Joe Don Baker Filmography

Born:: February 12, 1936 in Groesbeck, TX
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: Veteran character actor Joe Don Baker has been playing rugged good ol' boys since his uncredited role in Cool Hand Luke in 1967. Born in Texas, his Southern drawl and ample proportions made him suitable to play countless numbers of simple-minded sheriffs, cops, and detectives in everything from...Read More

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Strange Wilderness

Actors: Steve Zahn, Allen Covert, Jonah Hill, Kevin Heffernan, Ashley Scott

Synopsis: A pair of animal enthusiasts desperate to boost the ratings of their failing television series "Strange Wilderness" set out for the Andes in search of the elusive Bigfoot in this comedy directed by Fred Wolf and starring Justin Long, Steve Zahn, Kevin Heffernan, and Ernest Borgnine. Peter Gaulke (Zahn Read More

2/1/08
The Dukes of Hazzard

Actors: Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Jessica Simpson, Burt Reynolds, Lynda Carter, Willie Nelson

Synopsis: The General Lee is back and so are the Duke boys in this big-screen adaptation of the hit TV series, brought to you by Jay Chandrasekhar of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. Set in the "present day," the story follows Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) as they cruise around Read More

8/5/05
Joe Dirt

Actors: Joe Don Baker, David Spade, Dennis Miller, Brittany Daniel, Kid Rock, Adam Beach, Jaime Pressly, Christopher Walken

Synopsis: As the title character of Joe Dirt, David Spade plays a "white trash" janitor at an L.A. radio station, whose mullet hairdo is just one of many personal oddities that make him the object of much ridicule. And the sanitation gig is just the most recent of Joe's many incarnations during a tumultuous Read More

4/11/01
Vegas, City of Dreams

2001
Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke

Actors: Lauren Bacall, Richard Chamberlain, Lindsay Frost, Kathleen Quinlan

Synopsis: The top-rank performances of Lauren Bacall, Richard Chamberlain and Lindsay Frost elevate the two-part TV biopic Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke from the usual malaise of lurid, voyeuristic trash. As she lies near death in her luxurious mansion, 80-year-old tobacco heiress Doris Duke Read More

1999
Poodle Springs

Actors: James Caan, Dina Meyer, David Keith, Tom Bower, Brian Cox

Synopsis: For this TV movie, Bob Rafelson directed James Caan as famous shamus Philip Marlowe. The novel Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) was writing during the year of his death remained unfinished until it was completed 30 years later by Spenser author Robert Parker. The British-based, Czech-born Read More

1998
Tomorrow Never Dies

Actors: Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: Roger Spottiswoode (Air America) directed this film, the 18th chapter in the 35-year-old James Bond series (excluding Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again). James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) learns billionaire media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) is manipulating world events via an exclusive Read More

11/19/97
The Siege at Ruby Ridge

Actors: Randy Quaid, Laura Dern, Kirsten Dunst, Darren E. Burrows

Synopsis: The tragic story of the Ruby Ridge "massacre" has been so thoroughly covered and disseminated by the mainstream press that to add anything here would be pointless. Suffice to say that the two-part TV movie The Siege at Ruby Ridge uses the facts at hand to show how the tragedy occurred, and how but Read More

1996
Mars Attacks!

Actors: Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Jim Brown

Synopsis: This quirky science fiction comedy is a characteristic feature by iconoclastic director Tim Burton, known to moviegoers for Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. The storyline affectionately harkens back to the deadpan sincerity of such '50s and '60s Read More

1996
GoldenEye

Actors: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: Pierce Brosnan made his first appearance as James Bond in this action thriller, the 17th in the series (excluding the 1967 Casino Royale and the 1983 Never Say Never Again) featuring the suave British super-agent. As the story begins, Agent 007 and his partner, Agent 006 (Sean Bean), pull a daring Read More

11/19/95
Felony

Actors: Lance Henriksen, Leo Rossi, Joe Don Baker, Jeffrey Combs, David Warner

Synopsis: An eccentric police detective takes the case after a group of CIA agents go nuts and slaughter a dozen New Orleans cops during a drug bust. Somehow, a television cameraman managed to film the melee. Since then, the poor photo-journalist has been on the run with his damning tape. By the time the Read More

1995
The Grass Harp

Actors: Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, Walter Matthau, Edward Furlong, Nell Carter

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Truman Capote, this often-witty coming-of-age drama looks at a young man growing up with an unusual family in the Deep South in the 1940s. After the death of his parents, Collin Fenwick (Edward Furlong) finds himself living in a small town with two of his aunts, Dolly (Piper Laurie Read More

1995
Panther

Actors: Kadeem Hardison, Bokeem Woodbine, Joe Don Baker, Courtney Vance, Tyrin Turner

Synopsis: This controversial political drama semi-fictionalizes the history of the radical Black Panther Party, an African-American organization that polarized America from 1966-70. Huey Newton (Marcus Chong) and Bobby Seale (Courtney B. Vance) are a pair of Oakland, California, men who form a new political Read More

1995
Outbreak

Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Synopsis: A handful of scientists struggle to prevent the destruction of a small town -- and possibly the entire country -- in this suspense drama. In the mid-1960s, a deadly virus is discovered in Zaire that wipes out an entire village in 24 hours. Government researchers are brought in to investigate, but Read More

1995
The Underneath

Actors: Peter Gallagher, Alison Elliott, William Fichtner, Adam Trese, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: A remake of the classic Robert Siodmak film noir Criss Cross, Steven Soderbergh's The Underneath follows much the same plot and narrative arc of the original, but expands the possibilities of its thriller structure to also explore the complexities and insecurities at the heart of modern Read More

1995
Congo

Actors: Dylan Walsh, Laura Linney, Ernie Hudson, Tim Curry, Grant Heslov

Synopsis: Good gorillas meet bad gorillas while human beings search for treasure in this jungle advnture saga. R.B. Travis (Joe Don Baker) is the ruthless head of Travi-Com, a telecommunications firm on the cusp of a major breakthrough in laser communications technology. However, Travis needs diamonds to Read More

1995
Ring of Steel

Actors: Robert Chapin, Carol Alt, Joe Don Baker, Gary Kasper, Darlene Vogel

Synopsis: The "Ring of Steel" is a bizarre nightclub where nightly gladiatorial contests are held. The patrons are the rich and decadent, people who have become bored with the usual sports lineup and have developed a taste for blood. An Olympic fencer, banned from the sport after accidentally killing a man Read More

1994
Reality Bites

Actors: Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn

Synopsis: This film was one of the more mainstream offerings in the array of films that emphasized the overly hyped "Generation X" phenomenon, a list that ranges from Slacker to Singles and includes a host of other films. Winona Ryder stars as Lelaina, a recent college graduate. Out on her own and Read More

1994
Complex of Fear

Actors: Hart Bochner, Chelsea Field, Joe Don Baker, Brett Cullen, Ashley Gardner

Synopsis: Condominium residents are terrified when they learn that two of their neighbors have been brutally raped and that the culprit may be living in their midst. A police manhunt ensues. One officer, who actually lives in the complex, is particularly troubled, for not only do the incidents cause his Read More

1993
Wild West

Synopsis: A five-volume collection of some 3500 photos, sketches, and paintings of myths of the American West between the end of the Civil War to 1900. Includes first-person narratives, anecdotes, newspaper accounts, journals, and letters covering Buffalo Bill Cody, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Read More

1993
The Distinguished Gentleman

Actors: Eddie Murphy, Lane Smith, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Joe Don Baker, Victoria Rowell

Synopsis: A smooth-talking confidence trickster makes his way into congress (where the cynical would suggest he'd have plenty of company) in this comedy. Thomas Jefferson Johnson (Eddie Murphy) is a con man from Florida who gets the bright idea that a scam artist could make a tidy sum if he was able to get Read More

12/4/92
Citizen Cohn

Actors: James Woods, Joe Don Baker, Lee Grant, Joseph Bologna, Ed Flanders

Synopsis: Frank Pierson's made-for-cable adaptation of Nicholas VonHoffman's biography, Citizen Cohn stars James Woods as the controversial lawyer Roy Cohn. The film is structured as a series of flashbacks while Cohn lies in a New York hospital dying of AIDS. In the 1940s and early '50s, Cohn became one of Read More

1992
Cape Fear

Actors: Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear provided the director with a box-office success to follow up the critical success of the previous year's Goodfellas. After serving a lengthy prison sentence for a sexual assault, Max Cady (Robert De Niro) comes calling on the man who served as his public Read More

11/13/91
The Children

Actors: Ben Kingsley, Kim Novak, Siri Neal, Geraldine Chaplin, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: Ben Kingsley stars in this solid adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel (filmed previously in 1929 as The Marriage Playground). Kingsley plays Martin Boyne, an engineer in 1920s Europe who, after five years of correspondence, is planning to travel overseas to marry the recently widowed Rose Sellars Read More

1991
Criminal Law

Actors: Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Karen Young, Joe Don Baker, Tess Harper, Ron Lea

Synopsis: Criminal Law is an inadvertently legal thriller wherein criminal defense attorney Ben Chase (Gary Oldman) decides to prove that his client Martin Thiel (Kevin Bacon) is in fact a serial killer, despite the acquittal that Ben won for him. When new murders occur, Ben takes matters into his own Read More

4/28/89
Leonard, Part 6

Actors: Bill Cosby, Tom Courtenay, Joe Don Baker, Moses Gunn, Pat Colbert, Gloria Foster

Synopsis: CIA director Snyderburn (Joe Don Baker) talks former agent Leonard (Bill Cosby) into returning to the job in this failed Bond-style spy comedy. Leonard's mission is to stop the evil Medusa (Gloria Foster) from taking over the planet by controlling the behavior of the world's animals. The highlight Read More

12/18/87
The Killing Time

Actors: Beau Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, Wayne Rogers, Joe Don Baker, Camelia Kath

Synopsis: A pair of homicidal lovers is forced to match wits with an inventive psychopath who has assumed the identity of a small, coastal-town sheriff's deputy in a film noir tale of the perfect crime gone wrong starring Kiefer Sutherland, Beau Bridges, Joe Don Baker, and Michael Madsen. A mysterious Read More

10/23/87
The Living Daylights

Actors: Timothy Dalton, Maryam D'Abo, Jeroen Krabbé, Joe Don Baker, John Rhys-Davies

Synopsis: The Living Daylights represents the first appearance by Timothy Dalton as "Bond...James Bond." Based very, very loosely on an obscure Ian Fleming short story, the film finds Bond assigned to aid in the defection of KGB agent Jeroen Krabbe. 007 must prevent an unknown sniper from killing Krabbe Read More

7/31/87
Abduction

Actors: Tracy Pollan

Synopsis: This made-for-television drama is based on the true story of a harrowing country abduction. Tracy Pollan stars as Kari Swenson, an Olympic biathlon athlete-in-training who is kidnapped by some reclusive, backwoods mountain men looking for marriage. The movie follows her captivity, the massive Read More

1987
Edge of Darkness

Synopsis: The British government's nuclear policy is in for a royal drubbing in the tense BBC TV miniseries Edge of Darkness. Bob Peck stars as London police detective Ron Craven, whose political-activist daughter is murdered right before his eyes. Meticulously following the trail of clues, Craven uncovers Read More

1986
Getting Even

Actors: Edward Albert, Audrey Landers, Joe Don Baker, Rod Pilloud, Billy Streater

Synopsis: Edward Albert stars as Taggar, a wealthy industrialist who lives for danger. Together with luscious secret agent Paige Starsen (Audrey Landers), Taggar takes on rival businessman King Kenderson (Joe Don Baker). Having gotten hold of a poison gas which consumes human flesh, Kenderson threatens to Read More

1986
Fletch

Actors: Chevy Chase, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Tim Matheson, Joe Don Baker, Richard Libertini

Synopsis: Chevy Chase added a classic comic hero to the film landscape with Fletch, one of his few truly popular star vehicles in a famously misguided post-Saturday Night Live career. Chase plays Irwin M. Fletcher, known to everyone as Fletch, a Los Angeles Lakers-loving investigative reporter with a Read More

1985
The Natural

Actors: Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley

Synopsis: The film version of The Natural pulls off the neat trick of conveying the spirit of the Bernard Malamud novel upon which it is based, even while changing both the outcome and the meaning of Malamud's closing chapters. In his first film appearance in four years, Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a Read More

1984
Final Justice

Actors: Joe Don Baker, Venantino Venantini, Rossano Brazzi, Bill McKinney, Patrizia Pellegrino

Synopsis: Cycle-flick habitue Greydon Clark warmed the director's chair for Final Justice. Joe Don Baker stars as a Texas sheriff attempting to stem corruption in his own community. Failing this, the sheriff (Baker) is compelled to follow the mob perpetrators all the way to Italy. It is hardly uplifting Read More

1984
The Power

Actors: Susan Stokey, Warren Lincoln, Lisa Erickson, Chad Christian, Ben Gilbert

Synopsis: In this stock, low-budget occult horror film, a tiny 2-inch-high Aztecan idol is stolen from a professor and ends up in the experimental hands of three high-school students who use it in some creative attempts to get in touch with the spirit world. Things start to go wrong when a cemetery worker Read More

1984
Joy Sticks

Actors: Joe Don Baker, Leif Green, Scott McGinnis, Jonathan Gries

Synopsis: In this loud teen movie, a motley crew of youths, ranging from the rainbow-haired King Vidiot (Jonathan Gries), to Eugene the king nerd (Leif Green) and a washed-up video freak descend to the usual level of tricks to keep their video arcade from being shut down by a businessman (Joe Don Baker) who Read More

1983
Wacko

Actors: Joe Don Baker, Stella Stevens, George Kennedy, Julia Duffy, Scott McGinnis

Synopsis: Designed as a spoof of slasher movies, this gory comedy is set in a town that more than a decade ago was home to the infamous lawnmower killer. Set just before the big Halloween soiree at the local high school, it follows officer Dick Harbinger as he desperately tries to convince the town that the Read More

1981
Power

Synopsis: In this made-for-TV "roman a clef", Joe Don Baker stars as Tommy Vanda, a Hoffa-esque labor leader. Told in flashback, the film recounts Vanda's humble beginnings on the Chicago docks, where he gains fame and notoreity amongst his coworkers and his bosses by spearheading a wildcat strike. Rising Read More

1980
Speedtrap

Synopsis: A female cop and a male private detective team up to bring car thieves to justice in this actioner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1978
To Kill a Cop

Synopsis: Joe Don Baker stars as chief of detectives, Eischeid, in the 4-hour, 2-part TV film To Kill A Cop. Eischeid must contend with a series of seemingly unrelated bank robberies and the vicious murders of two police officers. Eischeid deduces that the culprits are members of a violent African-American Read More

1978
Checkered Flag or Crash

Actors: Joe Don Baker, Susan Sarandon, Larry Hagman, Alan Vint, Parnelli Jones

Synopsis: In this chase movie (also titled "Crash") greedy and desperate race car drivers must rip through a thousand miles of the Phillippine jungle to win $100,000 dollars. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1978
Wishbone Cutter

Synopsis: In this adventure set during the Civil War, a traveler and an Irish-Indian named Half Moon O'Brien find a dying man who tells them of a large cache of diamonds he buried somewhere in the mountains. The two, joined by a man and a woman, begin searching for the treasure. Half-Moon senses that they Read More

1978
The Pack

Actors: Joe Don Baker, Hope Alexander-Willis, Richard B. Shull, R.G. Armstrong, Ned Wertimer

Synopsis: Director Robert Clouse, maker of the martial-arts masterpiece Enter the Dragon returns with The Pack, a well-directed, interesting little horror film about a pack of pugnacious puppies who run amok on an island resort. Veteran action star (Joe Don Baker) plays the marine biologist forced to deal Read More

1977
Shadow of Chikara

Synopsis: In this supernatural western, Confederate veterans of the last battle of the Civil War set out to find a hidden treasure: a cache of diamonds hidden in a cave. However, the soldiers find out that the cave is guarded by a covey of hawks -- and they begin to suspect that the hawks might actually be Read More

1977
Shadow Mountain

Synopsis: Shadow Mountain has yet to appear on the resumes of Joe Don Baker and Sondra Locke, but they're both in it whether they like it or not. Baker and Locke play a couple of 19th century fortune hunters, looking for diamonds. Just when the trail is hottest, our Hero and Heroine are beseiged by renegade Read More

1977
Crash

Synopsis: This early effort from producer/director Charles Band stars Jose Ferrer and Sue Lyon as an unlikely married couple. Insanely jealous, Ferrer tries to murder Lyon. His weapon: an antique car, possessed by a demonic spirit. Lyon retaliates with a strange device that dispenses black magic. Just one Read More

1976
Mitchell

Actors: Joe Don Baker, Martin Balsam, John Saxon, Linda Evans

Synopsis: A tough-guy cop (Joe Don Baker) pursues two drug runners (Martin Balsam, John Saxon) across the city to bust a large syndicate. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

1975
Framed

Actors: Joe Don Baker, Conny van Dyke, Gabriel Dell, John Marley, Brock Peters

Synopsis: Director Phil Karlson harks back to the no-nonsense, no-thrills directness of his 1950s "B" pictures in Framed. Joe Don Baker, Karlson's star in Walking Tall, plays Ron, a high-rolling gambler with a streak of integrity. Framed by the film's villains--including a cartel of corrupt cops--Ron is Read More

1975
Golden Needles

Actors: Alice Fong, Edgar Justice

Synopsis: This martial arts film has an interesting twist. The conflict is over a mythical 30-inch-tall statue with very special properties. Protruding from the sculpture are seven golden needles. If the needles are inserted into a man's body in the precisely right positions, he will become a sexual Read More

1974
Charley Varrick

Actors: Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Felicia Farr, Andrew Robinson, John Vernon

Synopsis: Don Siegel directed this offbeat crime thriller which stars Walter Matthau as the titular Charley Varrick. Varrick is a small-time stick-up man who, in tandem with his partner Harman Sullivan (Andrew Robinson), makes plans to rob a small bank in New Mexico. Varrick and Sullivan are expecting a Read More

1973
The Outfit

Actors: Tony Trabert, Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan, Timothy Carey

Synopsis: A two-bit criminal takes on the Mafia to avenge his brother's death in this drama based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake. Earl Macklin (Robert Duvall) is a small time criminal who is released from prison after an unsuccessful bank robbery only to discover that a pair of gunmen killed his brother. Read More

1973
The Streets of San Francisco: Beyond Vengeance

Synopsis: Prolific character actor Joe Don Baker is evil incarnate in the role of Leonard Collier Cord, a convicted rapist, torturer and murderer. Paroled after twelve years, the unrepentant Cord vows to get even with Mike Stone (Karl Malden), the detective who sent up. With fiendish calculation, Cord Read More

1973
Walking Tall

Actors: Joe Don Baker, Elizabeth Hartman

Synopsis: A runaway box-office hit to the tune of 17 million dollars, Walking Tall is the unabashedly manipulative story of real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser. As played by Joe Don Baker, Pusser can either be regarded as a tireless champion of justice or a baseball-bat-wielding hooligan. But with Read More

1973
Welcome Home, Soldier Boys

Synopsis: This anti-war drama centers on four Vietnam veterans who are driving cross country to California. By the time they hit New Mexico, they are down to $69. They started out with over $9,000 between them. To get some quick cash, they rob a gas station. The irate owner begins shooting at them and they Read More

1972
Ironside: Camera ... Action ... Murder!

Synopsis: This episode would seem to have been inspired by director Michael Powell's classic psychological thriller Peeping Tom. Someone has been shooting 8-millimeter films featuring pretty young women, then mailing those films to Chief Ironside (Raymond Burr) shortly after each woman is found murdered. Read More

1972
Junior Bonner

Actors: Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, Ben Johnson, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: Sam Peckinpah eschews his slow-motion bullet ballets for this quiet character study of ex-rodeo cowboy turned drifter Junior Bonner (Steve McQueen), who returns home to Arizona to reconcile with the family he hasn't seen in years. Bonner is shocked to see that the solid family he was hoping to Read More

1972
That Certain Summer

Synopsis: The Emmy-winning writing team of Richard Levinson and William Link was the creative forced behind the landmark TV movie That Certain Summer. Hal Holbrook stars as a middle-aged divorced man, whose son Scott Jacoby cannot fathom the reason for his parents' split. During a summer visit, Jacoby meets Read More

1972
The Wild Rovers

Actors: William Holden, Ryan O'Neal, Karl Malden, Lynn Carlin, Tom Skerritt

Synopsis: If you want to know what The Wild Bunch would have looked like with Blake Edwards rather than Sam Peckinpah in the director's chair, we submit for your approval Wild Rovers. William Holden and Ryan O'Neal play a couple of shiftless ranch hands who impulsively decide to rob a bank. They manage to Read More

1971
Mongo's Back in Town

Synopsis: Joe Don Baker stars as Mongo Nash, a professional gunman and the brother of mob boss Mike Nash (Charles Cioffi). At the behest of his brother, Mongo packs up his heat and prepares to bump off a rival gangster. Meanwhile, relentless police lieutenant Pete Tolstad (Telly Savalas) dogs Mongo's trail Read More

1971
Mission: Impossible: The Miracle

Actors: Peter Graves, Lynda Day George, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: Written by Dan Ullman, "The Miracle" focuses in on $8,000,000 worth of heroin. The IMF must determine the location of the heroin and put Syndicate operatives Taynor (Ronald Feinberg) and Kearney (Joe Don Baker) out of business. The gimmick: a phony heart transplant, which will convert the Read More

1971
The F.B.I.: Summer Terror

Synopsis: It's a personal matter for FBI assistant director Arthur Ward (Phillip Abbott) when Marianne Lowe (Pamela McMyler), the d