Ellen Barkin Filmography

Trust the Man

Actors: David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, Maggie Gyllenhaal, James LeGros

Synopsis: Two couples demonstrate that breaking up can be just as hard as staying together in this romantic comedy drama. Rebecca (Julianne Moore) and Tom (David Duchovny) are a seemingly happy married couple living in New York City -- she's a successful actress, while he stays home with the kids. However Read More

Palindromes

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Stephen Adly-Guirgis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emani Sledge, Valerie Shusterov

Synopsis: Palindromes opens with the dedication, "In loving memory of Dawn Wiener," a reference to the lead character in writer/director Todd Solondz' early feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse. Aviva has just attended Dawn's funeral. Dismayed by her older cousin's untimely death, Aviva asks her mother (Ellen Barkin Read More

She Hate Me

Actors: Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington

Synopsis: Directed by Spike Lee, She Hate Me follows John Henry "Jack" Armstrong (Anthony Mackie), who is fired from a posh job in biotechnology after informing the proper authorities of some sketchy business dealings from within the company. Unemployed and desperate for some quick cash, Jack accepts a Read More

Someone Like You

Actors: Ashley Judd, Greg Kinnear, Hugh Jackman, Marisa Tomei, Ellen Barkin

Synopsis: Based on Laura Zigman's 1998 novel Animal Husbandry, this romantic comedy centers on Jane Goodale (Ashley Judd), a talk-show producer who finds herself suddenly abandoned by her boyfriend (Greg Kinnear). After this untimely breakup, Jane begins to develop a thesis that male behavior is directly Read More

Crime + Punishment in Suburbia

Actors: Monica Keena, Vincent Kartheiser, Ellen Barkin, Jeffrey Wright, James DeBello

Synopsis: Recalling both The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and American Beauty (1999), this teen drama recounts the trials and tribulations of one very dysfunctional family. Roseanne Skolnik (Monica Keena) is a popular high school student who is dating Jimmy (James DeBello), the football captain. She Read More

Mercy

Actors: Wendy Crewson, Stephen Baldwin, Ellen Barkin, Marshall Bell, Stewart Bick, Peta Wilson

Synopsis: Damian Harris directs this sleazy erotic thriller about lipstick lesbians, naked corpses, and S&M covens, starring Julian Sands. Catherine Palmer (Ellen Barkin) is a hard-driving homicide cop who drinks like a fish and curses like a sailor, investigating a series of murders which leave the Read More

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Actors: Kirsten Dunst, Ellen Barkin, Allison Janney, Denise Richards, Kirstie Alley, Brittany Murphy

Synopsis: So how far would you go to win a beauty pageant? That's the burning question of Drop Dead Gorgeous, in which the citizens of Mount Rose, Minnesota gear up for the year's biggest event, the Sarah Rose Miss Teen Princess America Pageant, in which Becky Leeman (Denise Richards) and Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst Read More

White River

Actors: Beau Bridges, Ellen Barkin, Antonio Banderas, Bob Hoskins, Wes Bentley

Synopsis: Two small-time crooks find themselves in deeper water than they can handle in this offbeat comedy. Edgar (Bob Hoskins) and Morales (Antonio Banderas) are a pair of minor-league grifters posing as men of the cloth, who travel through the deep South selling cheap socks at inflated prices to raise Read More

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Actors: Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, Craig Bierko, Ellen Barkin, Gary Busey

Synopsis: Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, The Fisher King) directed this colorful, stylized, pseudo-psychedelic $21-million adaptation of the 1971 Hunter S. Thompson classic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream, about stoned sportswriter Raoul Duke, Thompson Read More

Before Women Had Wings

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Oprah Winfrey, Tina Majorino, Julia Stiles, John Savage

Synopsis: Connie May Fowler adapted her own novel for this dark drama about a dysfunctional family in northern rural Florida during the '60s. Alcoholic Billy (John Savage) reflects on his country-music career that never happened and beats his wife Glory Marie (Ellen Barkin), also a drunk. Grown-up son Hank (William Lee Scott Read More

The Fan

Actors: Robert De Niro, Wesley Snipes, Ellen Barkin, John Leguizamo, Benicio Del Toro

Synopsis: Robert De Niro is Gil Renard, baseball fan from hell. Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes) is the player he is nuts about. No sooner does the talented Rayburn sign a huge contract with the San Francisco Giants, than everything in his life goes horribly wrong. Not only does his field play deteriorate Read More

Mad Dog Time

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Gabriel Byrne, Richard Dreyfuss, Jeff Goldblum, Diane Lane

Synopsis: A group of mobsters fight for control in this satirical comedy-drama. Vic (Richard Dreyfuss) is a not-especially-stable crime boss who -- following a spell in a mental hospital after being diagnosed with schizophrenia -- is sent home and is ready to resume his place as supreme leader of the mob. Read More

Bad Company

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Susan Wooldridge, Laurence Fishburne, Jonny Lee Miller, Ken Stott, Frank Langella, Mark Drewry, Michael Beach, Angus Deayton, David Ogden Stiers

Synopsis: Laurence Fishburne and Ellen Barkin star in this complex tale of former C.I.A. agents who now specialize in freelance espionage. As the film opens, Nelson Crowe (Fishburne) is being interviewed for a position with the Grimes Organization, which focuses on industrial espionage. He is hired by Read More

Wild Bill

Actors: Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, John Hurt, Diane Lane, David Arquette

Synopsis: Maverick writer-director Walter Hill's version of the famous Wild Bill Hickok legend is a dreamscape western that is told entirely in flashback. Hickok's friend Charley Prince (John Hurt) narrates the events of Wild Bill's life while sitting at Bill's graveside. Hickok is played by Jeff Bridges as Read More

This Boy's Life

Actors: Robert De Niro, Ellen Barkin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Blechman, Eliza Dushku

Synopsis: A single mother and her difficult son find family life isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be in this drama adapted from writer and professor Tobias Wolff's 1989 memoir of the same name. Nomadic, flaky Caroline (Ellen Barkin) just wants to settle down in one place, find a decent guy, and Read More

Into the West

Actors: Gabriel Byrne, Ellen Barkin, Ciaran Fitzgerald, Ruaidhri Conroy, Patrick Doyle, David Kelly

Synopsis: Mike Newell directs Jim Sheridan's screenplay (based on a story by Tim Palmer) in this enchanting and magical modern-day fairy tale. Gabriel Byrne plays Papa Reilly, a widower who lives with his two young sons, Ossie (Ciaran Fitzgerald) and Tito (Ruaidhri Conroy), in the slums of Dublin. There Read More

Man Trouble

Actors: Jack Nicholson, Ellen Barkin, Beverly D'Angelo, Paul Mazursky, Harry Dean Stanton, Michael McKean

Synopsis: Actor Jack Nicholson, writer Carole Eastman, and director Bob Rafelson re-team 22 years after their classic Five Easy Pieces, for this romantic comedy. Nicholson plays Harry Bliss, a small potatoes security expert unhappily married to a Japanese woman (he sarcastically calls her Iwo Jima during Read More

Mac

Actors: John Turturro, Michael Badalucco, Carl Caportoto, Katherine Borowitz, Ellen Barkin, John Amos

Synopsis: Actor John Turturro spent a dozen years getting his script for Mac before the cameras; he'd originally planned to merely act in the film, but the stringent budget required that he direct as well. Turturro plays Mac, one of three grown brothers in an Italian/American family living in 1950s New Read More

Switch

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Jimmy Smits, JoBeth Williams, Lorraine Bracco, Perry King, Tony Roberts

Synopsis: Ellen Barkin stars in this mystical comedy about a detestable male chauvinist temporarily reincarnated into the body of a woman. Steve Brooks (Perry King) foolishly accepts an invite for an evening of debauchery from three former girlfriends, and thinks he's got it made when he shows up to find Read More

Johnny Handsome

Actors: Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth McGovern, Morgan Freeman, Forest Whitaker

Synopsis: Small-time crook Mickey Rourke is mockingly named Johnny Handsome because of his grotesquely deformed face. While in stir on a robbery rap, Rourke is knifed by convicts in the employ of his former partner--and now bitter enemy--Lance Henriksen. While in the prison hospital, Rourke is cared for by Read More

Sea of Love

Actors: Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, John Goodman, Michael Rooker, William Hickey

Synopsis: Sea of Love is a sexy, atmospheric thriller, very much in the style of Alfred Hitchcock, with involving characters, steamy love scenes, and surprising plot twists. Frank Keller (Al Pacino), is a lonely, tired, disillusioned, police detective, who has a problem with alcohol. Frank is investigating Read More

Clinton and Nadine

Actors: Anthony Correa, Andy Garcia, Ellen Barkin, Morgan Freeman, Michael Lombard, John C. McGinley

Synopsis: This made-for-TV film was originally titled simply Clinton & Nadine when it made its debut on May 28, 1988. Andy Garcia plays Clinton, who is eager to find his brother's murderer. To do so, he enlists the aid of Nadine (Ellen Barkin), a high-priced call girl. Clinton and Nadine get sucked into a Read More

Siesta

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Isabella Rossellini, Martin Sheen

Synopsis: Sky diver Clare (Ellen Barkin) wakes up disheveled and almost naked in Spain. She has left her husband Del (Martin Sheen) in Death Valley in order to find her former lover Augustine (Gabriel Byrne). She may have committed a murder, or it may all be fantasy. This film, directed by Mary Lambert is Read More

Made in Heaven

Actors: Timothy Hutton, Kelly McGillis, Maureen Stapleton, Don Murray, Ellen Barkin, Marj Dusay

Synopsis: Alan Rudolph directed this offbeat, boy-meets-girl romance in which boy dies, dead boy meets dead girl, dead boy loses dead girl, and dead boy tries to find dead girl again. The tale begins is a small Pennsylvania town, where Mike Shea (Timothy Hutton) dreams of escaping small town life and moving Read More

The Big Easy

Actors: Dennis Quaid, Ellen Barkin, Ned Beatty, John Goodman, Ebbe Roe Smith

Synopsis: A film that captures the steamy, colorful essence of New Orleans, this crime thriller tells the romantic story of a classy detective whose investigation of a gangland murder lands him in trouble with the city's new District Attorney, a woman with a rigid penchant for following the letter of the Read More

Down by Law

Actors: Tom Waits, John Lurie, Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Ellen Barkin

Synopsis: Jim Jarmusch follows his groundbreaking Stranger Than Paradise with another rambling, character-driven film with a twisted sense of humor. Set in a seedy New Orleans summer, Down By Law details the meeting of three unlikely convicts and their just as unlikely escape. Zack (Tom Waits) is an Read More

Desert Bloom

Actors: Jon Voight, JoBeth Williams, Ellen Barkin, Allen Garfield, Annabeth Gish

Synopsis: Set in 1950, this is a convincing, well-acted drama about a young girl's growing up in Las Vegas amidst poverty and a turbulent home life. The 13-year-old Rose (Annabeth Gish) lives with her mother (JoBeth Williams), stepfather (Jon Voight), and two sisters in a working-class home. Trouble is Read More

Act of Vengeance

Actors: Wilford Brimley, Charles Bronson, Ellen Burstyn

Synopsis: Produced for the HBO Cable service, Act of Vengeance reenacts the 1969 murder of United Mine Workers leader Jock Yablonski. Yablonski (Charles Bronson) virtually writes his own death warrant when, after a "safe" mine collapses and 80 miners are killed, he rebels against the incumbent UMW boss Tony Read More

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

Terrible Joe Moran

Actors: Ellen Barkin, James Cagney, Art Carney

Synopsis: 84-year-old James Cagney delivered his final performance in the TV movie Terrible Joe Moran. Cagney plays a former boxing champ, now enfeebled and bound to a wheelchair (we see him in his prime via a clip from Cagney's 1932 vehicle Winner Take All). Long estranged from his family, the ex-boxer Read More

Faerie Tale Theatre: The Princess Who Had Never Laughed

Synopsis: A concerned king holds a special contest to brighten the spirits of his chronically depressed daughter in this delightful entry in Shelley Duvall's popular family-oriented cable-television show. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!

Actors: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd

Synopsis: Despite mixed reviews and a disastrous initial release that dumped the film into theaters for a week in the midst of the 1984 Summer Olympics, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension went on to become one of the major cult films of the 1980s, developing a rabid following after Read More

Harry and Son

Actors: Paul Newman, Robby Benson, Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley, Judith Ivey

Synopsis: Harry (Paul Newman), a middle-aged hardhat, has trouble communicating with his teenaged son Howard (Robby Benson). While Harry wants Howard to find a bread-and-butter job, the sensitive boy would rather pursue a writing career. Howard tries his best to please his dad, but ultimately realizes that Read More

Tender Mercies

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

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

Eddie and the Cruisers

Actors: Tom Berenger, Michael Paré, Joe Pantoliano, Helen Schneider

Synopsis: In the early 1960's, Eddie Wilson (Michael Pare) and his band The Cruisers enjoyed a brief fling with success, but their career came to a halt when Eddie's badly damaged car was discovered in an accident on a bridge. However, Eddie's body was never found, and years later, a reissue of the group's Read More

Enormous Changes at the Last Minute

Actors: Ellen Barkin, Kevin Bacon, Maria Tucci, Lynn Milgrim, Sudie Bond

Synopsis: Enormous Changes at the Last Minute is a compilation film of three feminist yet disheartening stories of failed relationships. The first story features Virginia (Ellen Barkin) whose deadbeat husband has just left her and their three children. As a result, she is forced to go on welfare. She begins Read More

Diner

Actors: Tim Daly, Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Ellen Barkin, Paul Reiser

Synopsis: Writer-director Barry Levinson's autobiographical first feature fondly remembers his Baltimore youth. It's late 1959, and six guys in their early twenties are stumbling into adulthood, alternating responsibility with carefree time at their local diner. The story centers on the return from Read More

Parole

Actors: Ellen Barkin

Synopsis: The made-for-TV Parole stars the music of Bob Dylan and Sting. Actually, it stars James Naughton, but the music is (or should have been) the selling angle. Naughton portrays street-smart Boston parole officer Andy Driscoll, who takes a personal interest in each of his charges and tries to Read More

We're Fighting Back

Synopsis: In this urban drama set in New York City, a man tries to rally youths together to combat a gang-related crime spree. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Kent State

Synopsis: The May 4, 1970 tragedy at Kent State University is meticulously recreated this three-hour TV movie. Conceived in semidocumentary fashion, the film illustrates the slow, simmering buildup to the fatal confrontation between students and National Guard troops on the Kent Campus. The four students Read More