David MarguliesFilmography

Whiskey School

Actors: Gary Swanson, Olympia Dukakis, Mary Stuart Masterson, Lainie Kazan

Synopsis: Drawing inspiration from the intervention of a well-known American playwright, director Peter Masterson's adaptation of the stage play by JoAnn Tedesco (who also wrote the screenplay) takes viewers on an emotional rollercoaster ride as one man's support system struggle to save their friend from Read More

Bought & Sold

Actors: Rafael Sardina, David Margulies, Joe Grifasi, Marjan Neshat, Frank Harts

Synopsis: Directed by Michael Tolajian, Bought & Sold is set in New Jersey, where aspiring deejay Ray Ray (Rafael Sardina) agrees to spy on a pawnshop proprietor who supposedly owes his new boss, "Chunks" (Joe Grifasi), money. They get more than they bargain for, however, when the proprietor, Kutty (David Margulies Read More

Invitation to a Suicide

Synopsis: Writer-director Loren Marsh's black comedy Invitation to a Suicide - an official selection at the AFI Fest and HBO Comedy Festival - concerns the plight of Kaz Malek, a witless young man raised in a Polish enclave of Brooklyn. In a (very) misguided attempt to escape from his dead-end life as a Read More

Touched by an Angel: Chutzpah

Synopsis: Devoutly Jewish Sam Silverstein (David Margulies) is heartbroken when his daughter Rachel (Meredith Scott Lynn), a cartoonist for the "Portland Daily News", turns her back on her faith and gains popularity by creating an anti-Jewish comic strip titled "Chutzpah." In their efforts to bring hope and Read More

Looking for an Echo

Actors: Armand Assante, Diane Venora, Joe Grifasi, Tom Mason, Tony Denison

Synopsis: Co-writer director Martin Davidson, who previously made a name for himself in rock-fuelled features such as The Lords of Flatbush (1974) and Eddie and the Cruisers (1983), creates this wistful melodrama about a middle-aged widower looking back with tinges of regret at his abandoned musical career. Armand Assante Read More

Man of the Century

Actors: Gibson Frazier, Susan Egan, Cara Buono, Brian Davies, Dwight Ewell

Synopsis: Johnny Twenties (Gibson Frazier) is a man who lives up to his name; from his snazzy suits to his snappy lingo, Johnny is a walking embodiment of the era when liquor was illegal, swing was being born, and the movies were just learning to talk. There's just one problem -- Johnny is living in New Read More

Last Breath

Actors: Luke Perry, Francie Swift, Gia Carides, David Margulies, Karen Shallo

Synopsis: Luke Perry stars in this surprisingly moving adult drama about a devoted husband whose wife (Francie Swift) is dying of cystic fibrosis. Because of her rare blood type, she can't get new lungs, so Perry begins a frantic search to find a donor. Eventually, he becomes so desperate that he starts Read More

Hudson River Blues

Actors: Rya Kihlstedt, Robert Stanton, Polly Draper, Jane Krakowski, Lois Smith

Synopsis: This comedy-drama is the feature theatrical debut of TV director Nell Cox. Manhattan lawyer Laura (Rya Kihlstedt) is on edge about her promotion to partner at her law firm, while husband Jeff (Robert Stanton) is tired of the grind producing TV commercials. They head upstate for a weekend with Read More

NYPD Blue: Yes, We Have No Cannolis

Synopsis: When Simone (Jimmy Smits) and Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) reopen a old case in which a man may have wrongly been sent to prison, the detective who originally worked the case isn't too happy. Martinez (Nicholas Turturro) runs against Gotelli (Carmine Caridi) in the union-delegate election. Simone Read More

Law & Order: Seed

Synopsis: A woman under the care of fertility doctor Jordan Delbert (David Margulies) dies under suspicious circumstances. An investigation reveals that Delbert has illegally donated his own sperm to expedite at least 31 pregnancies. In trying to prosecute Delbert, the D.A.'s office is stymied by the laws Read More

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

Actors: Jim Carrey, Courteney Cox Arquette, Sean Young, Dan Marino

Synopsis: When your dog, bird, or water-dwelling mammal disappears, who do you call? Ace Ventura (Jim Carrey) is a low-rent private eye who specializes in recovering lost animals, so when Snowflake, the Miami Dolphins' aquatic mascot, is kidnapped, team representative Melissa Robinson (Courtney Cox) puts Read More

Law & Order: Securitate

Synopsis: A man who was about to blow the whistle on a widespread credit-card scam is murdered. It does not take long for the police to round up the killer, a Romanian immigrant named Leon Iliescu (Morgan Weisser). The D.A.'s office is confident of a conviction -- until the accused man's lawyer, Jonathan Read More

Out on a Limb

Actors: Matthew Broderick, Jeffrey Jones, Heidi Kling, John C. Reilly, Marian Mercer

Synopsis: A man trying to help out his sister finds himself chin-deep in hot water in this screwball comedy. Yuppie businessman Bill Campbell (Matthew Broderick) is close to sealing a $140 million business deal when he gets a phone call from his little sister Marci (Courtney Peldon), who is convinced that Read More

A Stranger Among Us

Actors: Melanie Griffith, Eric Thal, John Pankow, Tracy Pollan, Lee Richardson

Synopsis: When a Jewish jeweler is found dead and his store is missing more than one million dollars in diamonds, a New York police detective (Melanie Griffith) goes undercover in a community of Hasidic Jews to find the criminal. Once she is immersed in the community, she falls in love with one of the most Read More

Family Prayers

Actors: Joe Mantegna, Anne Archer, Tzvi Ratner-Stauber, Patti LuPone, Allen Garfield

Synopsis: Set in 1969 Los Angeles, this movie aims at nostalgia but really is more a depiction of the tragedy of a dysfunctional family. Young Andrew, a 13-year-old male on the brink of manhood, is saddled with a Father who is a compulsive gambler and a Mother who is immersed in constant battle with him Read More

Law & Order: A Death in the Family

Synopsis: Detectives Greevey (George Dzundza) and Logan (Chris Noth) seek out Brutus Walker (Jerome Preston Bates), the chief suspect in the rooftop murder of a cop. Even while the detectives put out a dragnet for Walker, the fugitive's lawyer, Simpson (David Margulies), tries to cut a deal with prosecutors Read More

Never Forget

Actors: Leonard Nimoy, Dabney Coleman, Blythe Danner

Synopsis: In this fact-based made-for-cable docudrama, Leonard Nimoy stars as Mel Mermelstein, a Nazi death camp survivor who wages a court battle against the revisionist Institute for Historical Review over their claims that the Holocaust never occurred. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Funny About Love

Actors: Gene Wilder, Christine Lahti, Mary Stuart Masterson, Robert Prosky, Stephen Tobolowsky, Anne Jackson

Synopsis: The once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between star Gene Wilder and director Leonard Nimoy resulted in the charmingly haphazard and anachronistic Funny About Love. Wilder plays political cartoonist Duffy Bergman, who falls in love with much-younger Meg (Christine Lahti) during a book-signing Read More

Ghostbusters 2

Actors: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis

Synopsis: Ivan Reitman's sequel to the phenomenally successful Ghostbusters is looser and more self-assured than the original. The film opens with a title reading "Five Years Later" and finds the ghostbusters living in hard times. A restraining order has forbidden the boys to partake in paranormal warfare Read More

Kojak: Ariana

Actors: Telly Savalas

Synopsis: Kojak is sidetracked by a lovely girl while investigating the activities of a corrupt drug lord. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Gideon Oliver: Sleep Well, Professor Gideon

Synopsis: This TV film was the 2-hour pilot for the Gideon Oliver series. Louis Gossett Jr. stars as Oliver, an anthropology professor who uses his knowledge of other cultures to solve mysteries. In the opener, Professor Oliver tackles the murder of an ex-lover, who'd been investigating a cult of satanists. Read More

Perfect Witness

Actors: Brian Dennehy, Aidan Quinn, Stockard Channing, Laura Harrington, Joe Grifasi

Synopsis: The Perfect Witness is New York restaurant owner Aidan Quinn. After witnessing a mob murder, Quinn does his civic duty by reporting the incident to the authorities. This plunks Quinn into the middle of a power play between the DA and ambitious US attorney Brian Dennehy, who won't let up on the Read More

Running on Empty

Actors: Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, Judd Hirsch, Martha Plimpton, Jonas Abry

Synopsis: In this family drama from director Sidney Lumet, Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play Arthur and Annie Pope, a pair of '60s radicals who have eluded the FBI for 16 years after bombing a napalm laboratory as a Vietnam War protest. This lifestyle involves continually moving their base of operations Read More

The Trial of Bernhard Goetz

Synopsis: This docudrama reenacts the famous 1987 trial of New York vigilante Bernhard Goetz who was tried for shooting four young African-American men on a subway train. Though the trial is enacted by actors, the dialogue was taken verbatim from the actual court transcripts. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Read More

Ishtar

Actors: Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Adjani, Charles Grodin, Jack Weston

Synopsis: Considered one of the great box-office turkeys of its decade, Ishtar was an attempt by writer/director Elaine May and stars Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty to do a modern-day road picture in the style of the much-loved Bob Hope and Bing Crosby comedy classics. Beatty is Lyle Rogers, a Read More

Candy Mountain

Actors: Kevin J. O'Connor, Harris Yulin, Tom Waits, Bulle Ogier, Roberts Blossom

Synopsis: After promising a rock star he would find a particular guitar-maker to procure his valuable products, a musician takes a road trip in search of the legend. On his way, he meets various people who have--at one time or another-- been involved with the elusive guru. After he finally meets the man, he Read More

Magic Sticks

Actors: George Kranz, Kelly Leigh Curtis, Joe Silver, Chico Hamilton

Synopsis: Felix (George Kranz) is the down-and-out young drummer who obtains a pair of magic drumsticks from a street vendor. He soon finds out the sticks are able to make native New Yorkers dance uncontrollably -- but not visitors to the city. Joe Silver plays a good-hearted pawnbroker, with Kelly Curtis Read More

Brighton Beach Memoirs

Actors: Blythe Danner, Bob Dishy, Brian Drillinger, Stacey Glick, Judith Ivey, Jonathan Silverman

Synopsis: Brighton Beach Memoirs is the first of playwright Neil Simon's unofficial "autobiographical trilogy" (it was followed by Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound). Jonathan Silverman repeats his stage role as Simon's teenaged alter-ego Eugene, who lives in 1937 Brooklyn with his parents (Blythe Danner and Bob Dishy Read More

9 1/2 Weeks

Actors: Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger, Margaret Whitton, David Margulies, Christine Baranski

Synopsis: The title refers to the duration of the relationship between self-absorbed Wall Street shark Mickey Rourke and divorced art gallery owner Kim Basinger. Kim is looking for true love, while Mickey is searching for...gosh knows what. His notions of lovemaking include blindfolds, ice cubes, chocolate Read More

A Doctor's Story

Actors: Art Carney, Uta Hagen

Synopsis: A TV pilot film, Doctor's Story explores the rights--or rather, the lack of them--of geriatric patients. Howard E. Rollins Jr. plays a young doctor who resents the throwaway attitude conveyed towards the elderly. Among Rollins' patients are a near-senile old man (Art Carney), a woman (Vivece Lindfors Read More

Ghostbusters

Actors: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts

Synopsis: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson star as a quartet of Manhattan-based "paranormal investigators". When their government grants run out, the former three go into business as The Ghostbusters, later hiring Hudson on. Armed with electronic paraphernalia, the team is Read More

Daniel

Actors: Timothy Hutton, Mandy Patinkin, Lindsay Crouse, Ed Asner, Ellen Barkin

Synopsis: Sidney Lumet directed this film version of E.L. Doctorow's novel The Book of Daniel (scripted by Doctorow) that deals in a thinly veiled (although dispassionate way) with the Rosenberg spy case of the 1950s, as seen through the eyes of their children. The Rosenbergs are the Isaacsons here, and the Read More

Hide in Plain Sight

Actors: James Caan, Jill Eikenberry, Danny Aiello, Robert Viharo, Joe Grifasi

Synopsis: Star James Caan made his directorial debut in the fact-based Hide in Plain Sight. Caan plays a divorced husband and father who comes to visit his ex-wife and children, only to discover that they've evidently disappeared from the face of the earth. Running up against the stonewall tactics of the Read More

Times Square

Actors: Tim Curry, Trini Alvarado, Robin Johnson, Peter Coffield, Herbert Berghof

Synopsis: Two runaway teens face life on the streets in New York City with a devil-may-care attitude and a punk-rock image. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Dressed to Kill

Actors: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz

Synopsis: One of Brian De Palma's most divisive films, Dressed to Kill is a spine-chilling Alfred Hitchcock update for the late 1970s. Sexually frustrated wife and mother Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) visits her New York psychiatrist, Dr. Elliott (Michael Caine), to complain about her unfulfilling erotic Read More

All That Jazz

Actors: Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Ann Reinking, Leland Palmer, Cliff Gorman, John Lithgow

Synopsis: "It's showtime!" In this part film à clef, part musical phantasmagoria, director/choreographer Bob Fosse takes a Felliniesque look at the life of a driven entertainer. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, channeling Fosse) is the ultimate work (and pleasure)-aholic, as he knocks back a daily dose of Read More

My Old Man

Actors: Eileen Brennan, Kristy McNichol, Warren Oates

Synopsis: My Old Man was adapted from Ernest Hemingway's short story of the same name by Jerome Kass. Hemingway's story told of a down-on-his-luck horse trainer who is given a second chance at making something of his life by his son. This made-for-TV version changed the son to a daughter, played by Kristy McNichol Read More

The Last Embrace

Actors: Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin, Christopher Walken, Sam Levene, John Glover

Synopsis: In 1979, Jonathan Demme was still a cutting-edge director and The Last Embrace was his first effort at a completely commercial assignment. Very much in the Hitchcock vein, The Last Embrace is an intense suspense film concerning Harry Hannan (Roy Scheider), a government agent recovering from a Read More

Kojak: Monkey on a String

Synopsis: Joseph Hindy guest stars as Vince Pomerantz, a veteran New York cop with a serious gambling problem. Faced with ever-mounting debts, Pomerantz decides that the only way to save himself is to go "on the take." Unfortunately, he is now indebted to a mobster who demands that Vince square himself Read More

The Front

Actors: Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Michael Murphy, Andrea Marcovicci

Synopsis: The McCarthy-era "witch hunts" in the entertainment industry set the stage for this comedy drama set in the 1950s. Howard Prince (Woody Allen) is a cashier at a corner bar who works as a small-time bookie on the side, with little success. One day, Howard's old friend Alfred Miller (Michael Read More

Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers

Actors: Sonny Boy Hayes, Yafa Lerner

Synopsis: This free-wheeling sex spoof features the Warhol "factory" personality, transvestite Holly Woodlawn. At the time this film was made, Warhol was not so interested in making films and was turning his attentions to producing the magazine, Interview. His film celebrities and the sensibility they Read More