Ismail MerchantFilmography

Heights

Crew: Producer

Actors: Glenn Close, Elizabeth Banks, James Marsden, Jesse Bradford, Eric Bogosian

Synopsis: A handful of New Yorkers find their paths crossing in ways that force them to examine their lives in this contemporary drama produced by Ismail Merchant. Isabel (Elizabeth Banks) is a twentysomething photographer who is supposed to marry her boyfriend, Jonathan (James Marsden), in a month. But Read More

Merci Docteur Rey!

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Dianne Wiest, Jane Birkin, Stanislas Merhar, Bulle Ogier, Karim Saleh

Synopsis: After making a living by providing English subtitle translation to numerous French films, American filmmaker Andrew Litvack makes his debut as a writer/director with the Merchant Ivory production Merci Docteur Rey. Set in Paris, this farcical comedy involves the troubles of young gay man Thomas (Stanislas Merhar Read More

Le Divorce

Crew: Producer

Actors: Kate Hudson, Naomi Watts, Jean-Marc Barr, Leslie Caron, Stockard Channing

Synopsis: Based on the 1997 National Book Award-nominated novel of the same name by Diane Johnson (co-writer of the script for Stanley Kubrick's The Shining), Le Divorce is a romantic comedy from director James Ivory. Revisiting the "Americans in France" theme that Ivory explored in 1998's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries Read More

The Mystic Masseur

Crew: Director

Actors: Om Puri, James Fox, Aasif Mandvi, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ayesha Dharker

Synopsis: Ismail Merchant, best known as the producing half of the successful Merchant-Ivory team, once again steps behind the camera as director for this story of life among Indian expatriates in the 1950s. Ganesh (Aasif Mandvi) is a young man who was born to a community of Indian exiles living in Read More

Cotton Mary

Crew: Director

Actors: Madhur Jaffrey, Greta Scacchi, James Wilby, Sakina Jaffrey, Laura Lumley

Synopsis: Ismail Merchant, best known as a producer for his work with director James Ivory (including Howards End and A Room With a View), takes possession of the director's chair in this drama. In 1954, seven years after India has gained independence from Great Britain, many Indians still feel like Read More

The Golden Bowl

Crew: Producer

Actors: Uma Thurman, Jeremy Northam, Kate Beckinsale, Nick Nolte, Anjelica Huston

Synopsis: The distinguished director/producer/writer team of James Ivory, Ismail Merchant, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala returns to the works of 19th century novelist Henry James in this adaptation of his tale of love and treachery. Wealthy American art collector Adam Verver (Nick Nolte) is traveling Europe with Read More

A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries

Crew: Producer

Actors: Kris Kristofferson, Barbara Hershey, Leelee Sobieski, Jesse Bradford, Anthony Roth Costanzo

Synopsis: James Ivory directed this drama adapted from Kaylie Jones's 1990 autobiographical novel in which the character Bill Willis is based on her father, James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity and A Thin Red Line. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screenplay about expatriate Americans in Paris during the Read More

Side Streets

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Valeria Golino, Shashi Kapoor, Leon, Art Malik, Shabana Azmi

Synopsis: Tony Gerber made his directorial debut with this anthology film, a comedy-drama that opens with a 1950s black-and-white newsreel focusing on the ethnic diversity of New York City. This multicultural mix is dramatized in five interlinked tales set in each of NYC's five boroughs on a hot summer day Read More

Gaach

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Soumitra Chatterjee, Rabi Ghosh, Bijoya Ray, Sharmila Tagore, Madhabi Mukherjee

Synopsis: This French-British documentary (in English and Bengali) traces the career of Indian actor Soumitra Chatterjee, who is best known in the West for his frequent work with director Satyajit Ray. Gaach (English title, The Tree) profiles the reminiscences of Chatterjee's fellow performers and other Read More

Surviving Picasso

Crew: Producer

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

The Proprietor

Crew: Director

Actors: Jeanne Moreau, Josh Hamilton, Sean Young, Austin Pendleton, Sam Waterston, Christopher Cazenove, Nell Carter

Synopsis: Noted producer Ismail Merchant stepped up to the director's chair for this drama. Adrienne Mark (Jeanne Moreau) is the most acclaimed French novelist of her generation, whose best known work, Je M'Appelle France, was an international best-seller made into an award-winning French film (and a Read More

Jefferson in Paris

Crew: Producer

Actors: Nick Nolte, Greta Scacchi, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Simon Callow, Seth Gilliam

Synopsis: Best known for their historical epics that examine class and social issues in British life through a thick lens of tasteful production design and good manners, director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant set their sights on an American protagonist for a change with Jefferson in Paris. As the Read More

Lumière and Company

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Lumière brothers' first films, filmmakers Sarah Moon and Philippe Poulet challenged 39 renowned international directors to each complete a 52-second film using the original Cinematographe camera under the conditions endured by the brothers. The result Read More

Feast of July

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Embeth Davidtz, Ben Chaplin, Tom Bell, Gemma Jones, James Purefoy

Synopsis: Based on the novel by H.E. Bates, this period drama stars Embeth Davidtz as Bella Ford, a woman living in rural England during the Victorian era. Bella fell victim to Arch Wilson (Greg Wise), a unprincipled man who claimed to be from the nearby village. He seduced her only to vanish without a Read More

In Custody

Crew: Director

Actors: Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri, Sushma Seth, Neena Gupta

Synopsis: Anita Desai and Shahrukh Husain adapted Desai's novel for this comedy-drama about an Indian university teacher who encounters numerous hassles in his attempts to document the final writings of an ailing, alcoholic poet whom he idolizes. Score by Zakir Hussain and Ustad Sultan Khan. ~ Nicole Gagne Read More

The Remains of the Day

Crew: Producer

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, James Fox, Christopher Reeve, Peter Vaughan, Hugh Grant

Synopsis: Filmed with the usual meticulous attention to period and detail of films from Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, The Remains of the Day is based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Anthony Hopkins plays Stevens, the "perfect" butler to a prosperous British household of the 1930s. He is so unswervingly Read More

Howards End

Crew: Producer

Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, James Wilby, Samuel West

Synopsis: One of the best Ismail Merchant/James Ivory films, this adaptation of E. M. Forster's classic 1910 novel shows in careful detail the injuriously rigid British class consciousness of the early 20th century. The film's catalyst is "poor relation" Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson), who inherits part Read More

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Crew: Producer

Actors: Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine, Cork Hubbert, Rod Steiger, Austin Pendleton

Synopsis: This first film directorial effort of actor Simon Callow is based on a novel by Carson McCullers -- which, in turn, was adapted for the stage by Edward Albee in 1964. Vanessa Redgrave plays a powerful Southern matriarch who, sequestered in her café/general store, holds her home town in the palm of Read More

Mr. and Mrs. Bridge

Crew: Producer

Actors: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Kyra Sedgwick, Blythe Danner, Margaret Welsh, Simon Callow, Robert Sean Leonard

Synopsis: Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (played by real-life "Mr. and Mrs." Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward) are well-to-do residents of Kansas City in the 1940s. So far as the Bridges are concerned, however, it's the 1920s, with Mr. Bridge treating his wife like property, regarding his grown children as if they're Read More

Slaves of New York

Crew: Co-producer

Actors: Bernadette Peters, Nick Corri, Madeleine Potter, Charles McCaughan

Synopsis: Based on the stories by Tama Janowitz, this film follows the relationships and problems of a group of artists struggling to survive in New York City. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

The Deceivers

Crew: Co-producer

Actors: Pierce Brosnan, Saeed Jaffrey, Shashi Kapoor, Helena Michell, Keith Michell

Synopsis: This historical drama, based on a novel by John Masters that was in turn inspired by actual events, follows William Savage (Pierce Brosnan), a British agent of the East India Company, as he is sent with his new wife to India in the early 19th century. While Savage holds the unusually progressive Read More

The Perfect Murder

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Dalip Tahil, Madhur Jaffrey, Stellan Skarsgård, Amjad Khan

Synopsis: Someone has tried to murder Mr. Perfect (Dinshaw Daji) and now the beleaguered Inspector Ghote (Krishna Shah) must figure out who tried to do it. Set in Bombay, India, this rollicking crime drama centers on Ghote's search for the would-be killer. Mr. Perfect was knocked out with a candlestick in Read More

Maurice

Crew: Producer

Actors: James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow

Synopsis: Director James Ivory brings his subdued, "Masterpiece Theater" style to a forbidden subject -- homosexual love. Maurice is based on E.M. Forster's suppressed 1914 novel that was held back from publication until after his death. The film takes place at Cambridge, before World War I, when Read More

My Little Girl

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Mary Stuart Masterson, James Earl Jones, Geraldine Page, Peter Michael Goetz, Anne Meara, Jennifer Lopez

Synopsis: This drama concerns a young teen's transformation as she works at a half-way house for troubled kids. Franny (Mary Stuart Masterson) leaves behind a pampered, rich kid's life of yachting parties and affluent pastimes to take up a summer job working under Mrs. Chopper (Anne Meara) at a temporary Read More

Sweet Lorraine

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Maureen Stapleton, Trini Alvarado, Lee Richardson, John Bedford Lloyd, Freddie Roman

Synopsis: The elderly owner of an aging but still beloved Catskill's landmark inn must decide whether to make necessary repairs to the hotel or to sell the land to developers. Meanwhile the owner's granddaughter toils in the hotel kitchen for the summer and the other staff members do their jobs. Essentially Read More

A Room With a View

Crew: Producer

Actors: Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands, Daniel Day-Lewis

Synopsis: Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by E.M. Forster, A Room with a View is a shining example of Merchant-Ivory's ability to achieve maximum quality and opulence at minimum cost. Set during the Edwardian Era, the film stars Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy Honeychurch, who like all proper Read More

Noon Wine

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Fred Ward

Synopsis: Noon Wine is adapted from a short story by Katharine Ann Porter. Fred Ward stars as a taciturn Swede who is hired to work on a Texas dairy farm. After he puts in nine years of hard and faithful effort, Ward's secret is revealed: when he applied for his job, he was a fugitive from a murder charge. Michael Fields Read More

The Bostonians

Crew: Producer

Actors: Christopher Reeve, Vanessa Redgrave, Madeleine Potter, Jessica Tandy, Nancy Marchand

Synopsis: Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by Henry James, Merchant/Ivory's The Bostonians is set among the Back Bay uppercrust of the 19th century. Basil Ransom (Christopher Reeve), bored by his opulent lifestyle and his "proper" friends, is fascinated by his cousin, outspoken suffragette Read More

The Courtesans of Bombay

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Saeed Jaffrey, Zohra Segal, Kareem Samar

Synopsis: The Merchant-Ivory team adopts a semi-documentary stance in Courtesans of Bombay. Though several scenes are dramatized, this film is essentially an unadorned look at prostitution in modern India. The film details the impoverished conditions that would prompt otherwise chaste Indian women to seek Read More

Heat and Dust

Crew: Producer

Actors: Julie Christie, Christopher Cazenove, Greta Scacchi, Julian Glover, Susan Fleetwood

Synopsis: Two women, related but separated by one generation and 60 years, have parallel experiences in the evocative mystical environment of India in this period drama from producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. Although a little slow-paced for some, and slightly confusing because the stories Read More

Quartet

Crew: Producer

Actors: Alan Bates, Maggie Smith, Isabelle Adjani, Anthony Higgins, Daniel Chatto

Synopsis: No relation to the 1949 Somerset Maugham "omnibus" film of the same name, 1981's Quartet is based on the roman a clef by Jean Rhys. Though the names are changed, it is clearly the story of Rhys' romance with Ford Maddox Ford in 1920s Paris. The titular quartet consists of novelist Isabelle Adjani Read More

Jane Austen in Manhattan

Crew: Producer

Actors: Anne Baxter, Robert Powell, Sean Young, Kurt Johnson, Katrina Hodiak

Synopsis: The Ismail Merchant-James Ivory team generated this account of a pair of teachers battling for the rights to produce an unpublished Jane Austen play. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

The Europeans

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lee Remick, Robin Ellis, Wesley Addy, Lisa Eichorn, Tim Choate, Lisa Eichhorn

Synopsis: In the middle of the 19th century, the stern and somewhat puritanical values of native New Englanders were little changed from early Colonial times. In this adaptation of Henry James' novel The Europeans, The Countess Eugenia (Lee Remick) and her brother Robert (Robin Ellis) are expatriate Read More

Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures

Crew: Producer

Actors: Peggy Ashcroft, Victor Banerjee, Larry Pine, Aparna Sen, Saeed Jaffrey

Synopsis: Produced for British TV by the Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala triumvirate, this India-based comedy was released theatrically in the US. Victor Banerjee, best known to American audiences for his star turn in David Lean's A Passage to India, plays a young rajah named George, while Aparna Sen portrays his Read More

Roseland

Crew: Producer

Actors: Teresa Wright, Lou Jacobi, Don de Natale, Louise Kirtland, Geraldine Chaplin, Helen Gallagher

Synopsis: New York's Roseland ballroom was in 1977 the traditional gathering place of senior citizens who wanted briefly to relive the good old days. Appropriately, the cast of Merchant/Ivory's Roseland includes a quartet of always-welcome showbiz veterans: Teresa Wright, Lou Jacobi, Helen Gallagher. The Read More

Autobiography of a Princess

Crew: Producer

Actors: James Mason, Madhur Jaffrey, Keith Varnier, Diane Fletcher, Timothy Bateson

Synopsis: Autobiography of a Princess represents the return to East Indian themes by the team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory after the unsuccessful Hollywood-based The Wild Party (1973). The basic Merchant/Ivory "props", including landed gentry, old folks taking unnatural interest in the goings-on of Read More

The Wild Party

Crew: Producer

Actors: James Coco, Raquel Welch, Perry King, Tiffany Bolling, Royal Dano

Synopsis: Director James Ivory has disowned this Hollywood drama, inspired by the Fatty Arbuckle/Virginia Rappe case and based on a satirical poem by Joseph Moncure March, which was heavily cut by American International Pictures from two hours to 90 minutes. The story concerns Jolly Grimm (James Coco) Read More

Savages

Crew: Producer

Actors: Eva Saleh, Lewis J. Stadlen, Anne Francine, Thayer David, Susan Blakely, Russ Thacker

Synopsis: This hippie parable, co-written and directed by James Ivory and produced by his long-time partner Ismail Merchant, tries to make a heavy-handed parallel between civilization and corruption. A tribe of nameless natives (played by Sam Waterston, Susan Blakely, Salome Jens and Martin Kove, among Read More

Bombay Talkie

Crew: Producer

Actors: Jennifer Kendal, Shashi Kapoor, Zia Mohyeddin, Aparna Sen, Utpal Dutt

Synopsis: Bombay Talkie was, together with Shakespeare Wallah, the property that brought worldwide recognition to the Merchant-Ivory filmmaking team. Jennifer Kendal plays a British writer, seeking out new adventures in India. The writer comes across actor Shashi Kapoor and his director Zia Mohyeddin and Read More

The Guru

Crew: Producer

Actors: Michael York, Utpal Dutt, Madhur Jaffrey, Rita Tushingham, Aparna Sen

Synopsis: Tom Pickle (Michael York) is the British rock star who travels to India to learn the sitar from Ustad Zafar Khan (Uptal Dutt). Much to the dismay of his aggressive agent Chris (Barry Foster), he leaves the money-making music world behind to learn about the exotic Indian instrument. Khan believes Read More

Shakespeare Wallah

Crew: Producer

Actors: Shashi Kapoor, Felicity Kendal, Geoffrey Kendal, Laura Liddell, Madhur Jaffrey

Synopsis: Lizzie (Felicity Kendal) is an actress in a Shakespearean theater troupe that has seen better days. The troupe tours India to dwindling crowds who are less interested in all things British in the wake of Indian independence. When she has an affair with the Indian playboy Sanju (Shashi Kapoor) Read More

The Householder

Crew: Producer

Actors: Shashi Kapoor, Leela Naidu, Durga Khote

Synopsis: The Householder was the very first collaboration between producer Ismael Merchant and James Ivory. A pleasant, low-key domestic comedy, the film details the travails of a young married couple. The husband (Shashi Kapoor) had wanted no part of the arranged marriage in the first place: now he must Read More

The Creation of Woman

Crew: Producer

Actors: Bhaskar Roy Chaudhuri