Bruce BeresfordFilmography

Canvas

Crew: Co-Executive Producer

Actors: Joe Pantoliano, Marcia Gay Harden, Devon Gearhart

Synopsis: Mental illness stretches a loving family to the breaking point in this independent drama. Chris Marino (Devon Gearhart) is a ten-year-old boy growing up in a small oceanside community in Florida. Chris's father John (Joe Pantoliano) is a construction worker who is struggling to hold the family Read More

The Club

Crew: Director

Actors: Jack Thompson, Harold Hopkins, Graham Kennedy, John Howard, Frank Wilson

The Contract

Crew: Director

Actors: Morgan Freeman, John Cusack, Jamie Anderson, Alice Krige, Megan Dodds

Synopsis: Attempting to recover from a recent family trauma by escaping into the woods for a peaceful hiking trip, an ex-lawman and his young son stumble across a dangerous contract killer in director Bruce Beresford's forest-bound thriller. Ray Keene (John Cusack) has lost his wife, and now the grieving Read More

The Contender: Season 01

Crew: Co-Executive Producer

Actors: Sugar Ray Leonard

Pimp My Ride [TV Series]

Crew: Executive Producer, Show Creator

Synopsis: Like so many other MTV series, Pimp My Ride bore a title that never would have gotten to first base in past television seasons. However, the subject matter was fairly benign despite the "P" word. The exotically yclept Xzibit served as host of the series, in which various automobiles that had seen Read More

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself

Crew: Director

Actors: Antonio Banderas, Eion Bailey

Synopsis: Antonio Banderas plays the title role in this cable-TV reenactment of a little-known chapter in the life of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. The year is 1914: With Villa's war of rebellion against the Huerta forces going badly, he hits upon a brilliant method to finance his crusade. Actually Read More

Evelyn

Crew: Director

Actors: John Lynch, Pierce Brosnan, Aidan Quinn, Julianna Margulies, Stephen Rea, Sophie Vavasseur, Alan Bates

Synopsis: One man takes on the Irish family law system and the Catholic Church in a bid to be reunited with his children in this drama, based on a true story. In 1953, Desmond Doyle (Pierce Brosnan) was a house painter and decorator who, despite a strong work ethic, had a hard time holding on to steady Read More

Bride of the Wind

Crew: Director

Actors: Sarah Wynter, Jonathan Pryce, Vincent Perez, Gregor Seberg, Simon Verhoeven

Synopsis: Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) delivers this fact-based drama about one of the most fascinating private lives of the 20th century. Alma Schindler (Sarah Wynter) was one of the most renowned young beauties in turn-of-the-century Vienna, sought after as a romantic conquest by some of the most Read More

Double Jeopardy

Crew: Director

Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, Bruce Greenwood, Annabeth Gish, Roma Maffia

Synopsis: In this thriller, Ashley Judd plays Elizabeth Parsons, who is convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to a long stretch in prison. After Elizabeth has spent six years behind bars, it turns out that her husband is still alive: he faked his own death as part of an insurance scam, and Read More

Sydney: A Story of a City

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Paul Mercurio, Mitch Mathews, Penne Hackforth-Jones, Arthur Dignam

Synopsis: Produced in the run-up to Sydney's 2000 Olympic Games, this film is an unapologetic publicity piece for one of the world's most beautiful cities. A sharp Englishwoman (Lucy Bell) returns to Australia seeking her family's history. Along the way she meets her Great Aunt Claire, who tells her about Read More

Paradise Road

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Glenn Close, Pauline Collins, Cate Blanchett, Frances McDormand, Julianna Margulies

Synopsis: Based on the testimony of survivors, this historical drama recounts the WWII heroism of female prisoners of war. (Glenn Close) stars as Adrienne Partiger, a society doyenne who flees Singapore with other expatriate women, mostly the wives of servicemen, when Japanese forces invade in 1942. When Read More

Last Dance

Crew: Director

Actors: Sharon Stone, Rob Morrow, Randy Quaid, Peter Gallagher, Jack Thompson

Synopsis: The relationship between an unproven lawyer and the female convict he attempts to save from execution is detailed in this death-row drama. Sharon Stone plays against type as Cindy Liggett, convicted of murder at the age of 19, who has spent over a decade in prison awaiting execution. Having Read More

Silent Fall

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Dreyfuss, John Lithgow, Linda Hamilton, J.T. Walsh, Ben Faulkner

Synopsis: This by-the-numbers psychodrama about a child psychologist trying to discern the truth behind a pair of murders stars Richard Dreyfuss as Dr. Jake Rainer, a child psychologist living in an upscale community. Rainer retired when a patient committed suicide, but the local sheriff (J.T. Walsh) calls Read More

Curse of the Starving Class

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: James Woods, Kathy Bates, Henry Thomas, Kristin Fiorella, Louis Gossett, Jr.

Synopsis: Based on the award-winning play by Sam Shepard, this drama offers an unblinking look at a family desperately clinging to the last threads of the American dream. Weston Tate (James Woods) is an alcoholic Viet Nam veteran struggling to hold on to the family's farm; he often brags about his grand Read More

A Good Man in Africa

Crew: Director

Actors: Colin Friels, Joanne Whalley, Sean Connery, Louis Gossett, Jr., John Lithgow

Synopsis: Based on a novel by William Boyd (who also wrote the film's screenplay), this darkly witty drama explores the political, social, and sexual gamesmanship of a group of British and African politicians. Morgan Leafy (Colin Friels) is a British diplomat who, for the past three years, has been assigned Read More

Rich in Love

Crew: Director

Actors: Albert Finney, Jill Clayburgh, Kathryn Erbe, Kyle MacLachlan, Piper Laurie

Synopsis: The final installment of what might be called Bruce Beresford's southern trilogy (the other films being Crimes of the Heart and Driving Miss Daisy) examines a disintegrating Southern family. The Odom family live in an elegant mansion, where Warren (Albert Finney) is retired and spends the days Read More

Black Robe

Crew: Director

Actors: Lothaire Bluteau, Aden Young, Sandrine Holt, August Schellenberg, Tantoo Cardinal

Synopsis: Adapted by Brian Moore from his own novel, The Black Robe is a sprawling recreation of a turbelent period in Canadian history. In 1634, Jesuit missionary Father Laforgue (Lothair Bluteau) arrives in the New World, hoping to convert the Huron Indian tribe to Catholicism-and, incidentally, to Read More

Mister Johnson

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Maynard Eziashi, Pierce Brosnan, Edward Woodward, Beatie Edney, Denis Quilley

Synopsis: Director Bruce Beresford followed up his Academy Award-winning Driving Miss Daisy with another meditation on race, Mister Johnson. Set in West Africa in 1923, Johnson (Maynard Eziashi), the clerk of British administrator Harry Rudbeck (Pierce Brosnan), attempts everything within his power to Read More

Total Recall

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside

Synopsis: In Paul Verhoeven's wild sci-fi action movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a 21st-century construction worker who discovers that his entire memory of the past derives from a memory chip implanted in his brain. Schwarzenegger learns that he's actually a secret agent who had become a Read More

Driving Miss Daisy

Crew: Director

Actors: Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Aykroyd, Patti LuPone, Esther Rolle

Synopsis: Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Alfred Uhry, Driving Miss Daisy affectionately covers the twenty-five year relationship between a wealthy, strong-willed Southern matron (Jessica Tandy) and her equally indomitable Black chauffeur Hoke (Morgan Freeman). Both employer and employee are Read More

Her Alibi

Crew: Director

Actors: Tom Selleck, Paulina Porizkova, William Daniels, James Farentino, Hurd Hatfield

Synopsis: A frustrated writer helps save a woman being railroaded by the law -- or is she? -- in this comic mystery with romantic overtones. Phil Blackwood (Tom Selleck) is a best-selling mystery novelist who has run into a bad case of writer's block. Hoping to find inspiration for his next book, Phil goes Read More

Aria

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Theresa Russell, Nicola Swain, Buck Henry, Jack Kyle, Julie Hagerty, Marianne McLoughlin, Marion Peterson, Tilda Swinton

Synopsis: An international collection of well-known directors contributed to this compilation film, each fashioning a short film inspired by an aria from a famous opera. The approaches vary broadly, from the playful abstraction of Jean-Luc Godard's segment, which illustrates Armide with exercising Read More

The Fringe Dwellers

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Ktistina Nehm, Justine Saunders, Bob Maza, Kylie Belling, Denis Walker, Ernie Dingo

Synopsis: Bruce Beresford returned to the austerity of his first Australian films with The Fringe Dwellers. Kristina Nehm stars as an Aborigine woman named Trilby, who along with her tribespeople lives on the fringes of "accepted" Australian society. Trilby's mother (Justine Saunders) urges her family to Read More

Crimes of the Heart

Crew: Director

Actors: Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, Sam Shepard, Tess Harper

Synopsis: Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Beth Henley (who also penned the screenplay), Crimes of the Heart stars three high-powered actresses as three high-strung sisters. Lenny (Diane Keaton), Meg (Jessica Lange) and Babe (Sissy Spacek) gather at Lenny's deep-South home for her birthday. Read More

King David

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Gere, Alice Krige, Edward Woodward, Denis Quilley, Niall Buggy, Jack Klaff

Synopsis: Director Bruce Beresford has safely stayed within the domain of the Bible and not strayed into patches of Hollywood fiction in this routine version of the story of David (Richard Gere). For that reason, anyone unfamiliar with Biblical history might be puzzled by the episodic presentation of Read More

Tender Mercies

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Allan Hubbard, Betty Buckley, Ellen Barkin

Synopsis: Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall), a once-famous country western singer, wakes up broke, alone and hung over in a tiny Texas motel run by widowed Rosa Lee (Tess Harper). Having nowhere else to go, Sledge takes a job at the motel, and through the kindness and faith of Rosa he changes his self-destructive Read More

Puberty Blues

Crew: Director

Actors: Nell Schofield, Jad Capelja, Geoff Rhoe, Sandy Paul

Synopsis: Director Bruce Beresford continued his tradition of putting socially disenfranchised characters front and center with this wryly observant comedy drama about middle class Australian teens that served as a stark contrast to the popular American teen films of its day. Friends from the Sydney suburb Read More

The Club

Crew: Director

Actors: Jack Thompson, Graham Kennedy, Frank Wilson, Harold Hopkins, John Howard

Synopsis: Bruce Beresford directed this adaptation of David Williamson's play (Williamson also scripted) about the ever-widening gap between professional sport and its boardroom intrigues. Jack Thompson is Laurie, a once popular ball player on the Australian Rules football circuit, but now an ineffective Read More

Breaker Morant

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Jack Thompson, John Waters

Synopsis: Breaker Morant is one of the most acclaimed Australian films, telling a powerful tale of wartime betrayal and injustice. Henry "Breaker" Morant (Edward Woodward) is an Englishman living in Australia at the end of the 19th century. When war breaks out in 1899 between Britain and the Boers Read More

Money Movers

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Terence Donovan, Ed Devereaux, Tony Bonner, Lucky Grills, Alan Cassell

Synopsis: In order to raise the money for his "breakthrough" film Breaker Morant, Australian director Bruce Beresford dashed off the guaranteed audience pleaser Money Movers. Terence Donovan masterminds a bank-vault heist that will potentially net his gang 20 million Australian dollars. The scheme Read More

The Getting of Wisdom

Crew: Director

Actors: Susannah Fowle, Barry Humphries, John Waters, Sheila Helpmann, Patricia Kennedy

Synopsis: The suffocating repressiveness of the Victorian era is superbly realized by director Bruce Beresford in The Getting of Wisdom. Thirteen-year-old Laura (Susannah Fowle), an incorrigible free spirit from the Australian outback, is enrolled in a prestigious girl's boarding school. The indoctrination Read More

Side by Side

Crew: Director

Don's Party

Crew: Director

Actors: Ray Barrett, Clare Binney, Pat Bishop, Graeme Blundell, Jeanie Drynan

Synopsis: Early in his career, Australian director Bruce Beresford helmed Don's Party, which closely mirrors Shampoo in its basic premise and its edgy correlations between sex and politics. One pivotal election night, Don, played by John Hargreaves, throws a party for a group of friends, ostensibly so that Read More

Barry McKenzie Holds His Own

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Barry Crocker, Barry Humphries, Donald Pleasence, Dick Bentley, Ed Devereaux

Synopsis: Comedian, actor, and author Barry Humphries wrote and co-stars in this sequel to the surprise international hit The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, based on the comic-strip character created by Humphries. Well-meaning but dunderheaded über-Aussie Barry McKenzie (Barry Crocker) is escorting his aunt Read More

The Adventures of Barry McKenzie

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Margo Lloyd, Jenny Tomasin, Barry Crocker, Barry Humphries, Paul Bertram, Dennis Price, Avice Landone

Synopsis: The popular Australian comic strip The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie was first brought to the screen in this raunchy 1972 romp. Barry Crocker plays the title character, a carefree Aussie cowboy with an inordinate fondness for beer and "Sheilas". Touring England as a stand-up comic, Barry runs Read More