George Plimpton Filmography

Infamous

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Toby Jones, Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, Peter Bogdanovich, Jeff Daniels

Synopsis: Douglas McGrath's Infamous represents the second major biopic about the avant-garde belletrist Truman Capote to be released within a year. It thus tells roughly the same story as Bennett Miller's earlier Capote, recounting the events that belied the writer's six-year authorship of the seminal Read More

Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film

Actors: Jeff Koons, Philip Bosco, Josh Hamilton, Robert Sean Leonard, Laurie Anderson, Andy Warhol

Synopsis: Documentary filmmaker Ric Burns explores the life and legacy of pop art's most beloved icon with this film that seeks to illuminate the public persona and creative complexity of painter, photographer, and filmmaker Andy Warhol. Host Laurie Anderson narrates as an erudite collection of curators Read More

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

Synopsis: Experience legendary boxer Jack Johnson's remarkable struggle both in and out of the ring in documentary filmmaker Ken Burns' two-part look at the career of one of the sports world's most remarkable athletes. From his childhood in Galveston, TX, as the son of former slaves to his triumph as the Read More

New York, Episode 8: 1945-2003 - The Center of the World

Actors: Bebe Neuwirth, George Plimpton

Synopsis: The three-hour documentary Center of the World is part of producer/director Ric Burns' massive 14 1/2-hour filmed history of New York City. More specifically, this film is an outgrowth of the five-minute coda to Burns' previous effort The City and the World: 1945 to Present, hastily added to Read More

Breakfast With Hunter

Actors: Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, P.J. O'Rourke, John Cusack

Synopsis: The debut documentary feature from television director Wayne Ewing (Homicide: Life on the Street), Breakfast With Hunter attempts to offer viewers an inside look into the life and mind of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Along with discussions of his past writings, the film explores the Read More

Thomas Pynchon: A Journey Into the Mind of [P.]

Actors: Richard Lane, George Plimpton, Jules Siegel, Chrissie Wexler, Irvin Corey

Just Visiting

Actors: Jean Reno, Christina Applegate, Christian Clavier, Matthew Ross, Tara Reid

Synopsis: Lots of people find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, but this comic fantasy takes that notion to a whole new level. Count Thibault of Malfete (Jean Reno) is a brave warrior and respected nobleman in 12th century France. Count Thibault has won the heart of the lovely Princess Read More

ER: Thy Will Be Done

Synopsis: Kovac (Goran Visnjic) again treats the stubborn Bishop Stewart (John Cromwell). Sixteen-year-old cardiac patient Nick Stevens (Josh Peck) balks at having another heart transplant. Another patient, a gay man named Jeff (Robert Beitzel), refuses to use contraceptives, and indeed seems eager and Read More

Sam the Man

Actors: Fisher Stevens, Annabella Sciorra

Synopsis: Before he broke out with the J.D. Salinger-esque Tadpole in 2002, producer-turned-director Gary Winick filmed this little-seen relationship drama. Fisher Stevens stars as the title character, a writer with one novel under his belt who can't seem to deliver the follow-up. Instead, he spends his Read More

ER: My Brother's Keeper

Synopsis: Ross (George Clooney) treats a six-year-old patient who may have been poisoned by someone in his family, and also tries to find time to write a presentation on pediatric treatment. Carter's (Noah Wyle) cousin Chase (Jonathan Scarfe) is among the heroin addicts brought into the ER for treatment. Read More

Good Will Hunting

Actors: Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, Stellan Skarsgård

Synopsis: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck co-scripted and star in this drama, set in Boston and Cambridge, about rebellious 20-year-old MIT janitor Will Hunting (Damon), gifted with a photographic memory, who hangs out with his South Boston bar buddies, his best friend Chuckie (Affleck), and his affluent British Read More

When We Were Kings

Actors: Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, James Brown, B.B. King, Norman Mailer

Synopsis: In 1974, boxers Muhammad Ali and George Foreman came to the still-emerging and politically unstable African nation of Zaire for what Ali called the "Rumble in the Jungle," a highly publicized world heavyweight championship fight. Documentarian Leon Gast flew to Zaire to film both the fight and a Read More

Nixon

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Powers Boothe, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins

Synopsis: Oliver Stone, the most outspokenly political American filmmaker of the 1980s and '90s, directs this epic-length biography of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the U.S., who was re-elected by a landslide in 1972, only to resign in disgrace two years later. Taking a non-linear approach, Nixon Read More

Just Cause

Actors: Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Capshaw, Blair Underwood, Ed Harris

Synopsis: The novel by John Katzenbach becomes this legal thriller starring Sean Connery as Harvard Law School professor Paul Armstrong. A legal expert whose days of trying cases are long behind him, Armstrong is moved by a plea he receives from a Florida death row inmate, Bobby Earl (Blair Underwood). It Read More

Wings: The Shrink

Synopsis: Still in the doldrums over his breakup with Alex, Brian (Steven Weber) consults a psychiatrist named Dr. Greyson, played by journalist George Plimpton. Later on, Brian's brother Joe (Tim Daly) shows up in Greyson's office when Helen (Crystal Bernard) insists upon moving up their wedding date. The Read More

American Experience: The Donner Party

Synopsis: In 1846, a group of over eighty Westward-bound pioneers were headed to the coast of California from Illinois, which had itself only recently been brought up to "civilized" status. They made it to a pass high in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California when they were halted by a truly monstrous Read More

Little Man Tate

Actors: Jodie Foster, Adam Hann-Byrd, Dianne Wiest, Harry Connick, Jr., David Hyde Pierce

Synopsis: Jodie Foster made her directorial debut (with a script by Scott Frank) in this tale of a child prodigy's search for social acceptance. Fred Tate (Adam Hann-Byrd) is a precocious fourth grader who has no problem with the most complex mathematical problems or in banging out a Rachmaninoff concerto Read More

L.A. Story

Actors: Steve Martin, Victoria Tennant, Richard E. Grant, Marilu Henner, Sarah Jessica Parker

Synopsis: Steve Martin wrote and stars in this look at the promise and dreamtime of Los Angeles culture. Martin stars as Harris K. Telemacher, a light-hearted television weatherman who does wacky comedy in lieu of reports since, being in L.A., he has very little weather to report. He spends his time Read More

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Actors: Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall, Saul Rubinek, Morgan Freeman

Synopsis: Brian De Palma's Hollywood sanitization of Tom Wolfe's scabrous satire stars Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, the "master of the universe," a shallow Wall Street investor who makes millions while enjoying the good life and the sexual favors of Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith), a Southern belle Read More

The Heritage Collection: A Quip with Yip and Friends

Synopsis: Enjoy this selection of light verse created by authors including e.e. cummings and read by Jack Lemmon, Fred Gwynne and George Plimpton. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Ken Burns' Civil War [TV Documentary Series]

Synopsis: Ken Burns' epic series begins with the causes of the Civil War in 1861 and ends with the war's aftermath in 1865. A combination of photographs, interviews, and narration create a sweeping historical documentary. Commentary and anecdotes by historian Shelby Foote add another level of authority to Read More

Greatest Sports Legends [Video Series]

Synopsis: The most distinguished superstar athletes are captured on this captivating historical sports series. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

A Fool and His Money

Actors: Jonathan Penner, Gerald Orange, Sandra Bullock, George Plimpton

Synopsis: Religion, Inc. was originally -- and very briefly -- released as A Fool and His Money. While watching TV, ex-adman Morris Codman (Jonathan Penner) receives a message from God. Advised by the Almighty to go into business for himself, Codman inaugurates his own religion, founded on a philosophy of Read More

Easy Wheels

Actors: Paul Le Mat, Eileen Davidson, Marjorie Bransfeld, Jon Menick, Mark Holton

Synopsis: Advertised as a parody of cheapo-sleazo biker flicks, Easy Wheels looks so much like the real thing that one wonders whether or not we were originally supposed to take the whole megillah seriously. Biker Bruce (Paul Le Mat) and She Wolf (Eileen Davidson) forget their mutual animosity long enough Read More

Pumping Iron 2: The Women

Actors: Lori Bowen, Carla Dunlap, Bev Francis, Rachel McLish, Kris Alexander

Synopsis: After the success of his 1975 documentary on male bodybuilders, featuring the subsequently famous Arnold Schwarzenegger and Louis Ferrigno, director George Butler created this follow-up on a bevy of distaff weight lifters as they prepare for a final muscle showdown at the 1983 Caesars Palace World Read More

Volunteers

Actors: Tom Hanks, John Candy, Rita Wilson, Tim Thomerson, Gedde Watanabe

Synopsis: Tom Hanks and John Candy were reunited for the first time since Splash in this period comedy about Peace Corps worker during the optimistic period of the Kennedy presidency. Lawrence Bourne III (Tom Hanks) is an upper-class heel who has to flee the country to escape his gambling debts and so Read More

Reds

Actors: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Jack Nicholson

Synopsis: Few filmmakers other than Warren Beatty would have had the courage and vision to fashion an epic film from the life of famed American Communist John Reed (who is the only US citizen buried in the Kremlin). The film is an effort to humanize a political movement that has previously been depicted on Read More

If Ever I See You Again

Actors: Shelley Hack, Jimmy Breslin, Jerry Keller, Kenny Karen

Synopsis: Bob Morrison (Joe Brooks) composes jingles on Madison Avenue for television ads. He has carried a torch for Jennifer Corly (Shelley Hack) since their college days, so that when he meets her again, he is compelled once again to try to woo her. Look for columnist/author Jimmy Breslin's surprisingly Read More

The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover

Actors: Broderick Crawford, José Ferrer, Michael Parks, Ronee Blakely, Rip Torn

Synopsis: Larry Cohen's pseudo-biography of J. Edgar Hoover (Broderick Crawford) was virtually howled off the screens upon its release in 1977. Today, with the cross-dressing Hoover so much a matter of historical record that even Oliver Stone didn't bother to make too much of a point of it in Nixon, the Cohen Read More

Rio Lobo

Actors: John Wayne, Jorge Rivero, Jennifer O'Neill, Jack Elam, Christopher Mitchum

Synopsis: John Wayne, in the last of his Civil War characterizations, portrays Cord McNally, a Union Army colonel who loses a gold shipment in a Confederate raid, during which a devoted young officer is also killed. After the end of the war, McNally bears no ill-will toward the leaders of the raid, Pierre Read More

Paper Lion

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Alan Alda, Lauren Hutton, Alex Karras, Frank Gifford, Vince Lombardi

Synopsis: Paper Lion is taken from the actual experiences of journalist George Plimpton. George (Alan Alda) dons helmet and pads to play quarterback against the Detroit Lions. His experience is less-than-successful as he is mercilessly tackled by the Lion's defense, including Alex Karras. Roger Aaron Brown Read More

The Detective

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick, Ralph Meeker, Jacqueline Bisset, Jack Klugman

Synopsis: Frank Sinatra gives a gritty performance in the crime thriller The Detective. When Teddy Leikman, the homosexual son of a politically connected department-store magnate, is murdered, detective Joe Leland (Frank Sinatra) is sent in to investigate. Leland drags in Teddy's psychotic former roommate Read More

Beyond the Law

Actors: Rip Torn, George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, Mickey Knox

Synopsis: Author Norman Mailer's sporadic ventures into filmmaking are usually pretty bad, but never without interest. Beyond the Law co-stars Mailer and several of his cronies, including fellow-author George Plimpton and actor Rip Torn. Also in the cast is Beverly Bentley, the onetime Mrs. Mailer. Set in a Read More

Vali: The Witch of Positano

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Witch? Shaman? Artist? Vali: The Witch of Positano is a personal portrait of Vali Myers, an expatriate Australian artist. Dressed like a psychedelic gypsy, she weaves her own brand of mystical spells. "Vali's dogs, Vali's trees, Vali's donkey, the birds, the flowers, the caves, the spiders of Vali Read More

Fireworks!

Actors: George Plimpton

Synopsis: People have been fascinated with fireworks for over 1,000 years. No longer just for holidays and momentous celebrations, the fireworks of today can be seen everywhere from the ballpark to the backyard. Join host George Plimpton as he tours the world to learn the history of these luminous Read More