles a woman's descent from functioning as a highly educated, motivated, and capable young woman to being completely incapacitated at the hands of mental illness. Sadly, Plath committed suicide at age 30 Read More

Jesus of Nazareth

Actors: Robert Powell, Olivia Hussey, Peter Ustinov, Christopher Plummer, Anne Bancroft, James Mason, Ian McShane, Laurence Olivier, Rod Steiger

Synopsis: Because director Franco Zeffirelli noted publicly that he intended to depict Jesus Christ as a human being rather than a religious icon, his expensive made-for-TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth fell victim to protestors long before its April 3, 1977, debut. Despite the pullout of several sponsors Read More

The Turning Point

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Leslie Browne, Tom Skerritt

Synopsis: One of a cycle of '70s post-Women's Liberation "women's pictures," Herbert Ross's drama uses the ballet world to examine the conflict between family and career. Former dance colleagues Deedee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) are reunited when Emma's New York ballet company stops in Read More

Silent Movie

Actors: Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters, Sid Caesar

Synopsis: Silent Movie is just that: a totally nonverbal comedy, save for one single line. Director Mel Brooks stars as a once-famous comedy director, who with his faithful assistants Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman return to Hollywood with plans for a comeback. Brooks wants to return to the good old days by Read More

Lipstick

Actors: Margaux Hemingway, Chris Sarandon, Perry King, Anne Bancroft, Robin Gammell

Synopsis: Lipstick is a cheap exploitation film pretending to make a social statement about rape and revenge. Chris (Margaux Hemingway), a fashion model is raped by Gordon Stuart (Chris Sarandon) her sister's music teacher. When he tries to rape her sister Kathy (Mariel Hemingway), Chris kills him. She is Read More

The Hindenburg

Actors: George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, William Atherton, Roy Thinnes, Gig Young

Synopsis: "The German Air Force is not at all what it used to be," says Anne Bancroft's Countess, about 16 minutes into The Hindenburg, pausing and then adding, "But then, nothing is these days." That seems to sum up the ponderous, irony-laden script and plot of Robert Wise's movie, which is posited -- in Read More

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, Gene Saks, Elizabeth Wilson, Florence Stanley

Synopsis: A lesser but still entertaining Neil Simon work, The Prisoner of Second Avenue was adapted to film in 1974. Jack Lemmon takes over the role played on Broadway by Peter Falk: Mel is a New York-based advertising man who goes through hell when he loses his job. The gods seem to conspire against him Read More

Young Winston

Actors: Michael Audreson, Robert Lankesheer, Simon Ward, Robert Shaw, Anne Bancroft, John Mills, Jack Hawkins, Ian Holm

Synopsis: This historical drama is an account of the early life of Winston Churchill (Simon Ward), including his childhood years, his time as a war correspondent in Africa, and culminating with his first election to Parliament. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide Read More

The Graduate

Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Elizabeth Wilson, Murray Hamilton

Synopsis: "Just one word: plastic." "Are you here for an affair?" These lines and others became cultural touchstones, as 1960s youth rebellion seeped into the California upper middle-class in Mike Nichols' landmark hit. Mentally adrift the summer after graduating from college, suburbanite Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman Read More

Seven Women

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Sue Lyon, Margaret Leighton, Flora Robson, Mildred Dunnock

Synopsis: John Ford's final film is set in China in 1935, where a group of American women, led by Agatha Andrews (Margaret Leighton), work as missionaries. One of the women, Florrie (Betty Field), is pregnant and accompanied by her husband, Charles (Eddie Albert), while the others are single and on their Read More

The Slender Thread

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas, Steven Hill, Ed Asner

Synopsis: Sidney Pollack marked his feature film directing debut with this taut suspense drama, based upon an actual incident reported in Time Magazine. Sidney Poitier stars as Alan Nuell, a student volunteer at a medical clinic in Seattle who answers the phone to find Inge Dyson (Anne Bancroft) on the Read More

The Pumpkin Eater

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason, Cedric Hardwicke, Richard Johnson

Synopsis: Anne Bancroft stars as a restless, twice-married British woman with six children, whose third husband is a fledgling screenwriter (Peter Finch). When success spins Finch's head around, he begins to dally with women other than his wife. Meanwhile, Bancroft is forced to stay home and play "domestic Read More

The Miracle Worker

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory, Inga Swenson, Andrew Prine

Synopsis: Based on William Gibson's Broadway play and retaining its acclaimed cast, Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker tells the true story of Helen Keller (Patty Duke), an Alabama girl struck blind and deaf as a baby after an elevated fever. Enter Annie Sullivan (Anne Bancroft), a partially-blind woman Read More

So Soon to Die

Synopsis: In this drama, formerly a Playhouse 90 presentation, a young girl finds herself pursued by an unemployed actor who is being paid to kill her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Girl in Black Stockings

Actors: Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft, Mamie van Doren, Ron Randell, Marie Windsor

Synopsis: Anne Bancroft was several years away from her 1962 Oscar win when she starred in the compact murder mystery The Girl in Black Stockings. The scene is a posh Utah resort hotel, where several beautiful women are mysteriously killed. Suspects include lawyer David Hewson (Lex Barker), his secretary Read More

The Restless Breed

Actors: Scott Brady, Anne Bancroft, Jay C. Flippen, Rhys Williams, Jim Davis

Synopsis: Another of director Allan Dwan's underrated but well-crafted westerns of the 1950s, The Restless Breed stars Scott Brady as a young gunslinger who lives for revenge. When Brady's father is killed by gun runners, he pursues the villains across the Mexican border. Gang leader Jim Davis, beyond the Read More

Walk the Proud Land

Actors: Audie Murphy, Anne Bancroft, Jay Silverheels, Charles Drake, Tommy Rall

Synopsis: Walk the Proud Land is the true story of Indian agent John Philip Clum, as set down on paper by Clum's son. The film begins in 1874, as Clum, an Eastern government representative, arrives in San Carlos, Arizona. It is Clum's intention to uphold the peace between the settlers and the Apaches, and Read More

Nightfall

Acto