Jim Abrahams Filmography

Born:: May 10, 1944 in Shorewood, WI
Occupation:: Director, Executive Producer, Producer, Screenwriter
Biography:: In collaboration with longtime partners David and Jerry Zucker, producer/director Jim Abrahams has created some of the funniest send-ups of the '70s and '80s, most notably Airplane!, Ruthless People, and Naked Gun. Boyhood friends from Milwaukee where their fathers ran a real-estate business...Read More

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Scary Movie 4

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko, Simon Rex, Anthony Anderson

Synopsis: Spoof series torch-bearer and Airplane! mastermind David Zucker steps back into the captain's chair for yet another round of cinematic shenanigans in the latest installment of the Scary Movie franchise, this time mocking such frightful blockbusters as Saw, War of the Worlds, The Village, and The Grudge Read More

4/14/06
Mafia!

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Jay Mohr, Billy Burke, Christina Applegate, Pam Gidley, Olympia Dukakis

Synopsis: Satirist Jim Arahams returned with this comedy spoofing the Godfather trilogy, and other films and TV, including Jurassic Park, Lord of the Dance, and Barney. The opening emulates a Saul Bass sequence with Anthony Cortino (Jay Mohr) in a flight amid flames much like Robert De Niro in the Casino Read More

7/24/98
First Do No Harm

Crew: Director, Executive Producer, Producer

Actors: Meryl Streep, Fred Ward

Synopsis: When the youngest son of a rural Midwestern family is diagnosed with epilepsy just as their insurance is set to run out, his mother dedicates her life to the illness and all of its potential treatments. Eventually she comes across the ketogenic diet, a method of limiting carbohydrates and protein Read More

1997
The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson, Fred Ward

Synopsis: The further misadventures of bumbling Los Angeles police Lieutenant Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) are chronicled in this third installment in the popular Naked Gun comedy series. This by-the-numbers entry begins with Drebin as a happily retired house-husband called back into action when an evil Read More

1994
Hot Shots! Part Deux

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charlie Sheen, Lloyd Bridges, Valeria Golino, Richard Crenna, Brenda Bakke

Synopsis: Movie references, sight gags, silly puns, and double entendres abound in Hot Shots! Part Deux, Jim Abrahams' sequel to Hot Shots -- only now the object of the skewering is the Stallone Rambo movies instead of Top Gun. Charlie Sheen returns as the lunk-headed Topper Harley, who has retreated to a Read More

1993
Hot Shots!

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charlie Sheen, Valeria Golino, Cary Elwes, Lloyd Bridges, Kevin Dunn

Synopsis: From director Jim Abrahams, one of the minds behind the Airplane! and Naked Gun films, comes another parody. This time around, Abrahams has his sights set on the action-adventure genre, specifically Top Gun. Charlie Sheen stars as Topper Harley, a maverick air force pilot who constantly lives in Read More

7/31/91
The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson, Robert Goulet

Synopsis: Leslie Nielsen returns as the intrepid (and accident-prone) Lt. Frank Drebin in Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, "un film de David Zucker." This second feature film from the "Police Squad!" series finds Drebin as a guest at a White House dinner, receiving an award for shooting his 1,000th drug Read More

6/28/91
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael

Crew: Director

Actors: Winona Ryder, Jeff Daniels, Laila Robins, Thomas Wilson Brown, Joan McMurtrey

Synopsis: In this film, the small town of Clyde, Ohio is buzzing with excitement when it is said that the famous Roxy Carmichael is leaving her luxurious Hollywood life to return to her old hometown. Her return causes upheaval in the lives of family-man Denton Webb (Jeff Daniels), her old boyfriend, and an Read More

10/12/90
Cry-Baby

Crew: Executive Producer

Actors: Johnny Depp, Amy Locane, Susan Tyrrell, Polly Bergen, Iggy Pop, Ricki Lake

Synopsis: John Waters does a quirky spin on '50s nostalgia in Cry-Baby, his musical homage to Rebel Without a Cause and Romeo and Juliet. Set in Baltimore in 1954 at the birth of rock & roll, the film features Johnny Depp as Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker. Depp is pure charisma as a juvenile delinquent with a Read More

4/6/90
The Naked Gun

Crew: Executive Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Leslie Nielsen, George Kennedy, Priscilla Presley, Ricardo Montalban, O.J. Simpson

Synopsis: We know we're in a 1988 film when we're invited to laugh at O.J. Simpson in an opening slapstick sequence. We can also pinpoint the year of production when hard-nosed cop Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen), during a scuffle with the world's leading dictators, wipes the wine-colored birthmark off the Read More

12/2/88
Big Business

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, Fred Ward, Edward Herrmann, Michele Placido

Synopsis: Thanks to a mix-up at birth, two sets of twins are separated and grow up in radically different social circles. The four baby girls grow up to be Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin-and Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin. One of the Midlers is a ruthless New York CEO, while one of the Tomlins is her air-headed Read More

8/19/88
Coming to America

Actors: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, John Amos, James Earl Jones, Shari Headley

Synopsis: Coming to America casts comedian Eddie Murphy as pampered African prince Akeem, who rebels against an arranged marriage and heads to America to find a new bride. Murphy's regal father (James Earl Jones) agrees to allow the prince 40 days to roam the U.S., sending the prince's faithful retainer Read More

6/29/88
Ruthless People

Crew: Director

Actors: Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold, Helen Slater, Anita Morris

Synopsis: The last film to be co-directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, Ruthless People stars Bette Midler (capitalizing on her comeback performance in Down and Out in Beverly Hills) as Barbara, a spoiled rich woman who is kidnapped by the kindly Ken and Sandy Kessler (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater Read More

6/27/86
Top Secret!

Crew: Director, Executive Producer, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Val Kilmer, Lucy Gutteridge, Christopher Villiers, Omar Sharif, Peter Cushing

Synopsis: The second of Zucker-Abraham-Zucker's theatrical-feature spoofs (Airplane was the first, discounting the patchwork Kentucky Fried Movie), Top Secret! lampoons practically every film genre. Specifically, however, this is a hybrid of an "Elvis" movie and a World War II "underground resistance" Read More

1984
Cocaine Blues

Synopsis: This program takes a sobering look at the world of cocaine use. Sigmund Freud was among the first famous people to extol the virtues of cocaine, in sharpening the mind and creating a sense of euphoria. And he was among the many who learned, to his dismay, about the destructive side of the drug. In Read More

1983
Police Squad! Help Wanted!

Crew: Director

Synopsis: At times so funny that it hurts, Police Squad! Help Wanted! consists of the first three episodes of the legendary TV cop-show spoof Police Squad!. Leslie Nielsen stars as deadpanned, dimwitted Lt. Frank Drebin, Alan North is Drebin's assistant, Captain Hocken, and Rex Hamilton costars as Abraham Read More

1982
Airplane!

Crew: Director, Executive Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack

Synopsis: This spoof of the Airport series of disaster movies relies on ridiculous sight gags, groan-inducing dialogue, and deadpan acting -- a comedy style that would be imitated for the next 20 years. Airplane! pulls out all the clichés as alcoholic pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays), who's developed a fear Read More

1980
The Kentucky Fried Movie

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Donald Sutherland, George Lazenby, Henry Gibson, Bill Bixby, Tony Dow

Synopsis: Comedy writers David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams of Airplane and The Naked Gun fame got their start at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, when they formed a theatrical group known as The Kentucky Fried Theater. The Kentucky Fried Movie is based on the KFT's gag-filled theatrical skits. Read More

1977