Hal Hartley Filmography

Born:: November 3, 1959 in Lindenhurst, NY
Occupation:: Director, Editor, Composer (Music Score), Producer, Screenwriter
Biography:: A leader of the 1990s American independent filmmaking movement, writer/director Hal Hartley was one of the most distinctive cinematic talents to emerge at the close of the 20th century. Combining the deadpan aesthetic of Buster Keaton with the lean economy of Robert Bresson, his films are arch...Read More

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Fay Grim

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Parker Posey, Jeff Goldblum, James Urbaniak, Saffron Burrows, Liam Aiken

Synopsis: A single mother from Queens becomes unwittingly embroiled in international espionage indirector Hal Hartley's sequel to the critically acclaimed Henry Fool. Fay Grim (Parker Posey) is determined to raise her 14-year-old son Ned (Liam Aiken) so he won't be like his father Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan) Read More

5/18/07
The Girl From Monday

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer

Actors: Bill Sage, Sabrina Lloyd, Tatiana Abracos, Leo Fitzpatrick, DJ Mendel

Synopsis: Independent auteur Hal Hartley wrote and directed this satirical exercise in what he calls "fake science fiction." In the near future, following a violent overthrow of the American government, the United States has come under the rule of the MMM, a Multi-Media Monopoly which runs the country as a Read More

4/15/05
Milk & Honey

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Clint Jordan, Kirsten Russell, Anthony Howard, Dudley Findlay, Jr., Eleanor Hutchins

Synopsis: Joe Maggio's second film, Milk & Honey, is a tale of a marriage with problems. Rick (Clint Jordan) and Joyce (Kirsten Russell) go their separate ways into the night after a disastrous appearance together at an office function. The apparently mentally unstable Rick ends up offering money to a Read More

3/18/05
The Sisters of Mercy

Crew: Director

Actors: Parker Posey, Sabrina Lloyd

2005
The Cloud of Unknowing

Crew: Producer

Actors: Miho Nikaido, D.J. Mendel, Lisa Walter, Thomas Jay Ryan

Synopsis: In Richard Sylvarnes' debut feature as writer, director, cinematographer, and editor, a beautiful Japanese woman (Miho Nikaido) is found wandering the streets in a daze. She's brought to a hospital where a young doctor, Dr. John Bennett (D.J. Mendel), haunted by a past tragedy, discovers a Read More

9/29/04
No Such Thing

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Sarah Polley, Robert Burke, Helen Mirren, Julie Christie, Baltasar Kormákur

Synopsis: Beauty meets the Beast, and neither is sure just what to make of the other, in a modern-dress comic variation on the ancient folk tale, written and directed by the eternally offbeat Hal Hartley. Beatrice (Sarah Polley) works with the office staff of a sleazy tabloid TV news show, run by a harridan Read More

3/29/02
Kimono

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Miho Nikaido

Synopsis: Adding to his list of less-than-feature-length experimental films, director Hal Hartley offers up this mildly erotic, non-narrative fantasy starring his wife, Miho Nikaido. Presumably abandoned by her husband-to-be after an argument, Nikaido's nameless character wanders through a lush forest in Read More

2000
The New Math

Crew: Director

1999
Henry Fool

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Maria Porter, James Saito, Kevin Corrigan, Liam Aiken, Veanne Cox, Jan Leslie Harding

Synopsis: Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) is a garbageman, and his life is about as unpleasant and uneventful as you'd expect given his profession; he doesn't much care for his work, he's treated with violence or contempt by most of the people in his neighborhood, and he shares a house with Mary (Maria Porter) Read More

6/19/98
The Book of Life

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Martin Donovan, PJ Harvey, Thomas Jay Ryan, David Simonds, Miho Nikaido

Synopsis: Hal Hartley directed this French-produced comedy about the Second Coming of Christ (Martin Donovan), with Thomas Jay Ryan in the role of Satan. While a gambler (David Simonds) and a waitress (Miho Nikaido) talk with Satan in a hotel bar, Jesus arrives at JFK airport with Magdalena (PJ Harvey). Read More

1998
The Other Also

Crew: Director

1997
Flirt

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Bill Sage, Martin Donovan, Parker Posey, Dwight Ewell, Geno Lechner, Dominik Bender, Miho Nikaido

Synopsis: A lover, an ultimatum, a phone call, and a gun: these elements are found in each segment of Hal Hartley's Flirt, an experimental comedy-drama that essentially repeats the same story three times. But while the basic narrative remains the same -- a congenital flirt must decide whether or not to Read More

1995
NYC3/94

Crew: Director

1994
Amateur

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan, Elina Löwensohn, Damian Young, Chuck Montgomery

Synopsis: Hal Hartley's fourth feature is a significant break from the quirky romantic comedy territory of his previous work -- though all of the deadpan idiosyncracies which make him such a singular filmmaker remain intact, here he tries his hand at the thriller genre, a move yielding typically Read More

1994
Opera No. 1

Crew: Director

1994
Simple Men

Crew: Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, Karen Sillas, Elina Löwensohn, Martin Donovan, Mark Chandler Bailey

Synopsis: A pair of brothers dodge the law while trying to locate their long-lost father in this third feature from independent New York filmmaker Hal Hartley. Robert John Burke stars as Bill McCabe, a failed computer thief who's just been doublecrossed by his girlfriend and partner. Vowing revenge on the Read More

10/14/92
Trust

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Adrienne Shelly, Martin Donovan, Merritt Nelson, John A. MacKay, Edie Falco

Synopsis: The unlikely relationship between a pregnant high school student and a brooding electronics repairman lies at the center of this droll comedy from writer-director Hal Hartley. Intelligent but unconventional, Maria (Adrienne Shelly) has more to worry about than her pregnancy, as her expectant state Read More

7/26/91
Theory of Achievement

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Elina Löwensohn, Bill Sage

Synopsis: Theory of Achievement, a short film by director Hal Hartley, is a droll look at a group of young Brooklynites grappling with the great issues: aesthetics, romance, and real estate. Bob, a broke, aspiring writer, takes advantage of his girlfriend's absence to enter the real estate business. He Read More

1991
Ambition

Crew: Director

Synopsis: One of three short films made by Hal Hartley in 1991, along with Surviving Desire and Theory of Achievement, the nine-minute short Ambition is the shortest and most stylized film of the trilogy. (All three are available on a single videocassette, also entitled Surviving Desire.) Ambition begins Read More

1991
Surviving Desire

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Martin Donovan, Mary Ward

Synopsis: Made for PBS' American Playhouse, Surviving Desire is a very short romantic comedy starring Martin Donovan and Mary Ward. He's an uninspired college literature professor. She's a kooky student, and the only member of Donovan's class who doesn't doze off during his lectures. The comedy Read More

1991
The Unbelievable Truth

Crew: Co-producer, Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Adrienne Shelly, Robert John Burke, Chris Cooke, Julia McNeal, Gary Sauer

Synopsis: Writer-director Hal Hartley's first feature -- shot in less than 12 days in his backyard for a mere $200,000 -- is a dry and dark comedy about the dangerous undercurrents that exist below the surface of normal middle class existence. Over the credits, Josh (Robert Burke), a man garbed in black, is Read More

1990
Dogs

Crew: Director, Producer

1988
The Cartographer's Girlfriend

Crew: Director

1987
Kid

Crew: Director

1984