Diane VenoraFilmography

Born:: August 10, 1952 in Hartford, CT
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: Julliard-trained actress Diane Venora made both her New York stage and film debut in 1981. The play was the off-Broadway production Penguin Touquet; the film was Wolfen. In 1983, Venora became the focus of voluminous press coverage for her appearance in the New York Shakespeare Festival...Read More

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The Ministers

Actors: John Leguizamo, Harvey Keitel, Florencia Lozano, Wanda De Jesus, Diane Venora

Synopsis: A New York City Homicide Detective unwittingly becomes involved with one of the men who murdered her father thirteen years prior in this thriller starring John Leguizamo and Harvey Keitel. It's been over a decade since Celeste Santana (Florencia Lozano) lost her father in a violent shooting. The Read More

2008
Stiletto

Actors: Tom Berenger, Paul Sloan, Stana Katic, Tom Sizemore, Kelly Hu

Synopsis: A deadly seductress sets out to avenge her sister, in the process uncovering a dark conspiracy that makes her question everything she's been fighting for in this action thriller featuring Tom Berenger, Tom Sizemore, William Forsythe, and Michael Biehn. Raina (Stana Katic) was deeply in love with Read More

2008
Self-Medicated

Actors: Diane Venora, Michael Bowen, Greg Germann, Monty Lapica, Kristina Anapau

Synopsis: Monty Lapica's drama Self-Medicated tells the story of a 17-year-old boy who is having a very difficult time dealing with the grief he experiences after his father dies. After the boy slides into a wicked drug addiction, as well as legal problems, his mother reaches the end of her tether and has Read More

8/31/07
Touched

Actors: Jenna Elfman, Randall Batinkoff, Samantha Mathis, Diane Venora, Sam Anderson

Synopsis: When a tragic car accident robs a loving father of both his son and his sense of touch, it's up to one sympathetic nurse to show him that the future still holds hope in a poignant and inspirational drama starring Jenna Elfman, Samantha Mathis, and Randall Batinkoff. Awakening from a two-year coma Read More

2005
Threshold [TV Series]

Actors: Carla Gugino, Brian Van Holt, Brent Spiner, Rob Benedict, Peter Dinklage

Synopsis: CBS' spin on ABC's Lost for the 2005-2006 TV season was the weekly, hour-long sci-fi effort Threshold. The crash-landing of an alien spacecraft in the Atlantic Ocean prompted the government to engage the services of a crack team of specialists, who were obliged to investigate the incident and Read More

2005
Stateside

Actors: Rachael Leigh Cook, Jonathan Tucker, Agnes Bruckner, Val Kilmer, Joe Mantegna

Synopsis: Directed by Reverge Anselmo, Stateside revolves around the unique love story of two very different teens -- namely, the rich but lonely Mark Deloach (Jonathan Tucker) and Dori Lawrence (Rachael Leigh Cook), a schizophrenic singer and actress -- whose lives spiral out of control in separate but Read More

5/21/04
Breaking Dawn

Actors: Kelly Overton, James Haven, Sarah Jane Potts, Hank Harris

Synopsis: The insane ramblings of a madman become all too real for a young medical student assigned to investigate the murder of a mental patient's mother in director Mark Edwin Robinson's twisted tale of psychological horror. Don Wake is a troubled soul whose secrets run deep. As the medical student Read More

2004
Heartbreak Hospital

Synopsis: Neely (Chelsea Altman) is a struggling actress living in New York. Her Mexican boyfriend, Tonio (Demian Bechir), is a cook who's trying to sell his own line of pasta sauces. Lottie (Patricia Clarkson), her eccentric neighbor, is obsessed with a soap opera, "Heartbreak Hospital." Frustrated with Read More

9/6/02
Megiddo: The Omega Code 2

Actors: Michael York, Michael Biehn, Diane Venora, R. Lee Ermey, Udo Kier

Synopsis: In this combination sequel and prequel to the surprise box-office success The Omega Code, one man becomes the leader of an evil empire that could destroy the world, and his brother must rise against him in the defense of good. Stone Alexander (played as a child by Gavin Fink) is a moody Read More

9/21/01
The Young Girl and the Monsoon

Actors: Terry Kinney, Mili Avital, Diane Venora, Tim Guinee

Synopsis: Actor and author of the well-regarded book Screenwriting from the Heart, James Ryan makes his directorial debut with this character-driven romantic comedy. The film focuses on respected photojournalist and divorced father Hank (Terry Kinney), who has a proclivity toward covering remote and Read More

5/4/01
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

11/10/00
Hamlet

Actors: Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Sam Shepard, Diane Venora, Bill Murray, Julia Stiles

Synopsis: William Shakespeare's classic tale is brought to the screen for the third time in ten years in this modernized interpretation. Writer/director Michael Almereyda updates the story to the present day, where Hamlet (Ethan Hawke) is a struggling filmmaker whose personal and familial trials are set Read More

5/12/00
Race Against Time

Actors: Eric Roberts, Cas Anvar, Cary Elwes, Diane Venora, Chris Sarandon

Synopsis: In this futuristic blend of sci-fi and action, a Supreme Court ruling has overturned laws against suicide, and a firm called Lifecorps has sprung up to take advantage of a new loophole in the law. Lifecorps will pay healthy people large sums of money for the right to harvest their organs after Read More

2000
The Insider

Actors: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Philip Baker Hall

Synopsis: The Insider tells the true story of a man who decided to tell the world what the seven major tobacco companies knew (and concealed) about the dangers of their product. Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) was a scientist employed in research for a tobacco firm, Brown and Williamson. Not long after he Read More

11/5/99
The 13th Warrior

Actors: Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora, Dennis Storhoi, Vladimir Kulich, Omar Sharif

Synopsis: A cultured diplomat joins a band of savage warriors in time to meet an even more fearsome enemy in this historical adventure. In 922 A.D., Ibn Fadlan (Antonio Banderas) is a Muslim emissary from Baghdad en route to meet with the King of Saqaliba when he is captured by a gang of Vikings. While Ibn Read More

8/27/99
True Crime

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Isaiah Washington, Denis Leary, Lisa Gay Hamilton, James Woods

Synopsis: Investigative reporter Steve Everett (Clint Eastwood) has just relocated to the west coast after getting fired from the New York Times. Thanks to his old friend, Alan Mann (James Woods), the editor-in-chief of The Oakland Tribune, Everett still has a job, but that's hardly the end of his Read More

3/19/99
The Joyriders

Actors: Martin Landau, Diane Venora, Kris Kristofferson, Shawn Hatosy

Synopsis: In this inspiring drama, Gordon Trout (Martin Landau) is a elderly man who was once a successful businessman but has become despondent since his wife left him. As Gordon gives serious thought to killing himself, he decides to buy a gun, but while at a shopping mall, he offers to give a ride to Read More

1999
The Jackal

Actors: Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier, Diane Venora, Tess Harper

Synopsis: In Moscow, after FBI deputy director Carter Preston (Sidney Poitier) and scarred Russian intelligence officer Valentina Koslova (Diane Venora) bring down a key figure in the Russian Mafia, they are threatened by the criminal's powerful brother who swears vengeance on the FBI and immediately hires Read More

1997
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet

Actors: Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau, Jr., Pete Postlethwaite

Synopsis: The classic Shakespearean romantic tragedy is updated by director Baz Luhrmann to a post-modern Verona Beach where swords are merely a brand of gun and bored youths are easily spurred toward violence. Longtime rivals in religion and business, the Montagues and the Capulets share a page from the Read More

1996
Surviving Picasso

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Natascha McElhone, Julianne Moore, Joss Ackland, Peter Eyre, Diane Venora

Synopsis: This unusual biography of the renowned Spanish artist Pablo Picasso is a Merchant-Ivory film. The team of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has been responsible for many period dramas, including A Room with a View and Howard's End. The story of Read More

1996
The Substitute

Actors: Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, Diane Venora, Marc Anthony, Glenn Plummer

Synopsis: An ex-mercenary (Tom Berenger) becomes a take-no-prisoners teacher in a drug-ridden, gang-infested Miami high school in this campy morality tale about restoring lost American virtues to the inner city. Berenger's character, Shale, has no first name, a shadowy past as a patriotic gun-for-hire, and Read More

1996
Special Report: Journey to Mars

Synopsis: This made-for-TV movie is staged in the form of an ongoing news report, unfolding in "real time." The year is 2014, and the men and women of the Global News Network are covering the final two hours of the first manned space mission to Mars. Suddenly, before an audience of billions, things begin to Read More

1996
Heat

Actors: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora

Synopsis: A successful career criminal considers getting out of the business after one last score, while an obsessive cop desperately tries to put him behind bars in this intelligent thriller written and directed by Michael Mann. Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) is a thief who specializes in big, risky jobs Read More

1995
Three Wishes

Actors: Patrick Swayze, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Joseph Mazzello, Seth Mumy, David Marshall Grant

Synopsis: In this offbeat comedy set in the 1950s, Patrick Swayze plays Jack McCloud, a drifter and beatnik who enters the conservative suburban life of the Holman family after Jeanne Holman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) accidentally hits him with her car. Jeanne takes Jack into her home while he recovers Read More

1995
Law & Order: Night and Fog

Synopsis: Nehemiah Persoff guest stars as elderly Jewish tailor David Steinmetz, who willingly confesses "I killed the woman I love" when police find the body of his invalid wife in their apartment. Steinmetz insists that his wife begged him to help her commit suicide, but the facts do not bear this out. Read More

1993
Hamlet

Synopsis: Kevin Kline directed this television adaptation of the New York Shakespeare Festival's 1990 production of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy, in which Kline also stars as the melancholy Danish prince. Deeply saddened by the death of his father, Hamlet (Kline) is shocked to discover his mother Read More

12/19/90
Bird

Actors: Forest Whitaker, Diane Venora, Michael Zelniker, Sam Wright, Keith David

Synopsis: Forest Whitaker stars as the brilliant jazz saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker in this elegiac biopic. Director Clint Eastwood pays full homage to Parker's musical genius, but also devotes ample time to the musician's twin demons--drugs and alcohol-which accelerated his death at the age of 34. In Read More

9/30/88
Ironweed

Actors: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Carroll Baker, Michael O'Keefe, Diane Venora

Synopsis: Based on the William Kennedy novel of the same name Ironweed is set in the waning years of the Depression. Jack Nicholson plays Francis Phelan, a washed-up ballplayer (a onetime infielder for the Washington Senators) who deserted his family back in the 1910s when he accidentally killed his infant Read More

12/18/87
F/X

Actors: Bryan Brown, Brian Dennehy, Diane Venora, Cliff De Young, Mason Adams

Synopsis: A man who simulates death for a living finds himself unwittingly tied into the real thing in this New York-based suspense drama. Special effects man Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) makes his living simulating gory mayhem and photogenic violence for movies such as "I Dismember Mama." Tyler is given a Read More

2/7/86
A.D.

Actors: Anthony Andrews, Colleen Dewhurst, Ava Gardner, David Hedison, John Houseman

Synopsis: Filmed in Tunisia on a budget of 30 million dollars, the five-part, 12-hour miniseries A.D. was the final installment in a historical trilogy which included Moses the Lawgiver and Jesus of Nazareth. Covering the years 30 to 69 A.D., the teleplay, co-written by Anthony Burgess, chronicled the Read More

1985
Terminal Choice

Actors: Joe Spano, Diane Venora, David McCallum, Robert Joy, Don Francks

Synopsis: In an uneasy blend of sci fi computer hokum and human miscreants at work, this story of suspicious deaths in a hospital is ominous on various counts but not likely to keep tension high-strung. Dr. Frank Holt (Joe Spano) has already had one malpractice suit that cost him a job, so when one of his Read More

1985
The Cotton Club

Actors: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins

Synopsis: Combining electric song and dance performances with drama (both on and off screen), Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984) looks back to the 1920s-1930s peak of the legendary Harlem nightclub where only blacks performed and only whites could sit in the audience. Mixing historical figures Read More

1984
Cook and Peary: The Race to the Pole

Actors: Richard Chamberlain, Rod Steiger

Synopsis: Cook and Peary: The Race to the Pole is an unabashedly biased recreation of the controversy concerning the "conquering" of the North Pole. Robert E. Peary (Rod Steiger), a US Navy commander and shameless self-promoter, sets out through Arctic wastes in 1909 to discover the Pole, an expedition that Read More

1983
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Actors: Christine Baranski, William Hurt

1982
Wolfen

Actors: Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Edward James Olmos, Gregory Hines, Tom Noonan

Synopsis: Wolfen, a frightening horror movie based upon a novel by Whitley Strieber, is an absorbing update on the werewolf legend. Detective Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) is assigned to investigate the strange murder of a millionaire and his wife in a downtown park. Wilson and his friend, city coroner Read More

1981